Interview & Giveaway: Sean Cummings

I’m so happy to have the very funny Sean Cummings here today to talk about his new urban fantasy debut Shade Fright (Valerie Stevens, book 1), which will be published on March 1st. See below for your chance to win a copy of Shade Fright!

Sean Cummings is a comic book geek of the highest order and self-described nerd. He's been writing since 1978 (as a means of liberating his "inner nerd") and at the ripe old age of forty-one, he can honestly say it's taken him thirty years to get a book published. His interests include urban fantasy, science fiction, the borg, cats with extra toes, east Indian cuisine and quality sci-fi movies/television. He lives in Saskatoon, Canada.

Shade Fright by Sean Cummings Available March 1, 2010

Book Description: "I fell into this job quite by accident, when I discovered that I possessed the ability to see the preternatural world. There are a handful of people with similar abilities, and part of my job is to locate them, since Government Services and Infrastructure Canada likes to keep track of these things. Don't ask me why."  There's a malevolent force in town, and it's quite literally Valerie Stevens' job to determine who's behind it and why they want to destroy the world, starting with Calgary. She'll have help, in the form of her best friend (now more or less a zombie, unfortunately), a powerful dwarf troll, and the ghost of former Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon McKenzie King (but he goes by 'Bill' these days). But that's not all - Valerie has some tricks up her sleeve and, she hopes, luck on her side. Oh, and her boyfriend, Dave. He drives a dump truck.

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Interview

ATUF: Can you tell us a little about Shade Fright?

SC: It's got all the traditional urban fantasy elements, but I wanted to write a strong Canadian urban fantasy series because there's a ton of books out there where everything happens everywhere else BUT Canada. All are great books, but I wanted a uniquely Canadian urban fantasy heroine. Valerie Stevens is a civil servant (in Canada, the largest employer is the civil service, btw) but she's the only one with a pentagram next to the government of Canada log on her business card. She's an alchemist/sorceress/investigator who brokers goods and services from the preternatural world which she makes available to the government that is up it's ears in the supernatural. The book starts off with a a grain bin that disappears into a three hundred foot hole in the ground, so Valerie decides to investigate. This leads to a mystery where a shade threatens to kill over a million people and a climax with giant statues kicking demon butt, a zombie with a sniper rifle and a Yoda-like dwarf troll mage (not to mention Valerie) duking it out with a very very evil guy. That's all I can tell you without giving everything away save for the following which is what the series is really going to be about: there's a new global arms raced and the weapon of choice is magic.

ATUF: As a self proclaimed comic book geek, did you have any say with the artist, Anna Torborg, in the cover design for Shade Fright?

SC: Any author will tell you they don't really have a lot of say in what goes on the cover. A good example is Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden and the fact that Harry Dresden is wearing a hat on the covers but nowhere in the books. Snowbooks is a fantastic publisher and they really wanted my input. I sort of gave a description of what I'd like to see and we bounced a few ideas around. Anna thought it would be cool to have a cover that was sort of Jasper Fforde-ish and I heartily agreed because the BULK of the covers with a strong female protagonist in my genre involve scantily clad women, tramp stamp tattoos and leather pants. (Not that I have anything against those covers - I quite like them. Nancy Holzner's cover for Deadtown is freaking amazing!) So there's a pulp fiction, comic book, graphic novel feel to the cover and I think she did an fantastic job. The feedback I've received has been incredibly positive.

ATUF: Shade Fright is already receiving high praise from reviewers : “Move over Chicago, Calgary’s Valerie Stevens is Canada’s answer to Harry Dresden”"- SCIFIGUY.CA.  What do you think of that comparison?

SC: It's a great compliment, but there is no comparison. Harry Dresden rocks... period. Valerie Stevens rocks, too, but they're two completely different protagonists with very different world building going on. Val wears a ball cap, jeans and Danner combat boots. Yes, she has a staff but she considers it an offensive weapon. She'd rather tinker in a lab than throw magic around, but she can bring down an office building by playing with the contour lines on a topographical map and she has some very "off the wall" allies in her battle against supernatural bad guys.

ATUF: What are some of the difficulties that come from writing a first person female protagonist as a man?

