Ryan Rennik

I have been fortunate to be interviewed about several of my stories, and the text of those interviews is reproduced here.

Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives Interview—Ryan Rennik

1. Who is the occult detective you’ve paired with Holmes? Why did you make this team-up?

I have paired Holmes and Watson with Mrs. Agatha Hudgins, who is an acquaintance of Carnacki (and trained in some of his methods). As I described her to editor John Linwood Grant in my initial pitch, Mrs. Hudgins is a force of nature. She is a formidable, non-nonsense, independent woman who employs her own techniques to ferret out real ghostly happenings from fake mediums and the like. I wanted to create an original character a bit out of the norm for the period—an older woman able to very much hold her own with the men of her day. She is much more open to the possibility of the supernatural than Holmes, but nevertheless, like Carnacki, she’s a scrupulous skeptic who employs the scientific method in all her investigations.

2. What makes your occult detective stand out?

While I very much love Victorian detective fiction and the occult detective genre as a whole, we’ve come to expect certain traits from our protagonists, i.e., men like Holmes, Carnacki, John Silence, and others. Mrs. Hudgins is none of those things. She is an older woman of means, but she is a widow and has the temperament to make her own way in the world, brooking no nonsense and not allowing herself to be seen as a second-class figure of authority in an otherwise male-dominated world. And, because of her own experiences and past cases, as well as the training she received under Carnacki, she has certain techniques that an investigator like Holmes does not possess, though you’ll have to read my story (“The Adventure of the Country Estate”) to find out the details on that.

3. What are your current and upcoming projects? Are you working on any additional Holmes or occult detective adventures?

I have a number of fiction projects underway, including a novel (which is not an occult detective novel, sadly). In terms of occult detective fiction, I’m developing a number of ideas for the further adventures of Mrs. Hudgins, Thomas Carnacki, and a brother-and-sister pair of 1920s occult detectives. I have a clear idea for the next meeting between Holmes and Mrs. Hudgins, so I very much hope I get to publish that one some day.

4. Any last thoughts?

I’m very much looking forward to reading these collections. As an author, I’m only familiar with my own stories; I haven’t read any of the other authors’ contributions, but looking at the lists of contributors, I can only say that I am deeply honored to be included in this august bunch. These are some of my favorite authors and can’t wait to see what they’ve come up with.

The Book of Carnacki Interview—Ryan Rennik

1. What made you want to participate in The Book of Carnacki?

I’ve been a huge fan of the occult detective genre for many years and have even written an occult detective novel set in modern-day Washington, DC (As Above, So Below, published by Uncanny Books in 2013). I love both the canonical Carnacki stories by Hodgson as well as the many fine Carnacki tales that have expanded Hodgson’s original character and setting. I owe Hodgson a significant debt as an author for his many inspiring works and the opportunity to play in his sandbox for a bit was just too good to pass up. Also, I must admit that I have long admired John Linwood Grant’s writing and hoped to be able to work with him as an editor as well.

2. In your opinion, what makes Carnacki stand out from other detectives?

Two things immediately come to mind: (1) Carnacki is first and foremost a man of science, even if he delves into areas we consider the supernatural. He is a rationalist who employs science and technology, as well as mysticism and occult lore. He doesn’t presuppose that tales of the supernatural are always true, and as we know, occasionally discovers that there is a perfectly rational, non-supernatural explanation for strange occurrences. (2) The philosophical and cosmological underpinnings of Carnacki’s universe—see especially in his story “The Hog”—which I consider connected to Hodgson’s other works like The House on the Borderland and The Night Land. There’s nothing quite like Hodgson’s conception of a larger cosmological setting out there, which differs in significant ways from traditional folklore and superstition, as well as the work of other writers both before and since Hodgson.

3. Could you tell us a little bit about your story without giving too much away?

My story, “The Loyal Hound,” details one of Carnacki’s earliest experiences with the ab-natural when he was merely a schoolboy. As a bonus, it also includes the character of Arkright shortly after he and Carnacki have become friends. I wanted to explore two corners of Carnacki’s world that weren’t covered in Hodgson’s original stories: how Carnacki got started in occult detective work (I give a partial answer to this in my story, but there’s room for much more) and how he met his inner circle of friends who listen to his tales of adventure (I shed some light on the early friendship between Carnacki and Arkright though you’ll have to wait for future stories for how he met the rest).

