"My name is Victoria Winters. A stranger has come to Collinwood, probing secrets long thought lost, an author who knows more about the Collins family than any man should. Will he save the remnants of this once great dynasty... or destroy it?"

Short story writer, novelist, magazine editor, and anthology editor Stephen Mark Rainey has added a new category to his bibliography: audio book scripter. Rainey, who has been a DARK SHADOWS fanatic since he was a child, recently scripted DARK SHADOWS: THE PATH OF FATE, featuring the voices of David Selby (Wuentin Collins) and Lara Parker (as the scene stealing evil witch Angelique). The production is available as a CD and a downloadable audio file from Big Finish. I had a great time reminiscing with Mark about the many incarnations of Dan Curtis's threadbare, yet iconic, daytime serial.


Tell me about your earliest memories of DARK SHADOWS.


Now you've done it. Holy cow...it was one of my earliest obsessions (second only to Godzilla). On June 27, 1966, my family was visiting my grandparents in Gainesville, Georgia. I was seven years old. I watched the very first episode of DARK SHADOWS, and since by then I was a veteran aficionado of things weird and mysterious, I took to it immediately. When we returned to my hometown in Virginia - blast it all - I found that the local ABC affiliate didn't carry it (and for this I have pretty much never forgiven WGHP, Channel 8 from High Point, NC). The ABC station out of Lynchburg, VA (WLVA-13), was running the show, but in our area, you had to have cable to pick up that channel. Well, in 1966, only about a dozen households in town had cable, but my best friend Frank's family was one of them. As you might imagine, I took every opportunity to invite myself over to his place after school to watch the show. Also, as you can probably guess, whenever I spent the night over there, as I frequently did on weekends, I had Technicolor nightmares about Barnabas, Angelique, and the rest of the Collins gang.

There was a particular episode (during the 1790 storyline) when Lt. Nathan Forbes (Joel Crothers) shot Barnabas with a crossbow. Barnabas promptly tugged the bolt from his chest; growled menacingly, "You didn't get my heart, Lieutenant. You didn't get my heart!"; and attacked the hapless young seaman. Well, I was staying in Frank's family's spare bedroom that night, and it was pitch dark in there, and that scene kept playing over and over in my head, and that may be the first all-nighter I ever pulled because, sure enough, I saw sunrise the next morning, and young Mark was bone tired.

We got cable in 1969, just as the Leviathans episodes were starting. To many, that storyline marks one of the series' low points, but to me, it was Dark-by-God-Shadows, and I could watch it in my very own home. Then, in 1970, HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS came to the local drive-in, and Frank and I put the screws to our parents to take us to see it. It was my mom who caved in to the unimaginable pressure, so we caught the first showing of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS at the 220 Drive-In Theater in Martinsville, VA. Man, that was pure magic.

When the show was canceled, I threatened to build an A-bomb to teach ABC-TV the error of its ways, but on my measly allowance, I couldn't afford enriched uranium. You can imagine the sigh of relief the world must have breathed.


You were lucky! I caught my first episode when I was four years old. This was when the show was syndicated immediately after its cancellation. I remember an off camera wolfman transformation, and then complaining parents got the show yanked - after just that episode! My exposure to Barnabas and company was in the form of the Gold Key comic book - which had Barnabas, Quentin and a very young looking Elizabeth the only residents of Collinwood Manor - and a series of Harlequin-type romance novels, some of which were quite good. I think it's a testament to the level of pop culture status the show achieved that I became obsessed with it through spinoff merchandise.


Yeah, the fever did stay hot for a long while even after the series was canceled. Of course, NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS, the theatrical feature, didn't come out for almost a year after "the end." The movie didn't exactly fizzle, but since it departed fairly radically from the tone of the show - and the edits the studio insisted on devastated it, plot-wise - I don't think it did much to assuage the fans who were pining.

At the time, I did love those Marilyn Ross Dark Shadows novels; I had about a dozen of them, plus the novelization of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, which helped keep my own fire going. I can't count how many times I must have read them as a kid, and I've jealously guarded all my original copies. Some of the stories were okay, but the novels were dreadfully written; the dialogue often consisted of lines like, "'Her body was drained of its vital red liquid!' Elizabeth exclaimed." The novels' heroines - whether Victoria Winters, Carolyn Stoddard, Maggie Evans, or any one of dozens of fabricated Collins cousins - were completely interchangeable. Of course, that never stopped me from collecting the rest of them over the years. Of the set of 31, I think I'm shy only one, which is evidently the rarest of them because I've never seen it selling for anything resembling a reasonable price. I'm not quite diehard enough to spend a small fortune on it.

