Horror Q&A: Peter Prellwitz (Something Wicked This Way Rides)

BooksInterview
Written By Chris Well

“The isolation and mystic the Old West provides is the perfect background for horror.”

The short story collection Something Wicked This Way Rides from Dark Owl Publishing is an anthology featuring some two-dozen authors exploring the Old West with a twisted view, showcasing the 1800s through stories featuring the wicked, supernatural, demonic and just plain weird.

Author Peter Prellwitz contributes the macabre tale “Partners.” In this interview, he discusses his story, the juxtaposition of westerns with weird tales, and how “Partners” compares with his usual fiction.

More interviews in this series:

  1. Horror Q&A: Lawrence Dagstine

  2. Horror Q&A: John A. Frochio

  3. Horror Q&A: Steve Gladwin

  4. Horror Q&A: Alistair Rey

  5. Horror Q&A: Jonathon Mast

  6. Horror Q&A: Matias Travieso-Diaz

  7. Horror Q&A: John B. Rosenman

  8. Horror Q&A: Kevin M. Folliard

  9. Horror Q&A: Gustavo Bondoni

  10. Horror Q&A: Jason J. McCuiston

  11. Horror Q&A: Andrea Thomas

Q1 What’s your favorite thing about mashing up horror with the Old West?

The isolation and mystic the Old West provides is the perfect background for horror. When adding in the many stories and legends of two clashing cultures, there is always opportunity for horror through misunderstanding as well as fear of the unknown.

Q2 Did you approach your story as a western story with elements of horror—or vice versa?

I wrote this as a western, which is my more familiar genre. For myself, it is easier to introduce horror into a genre than it is to write a horror story.

The unexpectedness of horror in another genre adds surprise and increases the intensity to an unprepared reader.

Q3 What inspired this particular story of yours?

In this case, a very specific Western song. It’s called "Partners," and was performed by Eddy Arnold in his 1959 album Thereby Hangs a Tale. [RCA Victor (catalog no. LSP-2036)]

Q4 How does your story in this anthology compare/contrast with your usual fiction?

While I do include horror scenes in my novels and short stories, I generally write in the science-fiction genre. I do write westerns, but they’re Martian Westerns, written by Mars’ most popular author, H.K. Devonshire. Since he writes in the “B Movie Western” style, there’s not a lot of horror in them. This was my first attempt at a horror/Western.

Q5 What do you want to tell Monster Complex readers about your latest or upcoming work?

After my longtime publisher at Double Dragon Publishing called it a career and all rights reverted to the authors, I’m setting up Lofty Publishing, LLC to get my ten novels back in print. They’ll be showing up soon online and in stores, starting with the first one in the story timeline, Redeeming the Plumb, which follows a young rich teen as she escapes from her father and tumbles from the very top of Martian wealth and culture to the very bottom of a wild and open society. It costs her everything, but she gains freedom.

FIND THE AUTHOR ONLINE

ABOUT THE BOOK

Something Wicked This Way Rides

(Dark Owl Publishing)

An anthology of weird westerns and genre fiction in the Wild West

Click here for the Goodreads page!

This book is appropriate for teenagers.

The anthology Something Wicked This Way Rides explores the Old West with a skewed view, showcasing the weird western genre through stories that explore the peculiar and fantastic, the wicked that was and could have been. Experience spiritual nightmares, mythical monsters, cosmic outlaws, discerning gods, and science run amok. Even the North Pole Security Division isn't immune to the supernatural strangeness that stalks the late 1800s. In the tradition of pulp and western stories of a bygone era, these are thirty tales to intrigue, amaze, and perhaps downright spook readers out of their boots.

Includes stories from:

MORE HORROR AUTHORS

Chris Well

Chris Well been a writer pretty much his entire life. (Well, since his childhood.) Over the years, he has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio, and books. He now is the chief of the website Monster Complex, celebrating monster stories in lit and pop culture. He also writes horror comedy fiction that embraces Universal Monsters, 1960s sitcoms, 1980s action movies, and the X-Files.

https://chriswell.substack.com/
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