In eSpec Books’ Systema Paradoxa series, writers tell stories about different cryptids that exist in myths and legends and maybe your backyard. But unlike some of them, the cryptids in Ken Schrader’s contribution, Crimson Whisper (paperback, Kindle), are not the monsters they might seem to be. I’ll let Schrader explain in the following email interview.
In eSpec Book’s Systema Paradoxa series, different writers have told stories about a wide variety of cryptids. But while I’ve interviewed many of these authors — including, but not limited to, Sean Patrick Hazlett, Mary Fan, and Keith R.A. DeCandido — few seem as tailor made for this series as writer Jorie Rao who admits that “Cryptids are a special interest of mine” in the following email interview about her urban fantasy novella Out For Blood (paperback, Kindle).
For the latest novella in their ongoing Systema Paradoxa series about cryptids, eSpec Books have enlisted author Sean Patrick Hazlett to write Hell’s Well (paperback, Kindle). Which, as you’ll quickly realize from reading the following email interview he and I did about this science fiction / borderline cosmic horror story, may have been a mistake…for him.
In eSpec Books’ Systema Paradoxa series, writers tell stories about cryptids, mysterious creatures like Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, and Mothman. But most cryptids don’t come with a backstory / origin story as intricate as El Cadejo, the one at the center of Robert E. Water’s Systema Paradoxa novella Eyes Of The Wolf (paperback, Kindle). In the following email interview, Waters discusses what influenced both this story and his decision to tell it with El Cadejo.
Like other writers who’ve penned novellas for eSpec Books’ Systema Paradoxa series, writer Carol Gyzander chose to make hers about the cryptid that lives near where she grew up. But as she explains in the following email interview, her book, Forget Me Not (paperback, Kindle), wasn’t just inspired by her local monster, but where it lives as well.
For the latest installment of their Systema Paradoxa series of novellas about cryptids, the good people of eSpec Books have enlisted Mary Fan…who used this opportunity to reminisce about her childhood. At least that’s the impression I got from the following email interview about her installment, Found Footage (paperback, Kindle).
In the two decades that I lived in New Jersey, I never once saw the Jersey Devil. I saw a pissy turtle, some easily spooked deer, and a lot of hungry mosquitos, but not once did I ever see the namesake of our state’s hockey team. But while he may or may not be real, that doesn’t mean he isn’t deserving of the kind of attention we’ve given Big Foot and Nessie. Which brings me to All The Way House (paperback, Kindle), a new novella about the Jersey’s unofficial state cryptid. In the following email interview, writer Keith R.A. DeCandido discusses this supernatural thriller / urban fantasy mash-up.
According to legend, the Wunk is a creature that has the ability to burrow into the ground almost instantaneously, and can even shape-ship to look like other animals, or even humans. Which is why, the legend goes, no one has ever seen one. And probably also why he’s never been the star of animated movies or episodes of The Bionic Man. But the Wunk is finally getting their due in Gone To Ground (paperback, Kindle), a new noir mystery novel by Aaron Rosenberg that casts the cautious cryptid as the possible (and reluctant) witness to a murder. In the following email interview, Rosenberg discusses what inspired and influenced this noir novella.