As a kid, I knew that the continuity between the novels and the series was spotty at best, but in reality, any resemblance between the show and the books is pretty much coincidental. Essentially, they're canned paranormal romance plots with characters bearing the names of people from DARK SHADOWS. There's rarely even any continuity between the books. You may have one that takes place in 1870, and there's one group of Collins family members living at Collinwood; another may take place in 1871, and there will be an entirely different gang living there. In a way, though, that makes them all the more fascinating, as it sort of takes the parallel-time concept from the show and expands wildly on it, even if inadvertently.


I enjoyed the 90s remake series with Ben Cross quite a bit, but I've never come across a bootleg of the abandoned pilot from the proposed third version, which Dan Curtis was also exec producing - have you?


No, I haven't. I know it has been shown at one or more of the annual DARK SHADOWS festivals, to mixed reviews. I certainly wouldn't mind checking it out, given the opportunity. I could be way off, since I haven't actually seen it, but the cast didn't strike me as quite the ticket for the Collinsport gang - although I do like Alec Newman; I imagine he would have done Barnabas justice. Martin Donovan was probably a good choice for Roger, too.

Yeah, I enjoyed the 1991 revival series quite a bit, in spite of its plethora of glaring problems. It was just starting to hit its stride when NBC canceled it. I really wish it had been given the chance to develop because when it was good, it was really good. The journey back to 1790 was wonderfully realized, particularly Victoria Winters' trial.

Alas, in 1991, I still couldn't afford enriched uranium, so NBC was also spared the humiliation.


Yeah, they ended on a pretty maddening cliffhanger, too. I'd have been curious to see how they might have departed from the original at that point. And now Johnny Depp has acquired the big screen rights, because he's always wanted to play Barnabas, and Tim Burton is involved in the development. I think Depp's an excellent choice, especially now that he's older and we don't have to worry about this becoming TWILIGHT.


When Beth Massie and I wrote Dreams of the Dark for HarperCollins, we had the idea we could make it more or less a continuation of the events of the 1991 series. The novel had to follow the continuity of the original show (loosely, at least), but since the revival series mostly paralleled the early DARK SHADOWS storyline, one could view it either way - as a lost chapter of the original series or as new revival series episode. While we based most of the characters on those from the original series, we intentionally patterned Victoria after Joanna Going from the revival, as she was just perfect in the role and we felt that contemporary readers would appreciate a modern, savvy young woman more than a somewhat retro, perpetually befuddled heroine.

What I find mind-boggling is that almost as many years have passed since the revival series as between the revival and the original. I mean, good lord, it's almost enough to make one feel old. I dare to have high hopes for a Johnny Depp DARK SHADOWS. If there's anyone who could do Barnabas convincingly, I expect he's the chap.


One company that definitely is keeping DARK SHADOWS alive is Big Finish Productions, which is probably best known for their DOCTOR WHO audio dramas. I'm very curious about how your deal with them for DARK SHADOWS: THE PATH OF FATE came about.


I met Stuart Manning of Big Finish at one of the DARK SHADOWS festivals several years ago, and he had enjoyed Dreams of the Dark. I had plotted a second novel, titled The Labyrinth of Souls, for the series, but then HarperCollins eliminated its media tie-in division. For a time, it looked as if Tor might continue the series, so I went ahead and wrote a draft of the novel, just to have a leg up. However, apart from Lara Parker's sequel to Angelique's Descent, they didn't pick up the series either. So for the edification of fans, I posted a chapter a week on my Web site, and it came to Stuart's attention. He originally had it mind to perhaps do Labyrinth as an audio book, but when Big Finish started producing the dramatic readings, he asked me to write a treatment for one. That one became Path of Fate.

There's still a possibility that Labyrinth might be produced as an audio book, but it's a matter of syncing actors' schedules with Big Finish's, and I understand that's been problematic. I've written a couple of other treatments for their dramatic readings, but they haven't fit with what they're looking for, so whether I'll do any more at this point is uncertain. Regardless, overall, I'm very pleased with how they handled Path of Fate, and based on the feedback I've received, I'd say DARK SHADOWS fans are liking it just fine. This makes me smile.


Did you choose to feature Quentin and Angelique as the leads in your audio drama, or were they assigned to you?


Big Finish has the actors booked in advance to do the dramas, so the scripts are written with their characters in mind from the beginning - and meaning there is a firm deadline for turning in the script. Originally, they had asked for a story with Quentin and Carolyn, to be played by Nancy Barrett, but at the last minute, Nancy became unavailable, so I had to rewrite the whole danged thing for Angelique's character instead. Yes, rush job. At first, I tried to adapt what I had already done, but that wasn't working out, so I trashed most of it and started fresh. In the end, it turned out to be a better script than what I originally conceived, so I guess it's just as well that Nancy made other plans at the time.


Nancy Barrett certainly made significant contributions to the original show and movie (nobody danced to instrumental rock at the Blue Whale like her!), but I don't think anyone would argue that you didn't get to play with two out of the show's three most exciting characters.


