Read the full interview at: https://theactionelite.com/eric-red-talks-his-new-novel-stopping-power/

Eric Red chats to Kendall Reviews

Coffee is ready…

KR: Could you tell me a little about yourself please?

I’m a Los Angeles-based film director and screenwriter and novelist. I started in the motion picture business thirty years ago and have been writing novels for six years now.

KR: What do you like to do when not writing?

I love spending time with my wife and dogs and seeing friends. Otherwise I’m reading or watching movies.

KR: What is your favourite childhood book?

The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit. I also loved the Dr. Suess books.

KR: What are you reading now?

Just finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, and Without Fail by Lee Child, my favorite contemporary author, and am starting Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama.

KR: What is your favourite album, and does music play any role in your writing?

Hard to pick a favorite album but The Beatles are my favorite musicians. I have all their records on a playlist on iTunes I listen to constantly. When I’m writing, I listen to a lot of movie scores, especially by Jerry Goldsmith and Elmer Bernstein. Maybe it’s my movie background but film music inspires me when I write and gets me into the zone.

KR: Who were the authors that inspired you to write?

As a young author, in no order, Richard Price, Jim Harrison, John Irving and William Goldman. Given my books and films, those are probably not the authors people would expect, but these were the writers whose books spoke to me on a very deep level and made me want to be a writer.

KR: Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer to just see where an idea takes you?

I’m methodical. Because of my screenwriting background I’m a structure wonk rigorous about working out the story beats—for me character flows from story, not the other way around. First I come up with a three- or four-sentence summary of a novel because all books must begin with a great idea in my opinion. Then I write a one-page synopsis, after which I write a ten-page outline with a beginning, middle and end. Once I have that, I’m ready to start the book. And during this time I’m making pages and pages of notes, because ideas start coming to me constantly for a novel I’m hot on.

KR: What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

The short answer is all the research necessary, but that depends on the book and the subject matter. My third novel IT WAITS BELOW was a science fiction thriller involving a submersible sub that dove to the bottom of the ocean, so I spent months interviewing one of the top pilots of those kind of subs and oceanographic scientists to get all the details right. On the other hand, my first novel DON’T STAND SO CLOSE was a high school coming-of-age thriller and most of the research involved remembering my own high school experiences.

To read the rest of the interview, go to http://bit.ly/2IxLMBT

“One of the perks of my 2013 summer was reading my bro ERIC RED’s THE GUNS OF SANTA SANGRE (which was re-released in March BTW ). A grisly, mean spirited and action packed book (read Jake Dee’s review here). On August 1st 2017 the sequel to that bad-boy THE WOLVES OF EL DIABLO (PRE-ORDER IT HERE) will gore up book shelves around the world (expect a review of it on the site soon). I recently managed to fire a couple of questions Red’s way about his upcoming novel and the impending third chapter of his “Men Who Walk Like Wolves” trilogy – here’s what he gunned back at me!

“The Wolves of El Diablo” is a Western and a werewolf story rolled up in one. So what would say is your favorite Western flick and you fav werewolf film? And your movie Bad Moon is not an option ☺?

My favorite western is The Wild Bunch. The Searchers, The Magnificent Seven, Once Upon A Time In The West, and the original True Grit are others. Bad Moon aside, don’t really have a favorite werewolf film. I guess if I had to pick, it would be old Universal The Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr. because the Lawrence Talbot character is so classically tragic and the actor played him with such pathos. In my opinion, and people may disagree, there have not been a lot of good lycanthrope flicks throughout movie history—you’d think there must be because werewolves are so iconic a film monster but when you think about it there really aren’t, even if some have terrific special makeup effects. Werewolf films are kind of a lousy movie genre.

“The Wolves of El Diablo” is a sequel to your badass book: “The Guns of Santa Sangre”. How does the follow up differ from the first installment?

The first book was mostly set in a Mexican village in the 1800s where three American gunfighters, Tucker, Fix and Bodie are recruited by a peasant woman named Pilar to protect her town from a pack of werewolves who are Mexican bandits in human form led by a jefe named Mosca. The heroes end up kicking serious lycanthrope ass. The second book begins a month later during the next full moon where the three gunslingers rob a steam train loaded with silver protected by Mexican soldiers. The cowboys don’t know that Mosca, the leader of the werewolves they killed in the first book has a bloodthirsty vengeful bandit sister named Azul out for revenge. She and her wolf men ambush the heroes during the train robbery. Before long, the three gunfighters find themselves fighting fifty werewolves on a highballing stream train in the middle of the Mexican desert.

I like to say, using a movie analogy, The Wolves Of El Diablo is to The Guns Of Santa Sangre what Aliens was to Alien: More action, more werewolves, more silver bullets, bigger weapons. It’s a high-octane action novel. Do readers need to read the first book to fully appreciate the second one or can they go straight to Wolves? The Wolves of El Diablo can be read by itself if you haven’t read The Guns of Santa Sangre. It’s important in writing a book series that readers can start with any book in series and enjoy a self-contained complete reading experience. The trick for the author is to let them know what happened in the story up to that point without revealing too much that it would ruin the past books when they read those. The Wolves of El Diablo recaps the basic events of The Guns of Santa Sangre just enough so you know what’s going on but doesn’t give away too many spoilers…”

To read the rest of the interview go to the full article at: http://bit.ly/2vc5XSI

We talk about my new novel THE WOLVES OF EL DIABLO, western and horror books and films, and lots of other fun stuff: http://bit.ly/2upNDC2

Read the interview at http://www.thebigthrill.org/2015/05/white-knuckle-by-eric-red/

WHITE KNUCKLE is available June 2nd in trade paperback and eBook editions from Samhain Publishing.  Order it on amazon at: http://amzn.to/1E22SNs

Read the full interview at: http://www.thebigthrill.org/2014/09/it-waits-below-by-eric-red/

Plus fiction and non-fiction by David Morrell, Jonathan Maberry and others. Come on, how many magazines are cool enough to put out a hardcover collector issue?

On the stands now, and available to order online at http://journal-store.com/fiction/dark-discoveries-issue-24/