​ALONE WITH… LAIRD BARRON

Alone with… Laird Barron

13/9/2022

Isolation: The Horror Anthology, edited by Dan Coxon, gathers 20 modern masters of horror to confront the dark moments, the challenges that we must face alone: survivors in a world gone silent; the outcast shunned by society; the quiet voice trapped in the crowd; the lonely and forgotten, screaming into the abyss. Featuring stories by Paul Tremblay, Joe R. Lansdale, Tim Lebbon, M. R. Carey, Ken Liu, Nina Allan, Ramsey Campbell, Jonathan Maberry, Angela Slatter and many many more, it explores something that the horror fan has always known: when it comes to the crunch, we all die alone.

This week we’ll be featuring interviews with five of the writers featured in Isolation. Laird Barron, Gwendolyn Kiste, Michael Marshall Smith, Lynda E. Rucker and Owl Goingback will give us a sneak preview of their story in the anthology, as well as their other work in progress, and answer that vital question: why are we so afraid of being alone?

And Jim McLeod will be reviewing each of the five stories at the end of each interview.

https://titanbooks.com/70997-isolation-the-horror-anthology/

Alone with… Laird Barron

Without giving too much away, what can you tell us about your story in Isolation?

“So Easy to Kill” is a science fiction/horror story that takes major influence from Gene Wolfe and Jack Vance. Visually, it draws on the colors and textures of Richard Corben and Boris Vallejo.

A far, far future human empire sends an expedition to an alien world. Matters go catastrophically, and gruesomely, awry.

What in particular appealed to you about isolation as a theme? Is it something you've experienced yourself?

Isolation pairs well with horror. Often, the entire point of a horror story is to cut characters away from the herd, either physically by marooning them to some degree, or psychologically via social estrangement. In these types of story, the true menace can only emerge once these conditions are met. It’s a broader theme than my examples, and one that invites revisitation.

Regarding my personal experience: I was born in Alaska in the ’70s. Spent many years in remote cabins and mushing dog teams across the state. Alaska is a vast, primordial landscape. An extreme contrast of light and darkness. Even Anchorage, its largest city, with a quarter of a million souls back then, is almost like an irritant pearl embedded in the flesh of inhospitable wilderness.

I’ve written a number of stories that deal with isolation. Generally, these occur in the backwoods and backwaters. “So Easy to Kill” goes in a different direction — interstellar space. It also posits an antagonist that varies from my past cosmic horror tales.

Apart from your own, whose stories are you most looking forward to reading in Isolation?

This ToC is stacked. Can’t go wrong with Lansdale, Tremblay, or Lebbon. I count Ramsey Campbell and Lisa Tuttle as longtime influences. Editor Dan Coxon settled on a dynamite conceit for this anthology. One of the pleasures of reading it will be to see how a bunch of horror authors of wildly varying style and interest tackle this particular prompt.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’ve been ramping up to a handful of major projects over the past couple of years. “So Easy to Kill” is a piece of a baroque dark fantasy collection that inches ever nearer its ultimate form. That collection is divided into sections — fairytale adjacent; pulp sword and sorcery; and bizarre high fantasy/science fiction set in a mirror universe. Also working on a novel in that setting and a series of novellas centered on my reformed Mafia enforcer, Isaiah Coleridge. Busy days.

Apart from the story in Isolation, do you have anything else coming out in the next few months that we should be keeping an eye out for?

2022 has seen stories of mine in Ellen Datlow’s Screams from the Dark and Sean Hazlett’s Weird World War IV anthologies. Cosmic Horror Monthly printed a dark fantasy story set in my Antiquity cycle. Over the next six to nine months, I have work slated to appear in several anthologies to be named at a later date and the Mystery Tribune.

I recently turned in a fifth horror collection to my agent and am working on a novella series featuring the aforementioned Isaiah Coleridge, and a dark fantasy/horror novel. The novel is in the vein of Corben and Vance. Essentially a what-if Seven Samurai met Gene Wolfe and Karl Edward Wagner in Kane mode.

What are you reading at the moment (or what are you most looking forward to reading)?

Been on a major Paul Bowles kick the past two years. Highly recommend his collection, The Delicate Prey. Bowles was Ligotti before the arrival of Ligotti and definitely more capable of horrific imagery than most avowed horror writers. A stack of Cornwell’s historical Sharpe novels landed on my desk (thanks, Jessica M!). Sharpe’s exploits slot into my current alignment of marrying adventure fiction with high rococo dark fantasy and horror.

As for contemporary authors, I’ve had the pleasure of reading excellent works by Madeleine Swann, Joe Koch, Teri Z. Rocklyn, Eric LaRocca, and Philip Fracassi among others. I strongly suggest that fans of Brian Evenson and Thomas Ligotti scoop up a copy of The Black Maybe, a collection by Attila Veres. Grim, unsettling stories.

Weird fiction, horror fiction, are in a good place. I keep waiting for the current tide to peak. Might be waiting a while longer.

GNoH's review of So Easy To Kill

Right I'm, going to be honest here, I've read this story twice and i still don't think i fully understand it, buuut that doesn't stop So Easy to Kill from being an utterly singularly mind-blowing and intense read. This tale that spans planets, and time, at times feels like a brutal and intense stream of unconscious thought, that batters your brain into submission, however once it clicks into place it will feel like you have just been spiked with the biggest shot of caffeine ever. For an anthology where isolation is binding factor, this time and universe spanning short story might seem an odd choice, for a theme of being alone, but stick with it because it nails the thematic landing with a perfect ten.

Laird Barron, an expat Alaskan, is the author of several books, including The Imago Sequence and Other Stories; Swift to Chase; and Blood Standard. Currently, Barron lives in the Rondout Valley of New York State and is at work on tales about the evil that men do.

ISOLATION: THE HORROR ANTHOLOGY EDITED BY DAN COXON

Lost in the wilderness, or alone in the dark, isolation remains one of our deepest held fears. This horror anthology from Shirley Jackson and British Fantasy Award finalist Dan Coxon calls on leading horror writers to confront the dark moments, the challenges that we must face alone: survivors in a world gone silent; the outcast shunned by society; the quiet voice trapped in the crowd; the lonely and forgotten, screaming into the abyss.

Experience the chilling terrors of Isolation.

Featuring stories by:
Nina Allan
Laird Barron
Ramsey Campbell
M.R. Carey
Chịkọdịlị Emelumadu
Brian Evenson
Owl Goingback
Gwendolyn Kiste
Joe R. Lansdale
Tim Lebbon
Alison Littlewood
Ken Liu
Jonathan Maberry
Michael Marshall Smith
Mark Morris
Lynda E. Rucker
A.G. Slatter
Paul Tremblay
Lisa Tuttle
Marian Womack