Night's Dream Series 1&2: Author Interview, Review

I am pleased to welcome author, 

Thomm Quackenbush to my blog!

Thomm Quackenbush is a novelist, essayist, and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has been previously published by Cave Drawing Ink, The Journal of Cartoon Over-Analysis, Broken City, and Paragon Press. He is the webmaster of http://xenex.org, where is posts his writing. He hardly ever touches ghosts anymore, despite what his books may insist.

Xenex / Goodreads / Facebook 

Q: Tell us something unusual about you.

A: I once groped a ghost. 

I was 16 and volunteering at Kevin McCurdy's Haunted Mansion.  My job that night was backstage, moving sets around so it would seem like the elevator we put guests in did something other than shake.  I waited outside the first room - one with a prerecorded speech and timed effects - to finish so I could prepare my scene.  A small girl rested in a dim corner.  This in itself was not strange.  The Mansion had a constantly shifting cast based on who volunteered that night.  What confused me was that she wore a knee-length white dress, almost luminescent, completely forbidden outside a part owing to its visibility.  I told her to go hide somewhere, that the first room was nearly finished and she would surely be seen.  She cocked her head as though she misunderstood me over the constant spooky music or, perhaps, as though I were stupid.  We had seconds before we would be intruded upon, so I did the only thing I could then think of.  I tried to grab her shoulder to pull her with me to a crack or crevice that would conceal us.

My hand went through her. She straightened up and faded into the dark.  By this point, the customers were about to see me, so I ran back to my scene.  I had no time to be frightened, though I felt nothing but calm and a bit perplexed.  I ran into some friends working the room after mine and told them that I had seen “the ghost”.

I worked there for several Octobers after, but I never again saw a specter not made by the in-house special effects team and none of those came close to the girl in the dress who I groped.

Q: What gave you your start as a writer?

A: I think I was born a storyteller.  Reality was never enough for me, so I would tell strangers that I was half alien on my father’s side.  My parents and teachers encouraged my writing, often at the expense of other subjects – I still furrow my brow when faced with math more daunting than algebra, despite having tutored in it.  When I was far too young, my mother enrolled me in a poetry group for adults that met in the local library, though I was never much of a poet.  A lot of my identity as a writer likely came from adults insisting I was one already and my finding this easier than being anything else (I was a mediocre artist and a competent at best actor).

I began my Night’s Dream series while still an undergrad.  I knew roughly the world I wanted to create – belief shapes everything, but most every human has unconsciously agreed to disbelieve and ignore; the gods of antiquity have fled for reasons of self-preservation; all the strange things you think might be under your bed as a child actually work as school bus drivers and baristas, you just don’t notice – but I did not have the skills to write it.  I tried no matter – I was never one to give up when it came to a story.

Q: What type of audience are you looking satisfy and had you always planned to write for that audience?

A: I think the audience I am trying to reach is me as a teenager to early twenty-something.  Fortunately, a lot of people are like me: hungry for something to read that respects our intelligence, but still willing to be playful.  So often growing up, I read books that made me feel knowledgeable, but were needlessly dry and serious.  Or I would read books that were “fun”, but were written as though I were a sixth grader who suffered from multiple head injuries.  It was infuriating.  Some writers seemed to get it right, but they were often those who wrote outside the context of just novels.  As much as this may sound that I am cutting my throat as a novelist, television and graphic novels often provided inspiration and confidence until I was steady on my feet as a writer.  That Joss Whedon could create such groundbreaking shows, that Bryan Fuller showed that literate whimsy and darkness were not antithetical and was not immediately get canceled, that Grant Morrison existed gave me hope that my audience was out there, patiently waiting.

Q: What inspired you to write The Night's Dream series?

 A: There were three distinct inspirations.  One was the simple navel-gazing conversations people tend to have in playgrounds at night, the “what ifs” of philosophy most people get out of their systems in college.  What if the world stops existing when you are not there to observe it?  What if monsters are real, but we are conditioned not to focus on them?  Why do people keep seeing ghosts, goblins, aliens, Bigfoots, and so on when it would seem science could disprove them?

Another was reading Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods and Grant Morrison’s Invisibles almost back-to-back.  Though neither were quite perfect – I did not have that moment of “Aha! These were written exactly for me to find!” – they provided worlds for the characters I knew I wanted to write.  They displayed magic not as an untouchably remote force, something confined to wizards with long beards facing off against fire-breathing dragons, but as something constantly occurring around humanity, though often below our notice.  I knew that this was the story I had to tell, albeit in my own way.

The third – though not happiest – was the suicide of one of my friends.  He threw this massive party to celebrate the end of a year of college.  When the guests left, he took a bed sheet and hanged himself.  I did not attend the party and I felt guilt about that for months, until someone explained how well attended it had been and that my friend told a few guests that this was a “going away” party.  I wrote a story for the local paper’s short story contest (creating for it my characters Shane and Eliot), though it was rejected without comment.  As I had this world brewing in my head and this protagonist I liked and pitied (as well as a dozen pages of decent prose I wanted to find a use for), I combined the two. 

