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Q&A: Richard Thomas on ‘Spontaneous Human Combustion’: “The best horror is a balance between terror and horror…the monster come home to roost.”

Chris Well

In an interview, the author talks about being drawn to dark fiction, shares what he likes about horror stories, and reveals his pet peeves.

“I’m drawn to more psychological horror, how the layers of body, mind, and soul go deep into the storytelling to get you to turn the page, feel strong emotions, and then blow your mind, staying with you long after you put the book or story down.”

Author Richard Thomas is nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for his horror fiction collection, Spontaneous Human Combustion. In our exclusive interview with him, Thomas tells Monster Complex what drives his unique approach to writing horror fiction, shares what attracts him to horror stories, and explains the challenges of sharing short horror fiction vs longer horror fiction.

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About the book Spontaneous Human Combustion

A TOR NIGHTFIRE MOST EXCITING HORROR BOOK OF 2022

“In range alone, Richard Thomas is boundless. He is Lovecraft. He is Bradbury. He is Gaiman.”
—Chuck Palahniuk

With a Foreword by Brian Evenson

In this new collection, Richard Thomas has crafted 14 stories that push the boundaries of dark fiction in an intoxicating, piercing blend of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Equally provocative and profound, each story is masterfully woven with transgressive themes that burrow beneath the skin.

  • A poker game yields a strange prize that haunts one man, his game of chance now turned into a life-or-death coin flip.

  • A set of twins find they have mysterious new powers when an asteroid crashes in a field near their house, and the decisions they make create an uneasy balance.

  • A fantasy world is filled with one man’s desire to feel whole again, finally finding love, only to have the shocking truth of his life exposed in an appalling twist.

  • A father and son work slave labor in a brave new world run by aliens and mount a rebellion that may end up freeing them all.

  • A clown takes off his make-up in a gloomy basement to reveal something more horrifying under the white, tacky skin.

Powerful and haunting, Thomas’ transportive collection dares you to examine what lies in the darkest, most twisted corners of human existence and not be transformed by what you find.

Spontaneous Human Combustion
Richard Thomas
Turner
Categories: Literary Short Stories, Horror Short Stories, Single Authors Short Stories

Buy Spontaneous Human Combustion from Amazon

About author Richard Thomas

Richard Thomas is the award-winning author whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications. In addition to the Bram Stoker Award-nominated collection Spontaneous Human Combustion, Thomas’ books also include novels and more short story collections. His focus is on neo-noir, new_weird, and speculative fiction, typically including elements of violence, mental instability, breaks in reality, unreliable narrators, and tragedies. In recent years, his dark fiction has added more hope, leaning into hopepunk.

He has won contests at ChiZine and One Buck Horror, has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, and has been long-listed for Best Horror of the Year six times. He was also the editor of four anthologies. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, Shirley Jackson, and Thriller awards. In his spare time he is a columnist at Lit Reactor. He was the Editor-in-Chief at Dark House Press and Gamut Magazine.

Thomas lives with his family in the Chicago area.

Interview with Richard Thomas about Spontaneous Human Combustion

Q: What drives your unique approach to writing / collecting /sharing horror fiction?

“That’s a great question. I think it starts with the fact that I’m a maximalist. So I tend to write stories that are heavy in setting and sensory details, with minimal dialogue, striving to be lyrical, immersive, visceral.

“And then factor into that my influences. I grew up reading classic horror like Stephen King, but along the way spent time with the beatniks, as well as neo-noir authors, as well as a variety of speculative genres—fantasy, science fiction, and horror of course, with a splash of the new-weird, transgressive, and magical realism.

“And then literary fiction from my MFA. I’m always drawn to dark fiction, and my contemporaries are doing some really interesting things—at Tor, The Dark, Nightmare, etc.”

Q: What do you like about horror fiction? What attracts you to it?

“To me, the best horror is a balance between terror and horror—the clues, the foreshadowing, the uncertainty, the unknown paired with the horror of the reveal, the truth, the violence, the monster come home to roost. I’m also drawn to more psychological horror, how the layers of body, mind, and soul go deep into the storytelling to get you to turn the page, feel strong emotions, and then blow your mind, staying with you long after you put the book or story down.”

Q: What are your pet peeves about horror fiction that you’ve seen others do?

“I think relying on gore and violence to do all of the work. I’m not above writing a gnarly, violent, unsettling story or scene. In fact, I have a story in the latest issue of Cemetery Dance (#78) entitled, “Battle Not with Monsters,” and it has a pretty wild ending, classic horror, IMO. But don’t let your story hinge on only the violence.

“Likewise, don’t let the twist or secret story be the whole story, let it be a gradual reveal that adds up to something shocking, that once we get there, and subvert the expectation, it still feels inevitable, while being surprising and original.”

Q: What do you consider the challenges of creating and sharing short horror fiction vs longer horror fiction?

“You don’t have the room to waste. You have to grab the reader right away, and also be clear in what’s happening. The biggest criticism I hear from readers that love novels but not stories (or collections) is that they have to start over every 15-20 pages—new setting, new characters, new plot, new world. People don’t want to have to work so hard to figure out what the hell is going on.

“That’s why I tell my students that the opening to their stories is so important—title, narrative hooks, exposition, inciting incident, world building, character, emotion, conflicts (internal and external). It’s HARD to get that all going in a few paragraphs, in a few pages.”

Q: What do the stories in this collection have in common? Was the collection inspired by any particular idea or goal?

“Hope. Over the last six years looking at the state of the world, Covid, and everything else I just couldn’t write dark, bleak fiction that ending with everyone losing. It was too much for me.

“What does that look like in Spontaneous Human Combustion, my collection, that’s currently a Bram Stoker Award finalist? Sometimes hope is just hope, other times it is vengeance, or justice, or a balancing of the scales.

“Sometimes the horror does win, but that doesn’t mean EVERYONE loses, sometimes it’s the death of one for the good of the many, and sometimes it’s a bad person suffering at the hands of an even worse entity. The horror can be in the journey, with a strong opening, and hopeful ending. It can also be in the ending, the way it ripple outward.

“I try to keep my readers on their toes—the collection a mix of gritty neo-noir, Lovecraftian surrealism, epic fantasy, weird science fiction, and unsettling realizations.”

Q: What are the best ways for readers to connect with you and keep up with your news and updates?

Here are a few links:

More about Richard Thomas online

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