Letters From the Labyrinth 337

The Long Pig Saloon is part of a sprawling, rustic ranch complex far out in the desert near El Paso, Texas. The saloon — and the rest of the property — is owned by my long-time pre reader Tod Clark (who now also pre reads for a number of other authors). Long Pig Saloon t-shirts are a very coveted item among horror fiction writers, because to get one, you are required to have done a book signing there. That’s how I got mine. How Michael T. Huyck Jr. got his. How everyone else got theirs. (Except for Jeff Strand, who apparently got one just for being the second nicest guy* in horror).

(*The nicest guy in horror is Jonathan Janz. But Strand is okay, too).

I’ve written about the Long Pig Saloon and the ranch in END OF THE ROAD. It’s the setting for the entirety of chapter 14, a.k.a. “Time Bomb” (in the hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions). In that chapter, I talk about Millie, a feral desert cat who showed up at the ranch and decided to adopt the place. She and I spent a night under the desert sky together, watching the stars, while I experienced a moment of time becoming a flat circle.

Tod informed me on Friday that Millie passed away last Thursday night. It hadn’t occurred to me until he sent me some pics that Millie looks remarkably similar to my own feral wasteland wanderer, Josie Wales, whose transformation from wild animal to domesticated goddess has been chronicled in this newsletter over the last several years. The two could be twins.

Time is a flat circle indeed.

Millie inside the Long Pig Saloon. (Photo courtesy of Tod Clark)

Millie guarding Tod’s Jeep. (Photo courtesy of Tod Clark)

Thanks, Millie, for chilling with me while I momentarily crashed through the walls of perception and reality, and for keeping the ranch safeguarded against snakes, spiders, scorpions and all other nonsense over the years.

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Speaking of feral cats, I’ve been trying unsuccessfully this past week to trap Bocephus and get her to the SPCA where she can be thoroughly treated by a vet, as well as spayed. She is not cooperating at all, and it is very frustrating.

Work this past week was frustrating, as well, particularly after the burst of super-productivity outlined in last Sunday’s newsletter. I took two days off to waterproof my ex-wife’s new patio deck, a full day off to tend to the gardens. Here at the house I’m growing tomatoes, wax beans, purple beans, green beans, cucumbers, and green peppers — all of the beans are already coming in. And then there’s a clearing back in the woods where I’m growing pumpkins and corn, along with a wild thicket of red raspberries that I’ve been harvesting the last few years.

So that was three days of writing time lost. I’m making up for it this weekend, though. If you’re a listener to Brian Keene Radio, then what you’ve heard Friday and yesterday from 5:30am to around 7pm was specifically curated by me, all to support my muse.

And the muses of other listeners, as well, I suppose.

Brian Keene Radio is not responsible for any inherent nihilism that may seep out of you while listening.

Despite losing three days of writing time, I do enjoy the moments when I get to do manual labor. Had you told me that back in the day, I would have laughed at you. I’ve had my fair share of such jobs. I worked in a foundry for several years, and on the loading docks for several more. I spent a summer roofing in New Mexico. Was employed as a janitor, a truck driver, and all kinds of other manual labor jobs.

But having spent much of the last twenty years getting paid to sit in a chair and make up stories, it now feels good to get out and do real work. Even if that real work is a little harder on my back these days. I like the feel of soil and dirt in my hands and under my fingernails. I like taking my shirt off and feeling the sun beat down upon my back and shoulders. I relish that long, slow gulp of ice cold water. And I very much enjoy soaking in a hot bubble bath full of lavender scented epsom salts afterward, while my body recovers.

This past week, I did manage to write several chapters of BENEATH THE LOST LEVEL (currently being serialized on Patreon), work on edits for the second draft of SPLINTERED: THE LABYRINTH Book 3, write a Foreword for the forthcoming Dark Corners of the Old Dominion anthology, do some behind the scenes email stuff on OPERATION: WALKABOUT and THE DRIVE-IN: MULTIPLEX.

Speaking of which, the paperback edition of THE DRIVE-IN: MULTIPLEX is available for preorder directly from the publisher!

That’s one helluva line up!

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Scares That Care is expanding our mission, and to do that, we’re expanding our operations. Next year, there will be two AuthorCon events.

AuthorCon III will take place in Williamsburg, Virginia, April 12th-14th, 2024. Tickets are on sale for this event now. You can get them here.