Q: Is Shane's character based off of anyone one in particular?

A: She isn’t actually, though I somewhat wish she were (if just so I could apologize properly).  However, when my publisher asked for suggestions designing the cover image on We Shadows, I sent him in-text descriptions of Shane along with pictures of people who had aspects of Shane, most of whom were minor celebrities (Jill Sobule, Mageina Tovah), but one of a girl I had found on a dating site (I highly recommend dating sites when fleshing out characters or plotting stories) who seemed just about how I imagine Shane at her happiest.  Months later, completely coincidentally, I met this girl in person at a swing dance event.  I asked to dance with her for a song, explained about my novel, and later asked her if she would like to have tea with me sometime.  She told me that was too forward and we have had no contact since, proving at the very least that one should not dance with aspects of one’s main characters.  (The cover, incidentally, does not much resemble this woman or Shane as I picture her.) 

Q: What has been your favorite part of writing this series?

A: I have often been completely surprised, both by the characters and the back story.  Midway through We Shadows, they started to take on lives of their own.  I would want them to do one thing in a scene and they would completely refuse or contradict me until I figured out why they were being difficult.  This has led to some plot points I did not intend going in, but which have proved crucial (much of Roselyn’s time in the mental hospital, for instance).  Additionally, I have thought I fabricated some bit of mythology or history, only to discover that people believe it to be true.  I finished the first draft of my next novel, Artificial Gods (a sequel to We Shadows, but a prequel to Danse Macabre and starring characters who are minor in those books), before I stumbled upon a webpage that details all of my fantasy as though it is real.  I suppose, from all the research I did, I came to the same conclusions as other people, but it is frightening to see your antagonist staring you in the face just before you go to bed (especially when he comes with dozens of footnotes you know you will now have to research in depth).

Q: What has been your greatest challenge while writing?

A: I’ve had the hardest time sacrificing good writing because that scene is not essential to the plot.  I don’t think I have engendered enough of the good will of my fans to start meandering quite yet.  We Shadows, in an original version, was 60,000 word longer.  There were two additional secondary characters and a whole other subplot involving Jake that had to be excised for the sake of marketability.  (The two characters, who still appear briefly, will make an important reappearance in a future book.)

Married to that is simply that I did not know how to write a book when I started.  I would agonize over scenes that neither pushed the plot forward nor revealed the characters.  I would not move onto the next scene until I was sure I had gotten this one right.  And I certainly would not let myself listen to anyone who dared to tell me that this was not the way one wrote a novel, as I was and am quite stubborn.  Now, I know to write until I get to the end before going back to revise, which is why I hope to publish a book a year.

Q: Where is your favorite place to write?  What do you snack on?

A: Right now, my “office” is a two foot tall, fold-up plastic desk in a cramped closet with no ventilation and I type on a nine-inch Asus Eee computer running Windows XP.  I have ample space in my apartment (despite living with an artist girlfriend who sees clear floor space as a waste of a canvas) and a proper laptop in my living room, but I find that too convenient to write properly.  I need to be a bit put out and uncomfortable to write as I need.  When I am out and inspired, I will write on a slightly wonky PDA from 2003.  I used to write my best at 4AM, no matter whether I stayed up very late or woke up very early, but I have broken myself of that habit.

I am dangerous when it comes to snacks and writing.  As long as there is something to munch on, I will chomp until I’ve worked my way through the scene that it stymieing me, usually something salty.  I have accepted this is just an urge to put something in my mouth, to be fulfilled in some way, so I tend to drink instead, ideally iced green tea with lemon or positively sloshing amounts of seltzer.

Q: What advice do you have for aspiring YA authors?

A: Though I wouldn’t limit it to YA authors, my advice is to keep writing.  In 2001, I began a blog of what was going on in my life.  It was not especially interesting.  It was embarrassingly written.  It got me in trouble with my friends and family more than once, as my perspective did not match up with what they wanted the world at large to know.  But it was also indispensible.  It helped me figure out how to describe sensitive situations with delicacy and dull ones with panache.  It gave me an ear for dialogue and the ability to remember details. Most importantly, it allowed me to purge myself of bad habits, all of the psychic detritus of books I have read and authors I wanted to be.  Now, I write like myself rather than vacillating between Anne Rice, William Shakespeare, and Tom Robbins.

Q: If you had to pick one author or book that has been the most influential to you who/what would it be?

