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I was trying to come up with a clever intellectual title for this page but then thought bollocks, if people wanted clever intellectual stuff they'd be reading Bret Easton Ellis (I don't fucking think...)
Anyway, this is me speaking to you, direct (well, sort of).
Want to ask me something? Click here.
It's October 3rd, about 11.15 in the morning as I write this. Just sitting here, musing. Stream of consciousness kind of stuff. I know you lot like to know how yours truly works (obviously not much as I'm doing this instead of concocting new plots... but anyway...) Twelve fucking years ago I used to listen to rock music before I started work, now I watch TRISHA... Does that say something about me? Everyone who's accused me of going soft is screaming "See, he watches fucking Trisha, he's turned into some kind of middle of the road wanker who doesn't have his edge anymore." Hmmm... We'll see. If anyone thinks I have lost my edge then tell me for Christ's sake. I, personally, do not.
Anyway, back to business. I was thinking that if my name was Richard then I could call these things RICHARD'S RANTS because that's what they are really. The site gives me (courtesy of Graeme and Callum) a place to air my views on a more regular basis. I know I air them in my books but that's only once a year for fuck's sake, I get pissed off more than once a year, trust me.
I'm tired this morning (I always get more easily pissed off when I'm tired, leading some people to think I've been half asleep for the last twenty years...) as I was at Anfield last night watching Liverpool stick five past Spartak Moscow and I didn't get home until 1am. But, what the fuck, most of you with proper jobs have to get up every day at proper times! Some of you were probably just going to work as I was getting home... I'm not moaning, I'm just letting you in on my frame of mind, it's all part of the creative process that I know you're interested in. What set me off was seeing that ugly, sly, conniving old bitch Edwina fucking Currie in the paper again flogging her fucking diaries for shit loads of money to all and sundry. And Robbie Williams has just signed the second biggest record deal in history and the fucking Beckhams have just bought a clock for five grand...
The shit we have to put up with from the media is unbelievable don't you think? Barrymore does an interview to say how upset he is (an interview done from a SEVEN star hotel mind you...). Geri Halliwell is finding the strain of being rich and famous too much. WHO FUCKING CARES! Oh, and Hear' Say have split up, so, not all bad news. Apparently, my missus tells me, there were people ringing in to Radio One (itself not exactly a bastion of talent) crying down the phone about this... Who the fuck are these people? Can someone please point me towards the real talent in this fucking world of mediocrity. Thank God you, my readers, are discerning in that respect. I had to trawl the internet to find the latest album by one of my greatest rock bands, Great White because no record shop would stock it and yet those same shops are full to bursting with albums and singles by manufactured one-hit wonders and singing celebrities and any other twat who's looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. I tell you, every fucking time I open a paper or put on the TV I see living proof of WARHOL'S PROPHECY. (I just wish some of the fuckers I have to look at would end up like the characters at the end of WARHOLS'S PROPHECY...)
Those of you who have never read any of these rants before are probably wondering what kind of sick, cynical, bitter and twisted individual I really am. Those of you who know me through my books will know what kind of sick, cynical, bitter and twisted individual I am and will, hopefully, agree with me about this desert of talent we're forced to live in.
Real talent these days counts for nothing. Not in the book business, music business, film business, TV, Radio... It counts, but it's doesn't cut any ice with the 'mainstream'. In short, truth hurts, no one wants to hear it. Thank God you guys do, that's, presumably one of the reasons why you buy my books and I love you for it.
But, enough bile has been spewed. You have to get things off your chest don't you and I'm not due to start work on the next book until January...
Next one out is HELL TO PAY. It will be followed by what I intend to be a horror epic... I hope I can pull it off. I intend to go back and see if I can do what I used to do and scare the living shit out of you lot (which will take some doing I know as you're hard bastards...). I want to do a book that starts at 100 m.p.h. and then accelerates... I'll start planning it soon. Working title is NECESSARY EVIL. I'll give you updates as it falls into shape.
