Dark bleatings, my horror-loving tribe! Tim Lebbon is, frankly, one of the sturdiest staples of the horror genre. A lover of cake, and an author that writes uncharacteristically scary stuff considering what a nice person he is. He’s also one of the featured authors in werewolf anthology, Strange New Moons, a book I co-edited (I never get sick of telling people that) with Stephen Kozeniewski.
I bribed Tim with cake for this interview, so enjoy! (I’m just kidding, I never made good on the cake delivery, now that I think about it…)
Me: March of Night, Scratch of Claw features a mysterious woman that sets things in motion. Do you have a backstory for her in your mind?
Tim: She’s definitely been places. But for this story I think she just drifted in and drifted out again, sowing her nasty seeds. I’m sure her history is too dark for us to know and be able to sleep…
Me: Who cares? SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK! But moving on…
When putting your story together, how did you decide which familiar werewolf elements to use and which ones to ignore?
Tim: I did a bit of reading around the subject and found this cool myth from somewhere about a character draping a wolf’s hide across themselves and slowly, slowly changing. That was weird enough for me so I went with it!
Me: In the league of supernatural creatures, where do werewolves personally rank for you?
Tim: I wrote a novel maybe 20 years ago called BERSERK which was then called a werewolf novel without me really knowing it. So I guess I love ’em! I’m also working on something now with a werewolf character. I guess I prefer a were-‘creature’ idea. I mean why limit it to just a wolf? A wereplatypus would be so cool.
Me: In the beginning of your story, Sax is reflecting on some cruel words he spoke to his best friend Pat, about how he should give up on painting and get a normal job. This is an argument that people with creative aspirations tend to have with themselves. Was this just the jumping off point that lead to Sax to going out alone to drink, or a symbolical clue to how Sax would soon be facing his own dual nature?
Tim: I guess the artist in me (as opposed to the money-earner … writing professionally is always an act of balancing art with commerce) thought it felt like an honest way in to the story.
Me: In the initial phases of planning this story, what came the first, the character or the claw?
Tim: I tend not to plan short stories very much. I go with the flow. But I think in this case it was through the idea more than characters that I found my way in.
Me: Throughout your career, you have written vampires, cave dwelling beasts, sci-fi weather weirdness, zombies (slow AND fast!), the perils of nature (especially when it’s behaving…unnaturally), and much more. What has been your favourite creation so far?
If you’re asking fave creation as opposed to actual favourite novel (which is impossible for me to say), I’d maybe have to point to my novel Eden, and the land of Eden itself. It’s a huge tract of land somewhere in the world (I’m never specific) which has been abandoned and left completely to nature. And of course, as nature reasserts itself in Eden, it’s become quite unwelcoming of humanity. There have been places like this around the world for a while, but for me Eden is the ultimate place of beauty and nature in the world … and horror. Perfect!
Me: As someone who loves and spends a lot of time running/cycling/swimming around the great outdoors, it’s kind of funny how many times you’ve used the environment to horrify us. Is this kind of terror born of your fear of environmental decline, or because you’ve been spooked by nature while you’re out in it?
Tim: I’m never spooked by nature. I love the outdoors, and I’d spend all my time outside if I could. I’ve got a friend who dictates his novels while he’s out walking, and I might try that sometime. I use the natural environment in my books a lot partly because of my love of it, and my knowledge of it, but also because I always try to use landscape etc as another character in much of my writing, and I’d much rather write about woodlands and mountainsides than urban places. And yes, the worry about environmental decline … I’m old enough to remember when there were a lot more butterflies around, a lot more birds, and bees, and snails (when did you last see a snail??), when I really think about that it’s pretty depressing.
Me: I love snails so much I used to keep them as pets (Giant African Land Snails, not just those little fellas – I did not swipe them from the garden or anything I swear!).
Has your writing process changed over the course of your career so far?
Tim: If so, it’s changed so gradually that I don’t really notice. I guess the main change is that I don’t plan in quite so much detail anymore, and also I wait longer for a story to grow in my imagination before sitting down to start writing. I think my first drafts are a little more refined than they used to be. I’m not saying that’s a good thing … but I don’t do so many rewrites/editorial passes as I used to. I guess I write a little slower and put more effort into making those first couple of drafts work.
Me: You’ve ended the world many times in a variety of different ways – which of your abominable apocalypses do you think is the least survivable?
Tim: I wrote a novella for Ellen Datlow called The Origin of Truth in which nanotech runs wild, spreading like a virus in a wave across the world and deconstructing all matter. Ellen liked the story, but before she bought it she actually wanted me to research and prove it could happen. So I wrote a paper on nanotech! Honestly, I’m not sure it’s a realistic scenario, but just waiting for that wave of microscopic deconstructing machines to sweep across the planet towards you is pretty grim. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide!
Me: As an avid fan, I can not believe that one slipped under my radar! Which of your works would you recommend to a first time reader?
Tim: For a novel, maybe The Silence, partly because it’s probably my best-performing novel (with decent sales, the movie, and overseas deals), but mainly because it deals with lots of my usual concerns –– family in peril, environmental damage (well, sort of … the vesps could be seen as a result of human action on the planet.) Short stories are also a good place to start, so my collection All Nightmare Long is a good place to start for that.
Me: For the readers – I second this. The Silence is phenomenal. Okay Tim, it’s time to bring out the big guns. The super serious questions. I hope you’ve braced yourself.
The zombie apocalypse is upon us and you have to recruit 3 of the following people to make up your entire survival group. You can’t go it alone. Who’s it gonna be?
Burke (Aliens)
Percy Wetmore (The Green Mile)
Mrs Carmody (The Mist)
Marv (Home Alone)
Jar Jar Binks
Skylar White (Breaking Bad)
Tim: Burke (I’d cut him a leave him behind to distract the zombies). Mrs Carmody (I’d suggest she try to convert those Godless creatures). Jar Jar Binks (I’d watch and applaud as they ate his face).
Me: I’m only mildly disturbed that you’ve picked your team based on who you’d feed to the horde. Moving on…
You’re at the mercy of Randall Flagg. He’s holding your family hostage and the only way to save them is to do his bidding and mercilessly set piranhas on a group of Stephen King characters. Who’s getting chomped?
The Losers Club
Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern
Roland, Susannah, Eddie, Jake, and Oy
Tim: Oh, that’s unfair. Maybe the Losers Club, because they’ve already dealth with something with bigger teeth.
Me: You’re in charge of casting for the remake of Alien. Who are you casting in the main roles?
Tim: I’d love to see Muppets vs Aliens.
Me: I think that’s the best interview question answer I’ve ever received. A huge thank you to Tim for participating (cake is incoming!) – it’s always such a pleasure! Be sure to check out Tim’s work at his website:
And don’t forget to read his ferocious story, ‘March of Night, Scratch of Claw’, in:
Bleeeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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