| Last year, Death?s Head Press? co-founder, Patrick C. Harrison III, did something pretty amazing. He reached out to a number of authors to write standalone novellas and novels in a genre he coined as ?splatter westerns.? A splatter western is a mad hybrid of splatterpunk horror and western genres. In other words, the western would have extreme horror elements with a hearty dollop of pulp to top it off. I marvel at Patrick for coming up with it, and I think he ought to be credited for the core concept of it. His story that inspired its creation is pretty intense, one that illustrates that sometimes, art imitates life and vice versa (you can read his story here). Anyway, my novella, Red Station, is book #7 in the series, and it came out just last month. Since they?re all standalone stories, readers can start with whichever one they wish. I think there will eventually be 13 in all, the next one down the pipeline being Kristopher Triana?s The Thirteenth Koyote. I confess that when Patrick approached me about writing one, I was both elated for having been invited and overwhelmed by the thought of all the research that lay ahead?just for a novella. Red Station would be my first western after all, and while there would be horror elements in it, I wanted it to be as accurate to the setting and time as I could portray it. I spent the first half of my time researching intensively. I wanted to get everything from the climate conditions down to the colloquialisms as correct as I could. It was foolish of me to start that way though as I had absolutely no idea what kind of a story I wanted to tell. I didn?t want to write some kind of machismo-centered tale of saloon brawlers, cattle drives, stagecoach robberies, and shoot outs in the center of town. Then, while researching, I finally found the story? sort of. Okay, it was more like a source of inspiration. The Bloody Benders of Kansas were a German family (of sorts?some of the relationships were never really known), who ran a station home to travelers. They also just so happened to be serial killers who brutally slaughtered and robbed the travelers who had fancy wares on them. I took the Benders, or possibly the Benders, and turned them into something much more monstrous. Their religious fanaticism and family bond would be powerful motivators, opening the door to madness and blood. The story then rapidly evolved into an old fashioned, cinematic slasher set in a station home, or at least a place that people thought was a station home. |
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