Anyway, in the meantime, how would anyone feel about sequels? Which books would you like to see benefit from a sequel? (and don't say BREEDING GROUND please...). How about another Sean Doyle novel? And, by the way, what did anyone think of HYBRID?
Until next time, all of you take care and take no shit from anyone...
Luv Shaun
Third padded cell along
Behind the wobbly thing
Rampton
Thanks for the questions, as usual, and the kind comments. I've tried to answer as many as possible as briefly as possible
As usual, there have been questions from American fans wanting to know why my stuff's not available in the States. Well, blame the publishers. Pester them to buy the American rights... Someone told me Ramsey Campbell no longer had an English publisher, the four questions I think that need to be addresses with regard to this are:
Yeah? And? So? What?
I thank you.
Lots of would-be authors also asking advice and I can still only say the same thing unfortunately. Keep at it. Try and get an agent and pray a lot... It worked for me after 40 rejections. You're all capable of doing it. It's just that publishing's getting harder. Publishers spend more money on the household/safe/boring fucking names and are reluctant to give newcomers a try. I wish I could be more encouraging but just don't give up...
A few from rival football fans, as ever, don't worry who you support, everyone's entitled to their own choice (except Man. Utd. Fans who are incapable of making their own choices and have their minds shaped by Sky and the lying fuckers who are controlled by them... Oops, ranting again.) I must admit, I hate most teams in the Premier League but, I'm sure their supporters hate Liverpool too so there... No predictions for the coming season except that the Mancs will win fuck all again. Come on, everyone, see past the hype and the bullshit. They're ordinary. Second favourites for the Champions League (excuse me while I simultaneously vomit and laugh my arse off...) There's more chance of that maggot bastard Beckham and his twiglet missus giving one of their fucking spawn a decent name... I'm going to stop there otherwise I'll be ranting for days... (and probably in court for libel...)
Lots of you wanting to know about the 'direction my writing is taking'. I wish I knew. I can honestly say when I sit down to write a new novel, I don't set out to write a specific kind of novel. Just 'a novel'. Some have accused me of going soft since I became a dad. Give me a break folks... COMPULSION soft? WARHOL'S PROPHECY soft? EXIT WOUNDS soft? I think it's just a few more of them have had kids in bigger roles. I understand how kids think now (well, mine at any rate... and it's scary...) so they sometimes feature more prominently. Also, if I write something that's got a scene featuring damage being done to a kid, it's easier for me to identify with what's going on. I think being a dad has made me a better writer in some ways. You'll all be pleased to know that the next book, HELL TO PAY, is heading back towards horror (and there's a kid in it, yes...), the one after that will be, I hope, what I would call, a blinder... Full on horror epic stuff. Back to basics just to see if I can still actually scare the shit out of you good people... If anyone can say I've gone soft after that then I'll retire. It's tentatively called NECESSARY EVIL and obviously, at the moment isn't even at the planning stage but I know what I want to do. At the moment I'm looking at DEATHDAY meets ASSASSIN meets CAPTIVES meets RENEGADES... Happy now all you gorehounds?
Still nothing on the film or TV front but I'm trying. I've written an adaptation of LUCY'S CHILD for TV and an original film script called CAPTIVES (nothing to do with the novel). So, fingers crossed, but getting into films is a bastard unless you're willing to kiss a few arses/have friends in the film business/are Thomas Harris. None of those are applicable to yours truly I'm afraid. Still, you never know, one day maybe...
Someone wanted to know if I thought any writer was better than me... Wow! No, would be the first answer to that but, seriously, apart from William Peter Blatty, I can't honestly say that I have found a fiction writer who I have looked up to. I do think that Stephen King is a superb storyteller (ouch!) but I was never influenced by him (I'd like his bank balance, that's about it...). Obviously there have been writers better than me, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Molliere, Kafka...) and as I don't read I suppose I'm the wrong person to ask about the current crop but in any business, if you start thinking that other people are better than you then I think you're fucked. Personally. Some other writers may sell more books than me but that doesn't make them better writers... If you haven't got self-belief then you might as well go home. If that answers that question.