AuthorCon IV will take place in St. Louis, Missouri, October 4th-6th, 2024. More details coming soon!

That’s two great charity shows in 2024, with all proceeds benefiting those in need.

Also, thanks to GEICO, who graciously awarded Scares That Care $3,000 to help our fight against the real monsters. Here’s Board of Directors member Angel Hollman with the check!

Be the change you want to see in the world.

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Episode 14 of BRIAN KEENE LIVE inspired quite a bit of of conversation on social media over the last week. If you don’t want to sit through a 90-minute video, click here for a fair nuts and bolts summary of my comments on older writers. You can read it in two minutes.

Episode 15 went live last Wednesday, and while we didn’t have as deep or viral of a conversation, we did talk about Brian Hodge, what to do when you experience setbacks or disappointments, cryptid novels, Apex Magazine, and more. The cats caused chaos and mayhem, as well.

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Currently Listening: Brian Keene Radio

Currently Playing: Fallout 76, Clash of Clans, and The Boys: This Is Going To Hurt.

Currently Watching: Evil Dead Rise (Max), They Live (Tubi), and Doctor Who (Max)

Currently Reading: Reincursion by Ryan Harding and Jason Taverner, No Gods, Only Chaos by L. P. Hernandez, and A Ghosthunter’s Journal by Mason Winfield.

I really, really, really enjoyed Evil Dead Rise. I would have enjoyed it even more if it wasn’t afflicted by the new filmmaking trend of lighting the set with a single freaking firefly.

But other than the lighting, Evil Dead Rise is a fantastic film. Wonderful sound design, some genuinely creepy dialogue from the demons, and a great cold opening. Probably either my second or third favorite in the entire franchise (my first being Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn). Some genuine scares, and I felt represented by the middle aged Cat Dad with a shotgun.

I finished reading Reincursion a few hours after sending last Sunday’s newsletter. Such a fun book! Ryan tells me a third one is on the way. I highly recommend this series if you’re a fan of slashers, or a fan of taking tired old horror tropes and knocking them on their butts.

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I’ve talked a lot here and on Patreon about how AI (Artificial Intelligence) is already impacting writers, but if you’re curious how it’s impacting our entire civilization by altering the Internet:

Google is trying to kill the 10 blue links. Twitter is being abandoned to bots and blue ticks. There’s the junkification of Amazon and the enshittification of TikTok. Layoffs are gutting online media. A job posting looking for an “AI editor” expects “output of 200 to 250 articles per week.” ChatGPT is being used to generate whole spam sites. Etsy is flooded with “AI-generated junk.” Chatbots cite one another in a misinformation ouroboros. LinkedIn is using AI to stimulate tired users. Snapchat and Instagram hope bots will talk to you when your friends don’t. Redditors are staging blackouts. Stack Overflow mods are on strike. The Internet Archive is fighting off data scrapers, and “AI is tearing Wikipedia apart.” The old web is dying, and the new web struggles to be born.

But wait… there’s more:

When GPT-4 came out in March, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted: “it is still flawed, still limited, and it still seems more impressive on first use than it does after you spend more time with it.” The more we all use chatbots like his, the more this statement rings true. For all of the impressive things it can do — and if nothing else, ChatGPT is a champion writer of first drafts — there also seems to be little doubt that is corroding the web.

Strap in, kids. The ride is about to jump the tracks.

Read the entire article, which is very well worth it, here.

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Given all the buzz and excitement over Mary’s Alien: Enemy of My Enemy novel (one of the best selling Alien tie-ins in quite some time, and now burning through its second printing, so get one here while they last) it’s understandable that you might not know she actually released two books this summer. The other is The Shapes of Night — a stand-alone short horror novel that is currently available in paperback, audiobook, and for Kindle. Dig this cover.

Sometimes, in Bloomwood County, New Jersey, children go missing. Sometimes those children die. And sometimes, strange and alien shapes of night resurrect the bodies of those children for their own.

When Tim Jenkins has a terrible vision of one of his former students, Charlie Bentner, being mangled to death, he seeks Charlie out and unknowingly entangles both of them in a battle against time and space itself, a race against the shapes to stop an evil from entering our world and changing its geometry forever.

There’s a reason why Christopher Golden calls my wife “the Queen of Cosmic Horror”. This novel is a great example of why.

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Okay, that does it for this week. As always, thank you for reading. I appreciate it. I’ll see you back here next Sunday.

— Brian Keene