Welcome to this week’s Friday Author Spotlight! Today I have Peter Guy Blacklock visiting with the first book in his The Phantasmagoriad series, Rose Blood. He’s also taken the time to do an interview with me, so let’s get started!
Peter Guy Blacklock was born and raised in an unremarkable town in the north-east of England by a remarkably supportive and well adjusted working-class family. After 14 years of ineffective education, he found himself in Art College, which led to twenty years employment as an Archaeological Illustrator in which he produced a wide variety of technical illustrations for publication as well as more general illustration, design and copy work on educational and display materials intended for schools and the general public. Eventually, the hunt for a half decent salary within that occupation led him to the Museum of London and a move to the capitol where he still lives today in happily married bliss.
He is passionate about genre fiction, film and games has a fervent interest in history, mythology, and folklore and is fascinated by the deeper meanings behind ritual practice, ceremonial magic, and occult lore. He is a keen Ripperologist, a devout Lovecraftian and a determined new writer of dark-genre fiction and non-fiction books. A good deal of his spare time is spent online where, under his user-name of choice ‘Harbinger451’, he is creating a website and writing a blog that explore the alternative worlds that encompass his passions.
Connect with the Author
About the Book
Peter Guy Blacklock’s Rose Blood is the first book in a trilogy of breakneck, erotically charged, Gothic fairytales set in an alternate world full of gruesome horrors, dark fantasies, twisted trysts and hard-boiled heroics; peopled with unique characters, many of whom subvert genre norms, and steeped in authentic occult lore. The gripping story, which hooks from the start, unfolds in and around the eldritch environs of an archaic primeval forest that lingers across a huge swathe of the Britannik Isles – a dark parallel of Britain in the early 1700s.
A chance accident on the road home from finishing-school thrusts a sheltered Rebekah into a violent, desperate and rapidly escalating struggle involving disturbingly prescient dreams, sensual vampiric bloodletting, the brutal kidnap of her sister, the wanton murder-by-troll of her father and the wicked sorceries of an arcane Machiavellian evil from the distant land of Kanaan. With the unlikely aid of a rogue vampire named Mikael, his ghostly lover, Lilith, an old wizard traveller – and agent of the state – called Arkturon and an occult specialist Ranger, the dark-elf Corporal Villovürt; she must set out to rescue Luwsiy, her young sister, from the diabolical machinations of an ancient and powerful sorcerer named Bäliyl Samiyl and his three deadly daughters, Aggareth, Maqlath and Igymeth.
The wizard-led band of assorted and unlikely heroes travel a wayward path that traverses strange otherworldly realms – while a troop of hardened Rangers, led by the stalwart Sergeant D’Geai Rinawn from the deserts of Namib, pursue the same goal on more temporal ground through the ancient, goblin and troll infested Old Forest beset with magical traps and dangers. The two groups follow their respective paths, one beaten by wizardry and wisdom, the other by sword, blunderbuss and brawn.
As well as being part of a trilogy, this novel is the first in a whole series of tales set within the same alternate world that parallels our own. These Anti-Verse Tales will take place in different times and technological periods past, present and future, but are still firmly within the same mirror universe, the convincing magical reality of which is a benighted and bewitching reflection of the histories, myths, legends and folklore of our own world.
Warning: contains extreme themes and situations of a profane, violent, horrific and sexual nature. Expect adult language and situations as well as overt violence and gore!
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Keep reading for an interview with the author:
What genres do you write?
Dark Speculative fiction of all kinds including Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction and Occult
What inspires you to write?
I decided to right the sort of books I wanted to read, inspired by my interest in mythology, folklore and the occult, and by my passion for horror and fantasy genre fiction, film and games.
How often do you write?
I try to write every day, or I at least review, rewrite or edit what was written the day or days before.
Do you have a daily word or page count goal?
I don’t generally set a limit, either upper or lower, on how much I write each day – I just write what I can when I can.
If you could be one of your characters for a day, who would it be and why?
That’s easy – I’d be Arkturon, a wizard… wouldn’t we all like to be a wizard for a day?
What authors have most influenced you?
The works of Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Raymond Chandler, J. R. R. Tolkien, Daphne Du Maurier, Richard Matheson, Shirley Jackson, Michael Moorcock, Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick and William Gibson… among many, many others.
What are your goals as an author?
My goals are fairly simple and, I assume, typical – to earn a living from writing, however modest. I would hope that in five years time I have at least five more novels written and that I am able to earn that living from them.
What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
“Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life.” — Hunter S. Thompson.
What made you decide to self-publish?
I tried approaching lterary agents but soon lost patience with the whole process and decided to self publish, its a steep learning curve but I’m hopefull that it will be a rewarding experience.
What is the best thing about self-publishing?
It certainly gives you more creative control than traditional publishing and luckily I have the skills that let me design my own covers and format the books just how I like.
Are you a pantser or outliner?
A bit of both; I usually have a very broad outline of where I want the story to go but I don’t tend to write it down – I like my characters to dictate where they will go within that broad outline and how they will deal with it often only becomes apparent while writing.
Do you write about real life experiences, or does everything come from your imagination?
A combination of the two; clearly I write fantastical fiction so imagination plays a large part, but I like my characters to be grounded in a reality that is relatable for the reader and therefore real life experiences are essential to a character’s believability and help build the story’s authenticity.
Do you ever base your characters on people you know?
My characters often have elements of people I know, or know of, or have read about, but I don’t tend to base them entirely on such a person – certainly not to the extent that they would recognize themselves.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on ‘Moon Shade’, the second novel in the Phantasmagoriad trilogy, following on from my debut ‘Rose Blood’. I’m also finishing off a short occult horror story, ‘The Matter of Time’, the third short story that will make up the Dollar Dreadful Volume 2 ebook with two more of my works of short fiction.
Do you have any advice for other authors?
Keep reading and writing, listen and learn from the world around you… and always take notes. Get your work out there in as many places as possible. Talk about your work on social media, write a blog – get yourself out there online and keep writing, writing and more writing, hone your skills and be sure to learn from your mistakes.