I had to laugh at this one. Someone discovered that I'd had a death threat after I wrote CAPTIVES. Now, they didn't ask why I'd been threatened, they asked HOW!... Christ I love my readers. Only one of my readers would ask how someone had threatened to kill me... But anyway, onto the question of sequels. Lots of people have asked about possible sequels to everything from DEATHDAY to COMPULSION (by the way, for whoever it was who said COMPULSION reminded them of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, which version did you see? I can't remember too many people in white boiler suits running around in COMPULSION...) I must admit I'm not a great one for sequels (BREEDING GROUND apart) although DEATHDAY probably has the material for a sequel. I prefer to do something different in each book instead of churning out formula stuff. Still, formula stuff seems to work if you find the right formula. If HYBRID is a worldwide bestseller expect HYBRID II, III and IV... Just kidding...
Right, onto films, lots of people kindly ask my opinions so I'll just update you on a few.
This year, 2002, has been pretty awful for films I'd say. In the last couple of years there have been the quite staggering GLADIATOR and THE LORD OF THE RINGS but this year, apart from PANIC ROOM, LANTANA, INSOMNIA and TALK TO HER (a Spanish film) I haven't seen much to get me drooling. I've been buying DVDs left right and centre, collecting my favourites like THE WILD BUNCH, TAXI DRIVER, CROSS OF IRON, THE GODFATHER and ALIEN etc. Just remembered, try and have a look at two Japanese movies that are available on video now. AUDITION and DEAD OR ALIVE. Superb films and DEAD OR ALIVE contains the most breathtakingly brilliant opening sequence I've seen for a couple of years. Everyone raves about John Woo but the sooner the guy who directed AUDITION and DEAD OR ALIVE is transported to Hollywood the better. Unfortunately I can't remember his name off hand but check them out at your local video shop if you can. A real breath of fresh air. What about this new 12A certificate? Fucking ridiculous if you ask me (says he having just got back from taking his 6 year old daughter to see REIGN OF FIRE...) When I started going to the flicks (aged 7) all we had were U, A and X... Ah, those were the days... Also, what the fuck do you have to do to get an 18 these days? (Film, not teenager I mean, although if anyone can tell me how to get an 18 year old teenager I'd appreciate it...) RESIDENT EVIL and INSOMNIA both 15s! Are the censors shifting total responsibility onto parents and cinema staff? Gutless fuckers. This is nothing to do with freedom (because we have very little in this country anyway), it's to do with passing the buck...
Anyhow, I'm off until next month-ish. I hope everyone observed the minutes silence for September 11th (I observed a minutes silence for Liverpool dropping two fucking points at home to Birmingham...) Just a couple of parting thoughts though and you can call me cynical if you want ("Shaun, you're cynical...") If London had been flattened last September 11th, would the Americans have been so quick to jump to our aid and, secondly, if Holly and Jessica hadn't been so photogenic would their abductions and murders have made the front pages when days later a little girl of 5 was beaten to death by her step-father and another little two year old died of neglect?
One more thing, anyone else in favour of publicly stoning Michael fucking Barrymore to death? Now that's one show with that lanky, self-pitying, overpaid cunt in that I would watch... Better still, put him in the sequel to Celebrity Survivor. If I had my way it'd be Celebrity DSS. Find eight of the fuckers and put them on the roughest council estate in the country for two weeks living on dole money or, better still, Celebrity Deathcamp. Send in your ideas for who you'd like to watch starve to death. They couldn't build a camp big enough for all the bastards I'd like to see in there.
On that happy note I'll leave you. Look after yourselves and keep the questions and observations coming...
SHAUN HUTSON - THE RETURN
Yes, I know what you're thinking. Where the fuck has he been, what the fuck has been going on, what's happened to the site etc. etc...
To answer those questions in order...
Where have I been?
Working, going through the same kind of shit that you lot go through (and some other that I won't bore you with...)
What the fuck has been going on?
Some stuff I don't want to talk about but, that aside, I've left Macmillan and returned, thank God, to the haven of Warner Books
What's happened to the site?
