EDITOR'S NOTE: F. Paul Wilson was never pleased with Michael Mann's lyrical yet muddy film adaptation of his novel The Keep, the first volume in The Adversary Cycle of novels. He wants you to know that he dismisses the depiction of his character Molosar, above, as "a cross between Darth Vader and The Hulk." He's right, but I've always found this monster pretty cool!

Award-winning writer F. Paul Wilson has written over 25 novels, as well as numerous novellas, short stories, and screenplays. A practicing physician, he is the 'Doctor of Dark Thrillers' to a legion of fans who rabidly await his books, especially those in his best-selling Repairman Jack series. Dr. Wilson recently took some time from a frenzied writing schedule and promotional tour to answer some questions.

First, let me say thanks again for doing this interview. I know from your newsletter that the next few months have you going non-stop, so I won't waste any time. You're on a book tour right now to support Bloodline, the latest in the Repairman Jack series. Where will you be over the next few months?

Gonna be hectic. Paramus and Toms River, NJ; NYC; Atlanta; Seattle; LA, San Francisco; Mountain View, CA; Portland, OR, finishing off with WFC. The details - including maps - are available on the Tor website.

Did you ever in your wildest dreams expect the RJ books to become such a phenomenon? What do you attribute Jack's popularity to?

Well, he's one of a kind. I don't know of another urban mercenary who keeps bumping into the paranormal. Plus he's an autodidact - he doesn't come from the SEALs or the CIA, he's from a small town in New Jersey and has learned most of his skills on his own. That makes him accessible, I think. He's a sort of blue-collar hero you feel you could have a beer with. But he's also crazy.

When can we expect the next installment in the RJ series?

Well, Bloodline just came out. I've finished the next - not sure of the title yet. That should show up in a limited edition from Gauntlet in the spring and a regular trade edition next September.

You're also putting the finishing touches on a Repairman Jack book for the YA market, the first in another potential series. How will this book be different from the books in the regular series?

I've got a 3-book contract for YA Jack. It's 1983, he's 14, and just discovering his talent for fixing situations. It all takes place in a small town nestled up against the Jersey Pine Barrens where all sorts of strange stuff goes on. These will be less violent. Don't worry, people will get killed, but off-stage. I plan to have characters from other books wander through. It's going to be fun. The first is called JACK: Secret Histories and it's due in June.

Besides the RJ and Adversary Cycle books, you've also written a lot of sci-fi and medical thrillers. Any plans to do something in those areas in the future?

I have a mainstream thriller with some wacky medical aspects all planned out in my head, but it will have to wait 'til I finish the Jack series. I'm figuring Jack will run maybe 4-5 more books before I bring him to the grand finale in Nightworld.

You've won two Libertarian Futurist Society Prometheus Awards (for Wheels Within Wheels and Sims) and two Hall of Fame awards (for Healer and An Enemy of the State); do you have any problems with your work being labeled libertarian? Is this theme just an outgrowth of your use of 'outsider' main characters, or do you think your writing is influenced by your take on the problems inherent with most governments?

I was born a libertarian, but didn't know it because there was no term for it then. I've always felt that I owned my life and that, beyond preventing me from initiating physical force against another person, no one had a right to control my actions. If I want to buy or sell sexual favors, or pollute my bloodstream with drugs, that's my choice and my business. That's the sort of thing that gives the Right fits. The only economic system compatible with the self-ownership of libertarianism is laissez-faire capitalism, which causes fainting spells on the Left.

Let's switch gears for a moment. You've written novels, novellas, short stories, and screenplays. What's your favorite medium to work in, and why?

Novels. I like the elbow room they offer, something missing from short stories. I like the way they allow me to slip into my characters' skins, which is restricted in a screenplay.

Over the years, I've enjoyed your short stories and story collections. Any plans to produce more in that area?

My third and final collection, AFTERSHOCK & OTHERS will be out in '09, I believe. I'm pretty much out of the short story business. Can't say why, exactly. They don't interest me anymore. I like to read them, but unless it's a special occasion - like writing a pastiche of "The Distributor" for the Matheson tribute anthology - I'd rather work on a novel.

You've stated in the past that you've always been a horror and sci-fi buff. What is it about those genres that drew you in?

I believe we're wired for certain things. I'm hardwired for the strange and outr?. An early epiphany occurred when the trailer for The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms appeared on my family TV when I was a kid. Remember the face-hugger on John Hurt's space helmet in Alien? That was Li'l F on the TV screen. All the kids I knew - boys, anyway - wanted to see that film. But I had to see it, I needed to see it. And I drove my father crazy until he took me.

When you do limited editions of previously published novels, do you go back and make changes, add back previously edited material? (As King did when he re-released the uncut version of The Stand? )

I don't have cut material to restore, but I do deal with changes in technology. For instance, the ubiquity of the cell phone has made the frantic search for a phone booth obsolete. I also spruce up the prose. I find a lot of my old stuff overwritten and redundant and, well, clunky. I write much leaner, cleaner, meaner prose now and some of that old stuff makes me wince. Not everything. Sometimes I'll come across an image or a description and I'll stop and think, Hey, that's not bad. Did I write that? I'm more sensitive to redundancies: people crouching down, smoke rising up, the dying mother rakosh falling to her death "trailing smoke and flame behind her." (Like where else would she trail them? Ahead of her? Nice trick.) All those things get zapped.