True; putting Quentin and Angelique together automatically expands the scope of dramatic possibilities. It's fair to say that writing a story about Quentin and Angelique was exhilarating; I mean, they're legendary. However, I will say that, along with Thayer David, Nancy was one of the very best actors on the show. Having watched the original series in relatively recent years, I'm just in awe of how flawlessly she played her parts - particularly considering how young she was at the time. When I wrote Labyrinth of Souls, I focused on Carolyn for much of the novel, and even though it featured Barnabas, Quentin, Julia Hoffman, and Count Petofi - certainly the show's most striking characters - Carolyn's character was my favorite, just because I could envision Nancy actually playing the part. If she were available to perform Labyrinth for Big Finish at some point, well, that would rate highly with me.

How extensively does your script deal with the show's time travel trappings?


Not a whole lot, really, though it touches on how and why the time-travel episodes originated. It also expands a little on how the original Quentin's stairway through time was responsible for the parallel time situations that arose in the show's later episodes.


Did you have to do any research on the show before penning this script, for continuity's sake, or is it a given that there is a certain amount of creative freedom with the various timelines?


Most of show's plot, from its beginning to its end, is engraved indelibly in my brain. I sometimes refer back to a couple of Pomegranate Press's Dark Shadows books if I need a refresher on certain specifics. Although Big Finish didn't provide me with a series bible or anything, they intend their productions to follow the original series, and its logical continuation, as closely as possible.

They had me modify a few lines of the script to fit in with their idea of continuity, but nothing at all major. For example, I had indicated at one point that Professor Stokes had died, but they didn't want me to go that route, so I placed him in Egypt. I mean, if he was hanging around Collinsport, he would almost certainly have involved himself with the goings-on in Path of Fate!


What was your impression upon hearing the production for the first time?


In general, I was quite enthused by the performances and production values. In most cases, it was fairly close to how I imagined it while I was writing it. Not always, of course, but I can't say any aspect of it disappointed me - other than the fact that the performances accentuate what I feel are shortcomings in the writing itself. For example, the prose in some places comes off as far more purple than I intended. My idea was to emulate Lara's narrative voice from Angelique's Descent and The Salem Branch, but I don't think I quite succeeded. Still, the actors really make the best of it. I hope they weren't rolling their eyes while reading.

The ending came out even better than I imagined. I was quite pleased with it, especially Lara's performance as both Angelique and Diabolos in the same scene.


Between the novel you mentioned earlier (I love that cover, by the way!) and this audio drama, you've been able to contribute to DARK SHADOWS' overall mythology. Does this hold any significance for you?


If I had done these things twenty years ago, I'd be shitting all over myself with excitement. Having been involved in the business end of writing for many years now, I've grown a very thick skin; it's prerequisite to handling the rejections, the pitfalls, the headaches that are an inherent part of a writer's life. The flipside of this is that, for me, the thick skin also tempers the exuberance of success.

When I do something like a DARK SHADOWS project, by the time it comes out, I'm two projects down the road since I began work on it. That's not to say it doesn't feel great; it really does. If someone had told me when I was ten years old that as an adult I would write stuff for DARK SHADOWS, I'd have had a coronary, died, and thus never been able to write any DARK SHADOWS stuff. As Dana Andrews said in CURSE OF THE DEMON, my favorite horror film...sometimes it's better not to know.


I see you have a story in the latest issue of that annual publication, CEMETERY DANCE...


I do. It's one I wrote about three years ago, called "The Gaki." It's kinda scary. I know, I know, coming from me, what a shock, right?


And your short story collection,Other Gods, has made the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards. Congratulations.


Thanks. Other Gods collects a number of my tales from the past 20 years that I consider most representative of my work. Lots of stuff that I consider Lovecraftian-without-the-typical-Lovecraftian-trappings. I'm happy to see it get some recognition. I think most readers who enjoy scary stuff would probably get a kick out of it. It's beautifully produced by Dark Regions, and Wayne Miller did a fabulous job on the cover art. He really captured what it's all about.


The Nightmare Frontier is one of my favorite titles ever!


And again, many thanks. Sarob Press did a great job on the limited edition(s). That's one I'd love to see get picked up by a bigger house. Gary Braunbeck put it at the top of his favorite book of the year list a couple of years back, which was almost enough to break through the thick skin and have me running around in circles in the front yard.


I think it's impossible to end an author interview without asking what's in the pipeline, so let's just go for the gusto and embrace that nevitability.


I've got a new novel called The Monarchs that really, really needs a good home. My agent's been pushing it for a while, but you know how the publishing business is currently - uggh. Mainly, I'm working on a lot of short fiction right now; I've always enjoyed writing short stories, and they generally do find good homes. Look for some of them soon in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (the online magazine), and the anthologies Tales Out of Miskatonic University, Northern Haunts, Winter Chills, and a few others.

I've also just finished a couple of brand new tales, so I hope you'll be seeing them in the near future as well.

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