Graeme and Callum have re-opened it. All requests, questions etc. etc. will now be answered/dealt with more quickly (remembering that I'm trying to write books all the time for you wonderful bastards to read and it takes fucking time...)
Let's have some explanations for you then. Right, are you strapped in? Good
I left Macmillan for various different reasons (someone apparently suggested on the message board that it was for falling book sales... Wrong! If the sales fell it was because the fuckers didn't do anything to make them rise. And while I'm on the subject, the same person said that my version of THE TERMINATOR was pulled by the producers of the film. Wrong again! My then publishers, W. H. Allen, pulled it because it was illegal (the small matter of not acquiring the rights...) It wasn't pulled by the producers of the film, got that? I've also never kept quiet about it, if you'd read the fucking site properly then you'd know that...)
Anyway, I write three of my best novels for Macmillan (WARHOL'S PROPHECY, EXIT WOUNDS and COMPULSION), many of you have thought and said so and I thank everyone of you for that and for reading them... Macmillan then have a problem, shortly after they acquired me, they also acquired James Herbert (remember..?)
Knowing that he and I get on about as well as Hitler and a chief Rabbi, (and also that they've paid him shit-loads to sign and bought his backlist which Hodder were only to happy to let go...) they find themselves with a problem. Do they promote old, tired and safe or do they take a chance on young, angry and different? Having a fucking guess..
So, seeing how Macmillan have virtually fucked my career, Warners say, we'd like to have you back as a horror writer. Surprise, surprise, I return.
Graeme's explanations about HYBRID were spot on. The title came about because I had three quarters of a Doyle novel done, was told it wasn't wanted and 'integrated' a horror novel in and around it. The next one, HELL TO PAY (out next August) moves closer still of the kind of horror/thriller I did back in ASSASSIN/RENEGADES/CAPTIVES days and the one after that will see yours truly return as a fucking horror write again.
Those of you who've followed my career will know that I don't read other authors much but there's a few things to clear up regarding this 'what type of book/who writes what' stuff. Stephen King, to my mind, is a brilliant writer (God that hurt), a born story-teller. I've never read a Live Barker book in my life but, from what I know about him from meeting him, he can be pretentious. Dean Koontz used to write great horror but now, apparently, is a thriller writer. James Herbert? His last book, I believe, was about fucking fairies... Need I say more?
Someone on the message board mentioned that Ramsey Campbell had no longer got an English publisher and did this mean I'd won. As far as I'm concerned I was never fighting battles with other authors, mainly because I couldn't give a flying fuck what they'[re doing and have always found it surprising that many of them seem to be bothered about what I'm doing. My only battle was and is with mediocrity, complacency and repetition.
Someone very kindly pointed out that every single one of my books have been different and that's the way it will remain. I seem to possess something that is a bit of a drawback in the horror business, namely, pride in my fucking work and concern for my readers. Still, what can you do, eh? I also swear too much, get too aggressive (an editor told me), become violent if confronted (a Managing Director told me) and, horror of horrors, tell the truth when that isn't always what's wanted (an editorial director told me). Well fuck that. That's me. In real life and in my books. You know, you wonderful bastards, you read them all.
I hope this has answered some questions and paved the way for the site to get going again and, this time, with a lot of shit behind me and a lot of fury inside me, you'll get the answers to all your questions, no matter what they are. So get e-mailing, typing or whatever.
HYBRID is out now in hardback. COMPULSION is out now in paperback. Let me know what you think of them. Your opinions, as ever, are the only ones that count.
By the way, and it's a slight digression, has anyone other than me been watching that I'M A CELEBRITY; GET ME OUT OF HERE! Fuck me... Next series, one I'd like to see anyway, either CELEBRITY DEATH CAMP (put the Beckhams, Ant and fucking Dec and loads of other over-paid, overexposed bastards in a concentration camp and let's all watch as they starve to fucking death...) or, even better, CELEBRITY DSS. Stick ten of the leeches on a council estate for a week (like the one in COMPULSION, the one I grew up on...) see how they manage then... Just a thought.
Take care all of you.
Let's go.
Shaun