A: It would have to be Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series (we are going to pretend that is one book).  It demonstrated to me how to create an epic fantasy universe from tiny, often forgotten details accumulating.  It made a character that should be fearsome (Death) into one you want to hug.  It tore my heart out and showed it to me, and I was grateful.  It was one of those books where I accidentally saw a panel one hundred pages beyond where I was and then spent a few frenzied hours reading until I got there, all the time thinking, “No, he couldn’t… that couldn’t have happened… I saw it wrong, I must have.”  But when I got there, I knew it could be no other way.  Gaiman imbued souls and personalities into every character, no matter how minute, and from this effort he stands before a breathing universe.  Inasmuch as someone can be whom I have yet to meet, Gaiman is my mentor.

Q: What can you tell us about your works in progress?

A: I am sending Artificial Gods off to my beta readers this month.  It is the story of Jasmine Woods, a young woman who sees a UFO in her backyard on the first night of her summer break.  Though she wants to forget it all initially, she comes to see that her life has been infused by aliens and magic far longer than she had known.  I expect it will be published early in 2013.

I am fifty thousand words through the sequel to Danse Macabre, a book currently called Hunter of Shadows.  It will give far more back story about Gideon and the Purging, the reason that there are relatively few daemons left in the world to cluster around flux points, and will hopefully tie together the first three books.

After that one, I have three more books in this series sketched out loosely: one about Girl seeking her name, one dealing with Shane growing even more into herself through struggles both mundane and magical, and one about a character we have yet to be properly introduced to in the series but who has ties to several characters.  There will likely be even more books after that, but I do not know enough about them yet.  My books are very organic, so I expect more novels to spring from cuttings and forgotten boughs.

" I would like to thank Thomm for taking the time to do this interview with me! I have done many author interviews, but this one has definitely been a favorite of mine. It is not too often you get to talk to someone who groped a ghost."

~ The Night's Dream Series Books 1&2 ~

After a year of coasting rather than living, destroyed by her boyfriend Eliot's death, Shane Valentine matriculates into his college. She begins to build a new life as a college freshman, only to have it stolen from her one night, when she is trying to drown her sorrows at the bottom of a daiquiri.

She wakes the next day in a strange apartment with three scars she can't remember and a bloody shirt. On her walk of shame in stolen clothes, she realizes that no one aside for her roommate Roselyn, a Wiccan with epilepsy, remembers her. Unfortunately three occultists are after her to fix the mistake they made and they remember her too well.

Gideon, a daemonic being with an penchant for card, finds her and assures her he is going to help her out of his own sense of self-preservation. After a quick trip to the nameless campus drug dealer, whose abilities far exceed the selling of narcotics, Shane begins on an adventure to figure out what was done with her and why. Then, she begins to see Eliot's ghosts and realizes even chaos cannot be so cut and dry.

Roselyn Jacobs' life may not be strictly uncomplicated. She lives with Shane, a girl caught between being a teenager and a goddess. She sleeps with Dryden, who pretends to be a vampire when he is not working the graveyard shift at a dead-end job. Moreover, she is keenly aware that the world is dotted with pockets of beings that better belong in horror movies and fairy tales than taking her order at the local diner. She manages well until her boyfriend is turned into an actual vampire and her roommate is kidnapped as a means of leverage. To save them she must confront a basement blood-selling ring, a surly demigod, obtuse prophesies, a fortune-telling Wiccan, and a vampire hunter who wants more than she can give. 

Can she manage to keep up her life intact and still stop more people from dying to swell a gang of the undead? Can she trust the self-interest of the monsters on her side, the few remaining daemonic beings left in Red Hook? Should she continue to give her heart to a man whose own heart has stopped beating?

Both of these titles are available for purchase from:

Double Dragon Publishing / Amazon 

~ MY REVIEW ~

*Note to my readers: Both of these novels are included in this review*

The more I read from indie authors, the more sure I am that the real gems in the literary world are in no way connected to the big publishing houses. Thomm Quackenbush's, Night's Dream series is one of those gems. He has created a series that will pull it's reader to the underneath of it's pages and leave them enraptured in it's wake. Thomm's writing style is as unique as it is eloquent. This series exceeds expectations with it's remarkable world building and cast of characters. The author has a way of breathing life into these characters and the world they inhabit. I was definitely impressed by both the first and second book in this series. 

We Shadows was an outstanding debut. I noticed little to no faults with it. Shane's character really stood out to me; as did her roommate, Roselyn. Her journey to find the truth is an epic one. The plot is extremely original and the way everything comes together through out the story makes it clear that the author put a lot of hard work into it's creation. I enjoyed the subtle references to other works of fiction. This book is a fun fantasy read but also full of underlying complexities. 

Danse Macabre is a great continuation of this exciting series! I think I enjoyed it a bit more than We Shadows, but solely because it focused more on Roselyn and I really like her character. This book is anything but ordinary. I have grown a a dislike for vampires over the years but I greatly enjoyed Thomm's portrayal of them in this book. 

I can not wait to read the next book in this series! I will definitely be recommending this series to all. It is well worth the read and will definitely not disappoint!

Both of these books have received 5 strawberry ratings from me!