Fear is one of our oldest emotions — if not the oldest. And fear of the unknown is one of our greatest fears.
I don’t know what I don’t know, and that lack of knowing scares us. It is primal, that fear of the unknown.
Fear, playing on our fears, is the stock in trade of the writer of the macabre. Those spinners of stories that parade our fears before us and scare us to death — and we love it.
For all of our façade of sophistication, biologically speaking we are no different than our ancestors from 300,000 years ago. We may no longer be afraid of thunder and lightning, and we may have outgrown our fear of what’s under our beds — we are, however, still controlled by our fears.
Just look at the nightly news. Listen to David Muir’s tone of voice. He’s playing into our fears. And how often do we say, “I’m afraid…” — no matter the context?
Is it any wonder that the tale of terror, the horror story, has never lost its appeal with readers?
Today, interest in the paranormal — our modern term for what used to be called the supernatural and the occult — is hot. Genre fiction has pretty much a paranormal version of every genre. Some of it’s silly, and some of it is pretty doggone scary.
Paranormal fiction has made quite a few of its writers a boatload of money. And while much of the paranormal genre fiction is formulaic trope-filled tripe, some of it is quite good.
When I conceived of my Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigations series, I wanted something that moved in the world of the Cthulhu Mythos and also appealed to viewers of The X-Files.
From comments I’ve received and from the reviews of the books, I believe I’ve succeeded.
What’s more, since his introduction, Pierce Mostyn has been my top selling series. Therefore, it’s only natural to revisit the paranormal as I contemplate starting a new series.
However, I wanted something a bit different from the Cosmic Horror, Cthulhu Mythos, focus of Mostyn. And since my first love as a reader is detective fiction (ever since discovering Nero Wolfe in the early 80s), what would be more natural than to blend detective fiction with the paranormal?
Thank goodness I don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The occult detective has a long and time-honored lineage and is alive and well today.
Therefore, my new series, which will most likely debut next year, will be a brother and sister team of occult detectives, or, in contemporary parlance, paranormal investigators.
Taking a page from the exploits of Flaxman Low, Thomas Carnacki, and Jules de Grandin, my investigators will explore those things that go bump in the night and scare the bejeebers out of people.
Haunted houses, demons, assorted monsters, arcane and occult magic. Twisted tales about two normal (well, mostly normal) young adults battling the ageless fears that underlie the veneer of our contemporary scientific sophistication.
As all good occult detectives have done, my hero and heroine will allay our fears of the unknown. Of course, such fears can never truly be put to rest. Can they?
Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!
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