Two years after he kicked off eSpec Book’s Systema Paradoxa series — in which different writers pen novellas about different cryptids — writer John L. French is bringing his time with this series to a close with Daylight Comes (paperback, Kindle), his third and final contribution.
In the following email interview, he discusses how he picked the last cryptid to write about, as well as why it’s the final time he’ll be writing about these mysterious monsters.
In science fiction, subgenres often give birth to other subgenres. Solarpunk, for instance, begat lunarpunk. It’s also how we got dieselpunk out of steampunk. But what exactly is dieselpunk? That’s one of many questions I put to Danielle Ackley-McPhail and John L. French, co-editors of the new short story anthology Grease Monkeys: The Heart And Soul Of Dieselpunk (paperback, Kindle), in the following email interview.
There’s a reason why people making big decisions in cartoons often have tiny angelic and demonic versions of themselves appear on their shoulders, whispering conflicting advice in their ears. But it’s not just cartoons that have explored the dichotomy between these symbols of good and evil. In the following email interview, editor John L. French discusses Devilish & Divine (paperback, Kindle), a new collection of demonic and angelic short stories he co-edited with eSpec Books’ co-owner and publisher, Danielle Ackley-McPhail.
The term “cryptid” refers to a creature that people believe are real, even though there’s no proof that they do. But while Bigfoot and The Loch Ness Monster are two of the more famous cryptids, they’re not the only ones. In John L. French’s new novella When The Moon Shines (paperback, Kindle), he tells a horror-flavored crime story that involves the snallygaster, a cryptid from Maryland. In the following email interview, French not only discusses what inspired and influenced this story, but also how the book is the first in a series of cryptid-centric stories called System Paradoxa that will be initially (but not exclusively) be available in The Cryptid Crate, a new monthly subscription box that, on a quarterly basis (January, April, July, October), will feature exclusive items made just for that box.