It's no longer a secret that Ryan Reynolds has been tapped to play Jack in the new movie. Can you give us any other hints?

Wish I had hints to give. Beacon is agonizingly slow in their hunt for the right director. Reynolds, though, is perfect for the script.

Many years ago, you did an interview in which you mention that one of the reasons you started thinking you could publish your writing was because so much of what you were reading "...just didn't seem to end, they didn't seem to begin, they just sort of seemed to be situations." These days, conversations on the boards and at conferences are full of complaints that many writers today are doing the same thing.

That was a reaction to sf's so-called New Wave. Most of that crap is gone and forgotten, but the old-hat stories the New Wavers sneered at are still in print. Imagine that.

Do you think we're ready for another horror and dark fiction explosion, like we had in the seventies and eighties?

The original was ignited by 3 enormously popular novels - Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, Carrie - and the equally popular movies adapted from them. That can't happen again. There's a new horror film every month, it's all over TV and in plenty of books not labeled horror. There's no critical mass of need as in the 70s. If you want it, it's there, waiting.

You're a frequent instructor at the Borderlands Bootcamp for Writers. It's obvious what writers get out of attending programs like that; what do established writers such as yourself gain from it?

I love seeing one of the grunts - that's what they're called -suddenly get it. That light goes on in their eyes when they see what they've been doing wrong, how with a few simple changes their prose comes alive. Witnessing that and knowing you've sparked it is a high. Especially with those who are almost there and you realize you've just lit a fire under them.

I find it sharpens my own writing skills as well, especially when I realize I've been getting sloppy and making some of the same errors I'm red lining on the grunts.

Out of your own works, which one do you like the best, and why?

My two least successful -commercially, that is - are my two favorites. Black Wind because it has such sweep and scope and depth of characterization while being fundamentally horrifying. And The Fifth Harmonic because it's the most personal. I'm a skeptic in search of transcendence and I'm proud of the way I managed to dramatize the elemental conflict between knowledge and belief in an exotic setting.

For a while now, zombies have been a big thing in the horror genre. Before that it was serial killers; before that, vampires and werewolves. Do you see any big trends coming along?

Boogers. Large, lumbering, slime-trailing, toxin-laden, brain-munching boogers are the next trend.

I see trends as the enemies of innovation and originality. They encourage writers to dig in a communal garden rather than cultivate their own. I see a trend and I want to stand it on its head. The flood of "good" vampires - whether detectives or tortured Byronic aesthetes - goaded me into going retro with Midnight Mass in which they're ugly, nasty parasites. Repairman Jack - blue-collar, self-taught, and fallible - was a reaction to the super-competent, super-trained, always one-step-ahead-of-the-bad-guy Jason Bournes of the times.

Who are you reading these days?

With two novels per year under contract, I don't get much chance to read fiction these days. Much of my reading is non-fiction: research. And when I do get to fiction, it's often stuff sent to me for a blurb.

Who do you feel are some of the up and coming writers today?

Some up and comers impress me, but whether any of them will be the next Brian Keene remains to be seen. Among newly published people, Sarah Langan and Alex Sokoloff come to mind. I know there are others but it's late and my head is empty. Soon-to-be-published potential winners are Dan Waters and Rhodi Hawk. I predict Dan is going to make a big splash in YA with his Generation Dead, and I think he'll have success in the adult market as well; he has a wonderful voice. Rhodi's A Twisted Ladder blew me away - a genuinely creepy and innovative Southern Gothic. If she can maintain that level of quality, she has real break-out potential.

What's the funniest or strangest thing that's ever happened to you at a conference or signing?

Things like signing a breast aren't so unusual these days, but here's something that speaks to the writing life.

My first published story was "The Cleaning Machine" in the March, 1971 Startling Mystery Stories which promptly folded. I was supposed to be paid on publication but the check never came.

Flash forward to 1986 when I'm signing at a convention. A reader presents an illustrated sf magazine called Galaxy Mission and asks me to sign the title page of my story. What story? I've never even heard of Galaxy Mission, let alone sold to it. So he opens to the only text piece in the issue, and there's "The Cleaning Machine" under my byline. Pirated! My story had been published twice but I still hadn't seen a penny for it. And people wonder why so many writers die drunk or mad or both.

Well, that about does it. Thanks for everything, and enjoy the tour!

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For more information on F. Paul Wilson, visit his website, www.repairmanjack.com , where you can also sign up for his newsletter and get the latest news on his book tour and upcoming projects.


JG Faherty is a writer of dark fiction. His short stories have appeared in many magazines and ezines, most recently in Cemetery Dance #58, MagusZine, All Possible Worlds, and the Garden State Horror Writers Association 2007 anthology. He's also the Fiction Editor at Doorways Magazine, and writes regular columns for the Horror Writers Association monthly newsletter and Doorways Magazine. You can visit him at www.jgfaherty.com.