4. What are your current and upcoming projects? Are you working on any additional Holmes or occult detective adventures?

I have a number of fiction projects underway, including a novel (which is not an occult detective novel, sadly). In terms of occult detective fiction, I have a number of ideas that I am currently developing, including some additional stories about Carnacki as a young man as well as some further stories about occult detectives of my own creation. One of these characters is Mrs. Agatha Hudgins, who can read about in Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives, Volume Four). The others are a brother and sister duo who live in rural Virginia in the 1920s.

5. Any last thoughts?

I am always looking for more Carnacki stories, so I can’t wait to see what my fellow contributors have come up with. Hoping that The Book of Carnacki proves popular enough with readers that Belanger Books considers a sequel volume….

Sherlock Holmes Adventures in the Realms of H.P. Lovecraft Interview—Ryan Rennik

Please tell us a little bit about your story without giving too much away.

I have always enjoyed classic locked-room mysteries and I’m an avowed bibliophile, so those two elements laid the groundwork for the story. I wanted to include some elements from a couple of my favorite Lovecraft stories that I don’t see get enough love: “The Dreams in the Witch House” and “From Beyond.” Blend that all together within the framework of a traditional Holmes adventure—oh, and add a young Moriarty to the mix!—and you’ve got my story.

• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft have very different writing styles. How did they blend or clash in your story?

I very much didn’t want to try to emulate Lovecraft’s writing style; I don’t have an allergy to his style, florid as it sometimes can be, but I was much more comfortable emulating Doyle’s style, so I wanted to write a story that Doyle could have written. From Lovecraft, I borrowed some of his ideas and motifs, but mostly kept him out of it, stylistically.

• What are some of your favorite Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes stories?

My first exposure to the Cthulhu Mythos was in the original edition of Deities & Demigods, a supplement for the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. I promptly fell in love with what I saw there, though I didn’t quite understand what I was seeing. It would take me a few years after that, in the mid-‘80s, to really understand the breadth and depth of Lovecraft’s work. I came to him at the age of thirteen or so, which I think is exactly the right age to fall in love with Lovecraft. The first Lovecraft story I ever read was “Pickman’s Model,” which had an unbelievably powerful effect on me, so that story will always have an important place in my heart. “The Colour Out of Space” is probably my absolute favorite Lovecraft story though; I can think of no finer work of weird fiction. It’s a perfect story in every detail.

As for Sherlock Holmes, I didn’t really read the entire Canon until I was in graduate school. I was browsing in a beautiful, cramped little used bookstore in Georgetown that hasn’t been there for many years when the proprietor recommended I pick up an omnibus of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, with an introduction by Christopher Morley. (I still have that book.) That began my journey into all things Sherlock Holmes-related. Obviously I love A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles and all the rest, but “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton” stands out as one of my favorites. It’s extremely dark: the villain is destroying lives and tormenting people and Holmes actually prevents Watson from stopping one of the victims from murdering the blackmailer. Holmes then risks his own freedom to destroy all the blackmail material and refuses to help the police find the murderer even though he knows exactly who committed the crime. Rough justice, perhaps, but it’s always struck me as both revealing quite a lot about Holmes and the absolute right course of action in those circumstances.

• What are your current and upcoming projects? Can we expect any more Holmes or Lovecraft stories from you?

I can’t imagine that I’ll ever stop writing either Holmes or Lovecraftian stories, actually. I’d love to do more occult detective stories, and the Victorian era is one of my very favorite time periods, so I’m sure I will revisit Holmes soon. I’m currently shopping around a Lovecraftian horror novel manuscript set in the early days of the Global War on Terror and I’m working on several horror/weird fiction stories set in the early twentieth century.

• Any last thoughts?

I can’t wait to see what my fellow authors have come up with. And special thanks to Belanger Books for embracing the melding of Sherlock Holmes and Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. While I understand that some purists may not appreciate the introduction of supernatural elements in their Victorian mysteries, I think this is exactly the kind of fiction that many fans have been clamoring for.