SC: That's a great question. I would tell you right off the bat that I modeled Valerie Stevens after a lot of women I worked closely with when I was in the Army. She's adopted pretty much all of the mannerisms and speech patterns that I saw in female troops I served with and let me tell you, she's not butch by any stretch of the imagination, but she's also not overly feminine. She has a boyfriend named Dave because I wanted her to represent a real world woman with a blue collar man in her life. I don't know any real world women whose boyfriend's names are Ricardo or Steel. They're all hooked up with a Dave, a Steve or a Rick. Possibly even a Dennis. :)

ATUF: You’ve made a point of stating that your books will always be set in Canada.  What can Canada, as a setting, uniquely offer readers?

SC: I've never lived anywhere but Canada so I guess I am writing what I know. Canada has an incredibly rich cultural diversity and quirky history depending which province you visit. A lot of people think Canada is just  "igloos and ice hockey", and I really want to give readers a slice of Canadiana because there's just so much that makes Canada unique. From the fact that we're an officially bilingual nation to the fact that we have the longest undefended border in the world. As well, depending on the region you visit in Canada, it's like stepping into another world because so much of Canada is built on the notion of a cultural mosaic as opposed to a cultural melting pot. There are places in Canada where English and French aren't spoken, nor ever will be. There are parts of Canada where you can walk into the woods and never be seen or heard from again. The final climactic battle in Shade Fright takes place in an huge urban park that is one of the few places on the continent with unspoiled natural prairie that is as it always has been since the end of the last ice age. I want to introduce readers to an urban fantasy series that highlights everything Canada has to offer.

ATUF: Amongst your other promises, you list: Really awkward romance.  Care to elaborate?

SC: Everything from foreheads smacking into each other during an intimate moment to knees going weak and passing out after that first kiss.  I don't profess to be terribly strong at writing romance, but I recognize it's an important element in a pretty much every urban fantasy series. I think there's genuine honesty in awkward romance because, let's face it, romance can be awkward. That said, just because romance can be awkward doesn't mean we can't revel in the humor associated with finding true love, so that's what I'm trying to reflect in my writing.

ATUF: On your website you list two upcoming books, one in the Valerie Stevens series, Funeral Pallor, and then Tim Reaper.  What can you tell us about them?

SC:Right now there's one upcoming book for Valerie Stevens and that's Funeral Pallor. (I plan to continue writing Valerie Stevens novels because there is a story arc I've plotted, so hopefully Snowbooks will keep publishing them.) Valerie's best friend Caroline is a zombie who still possesses her human qualities, so the second book in the series is about bodies that are missing from funeral homes, a strange illness that causes victims to look like cadavers prior to dying and transforming into zombies, hence the title, Funeral Pallor. Caroline is suspected of being the reason for an outbreak of the living dead and Valerie has to find the terrorist necromancer and clear Caroline's name before someone takes Caroline out of the picture.
Tim Reaper is another book I'm working on about a grim reaper who decides to try living as a mortal being. It's going to be aimed at the new adult market, so imagine a grim reaper in college and all the angst associated with it.

ATUF: In your FAQ, you mention a YA series about ‘a teenage witch and her geeky boyfriend’ that you’ve recently completed.  Do you have a title or any details you can share with us?

SC: Yep - Poltergeeks is book one in a young adult series I'm calling Strange Days. It's about Julie Richardson, a teen witch whose investigation into large scale poltergeist activity leads to her mother falling  victim to "endless night a dark spell that rips her mom's soul from her mortal husk, leaving her in the supernatural equivalent of a persistent vegetative state. So it's a race against time to find out who is responsible or Julie won't just lose her mother's soul - she'll lose her mother's life. Again, quirky characters. She's got a crush on her dorky best friend and she has a tutelary spirit who is occupying the body of a Great Dane, so the dog can talk.

ATUF: Do you have any favorite authors/books in this genre?

SC: Simon R. Greene. Jim Butcher. Fellow Snowbooks author Thomas Emson whose Maneater and Skarlet are fantastic books. Fellow Canadian Tanya Huff and of course Kelly Armstrong.

ATUF: Who would be part of your dream cast if Shade Fright was made into a movie?

SC: Valerie Stevens would be played by Anna Torv with a brunette dye job.  Absolutely 100% Anna Torv. I think Fifty Dollar Bill would have to be CGI since he's a ghost and I can't think of anyone in Hollywood who looks like a stodgy old politician from the 1930's. Caroline the Zombie would be portrayed by Demi Moore (though I doubt she'd do  it). Val's boyfriend Dave would be Adam Baldwin because Adam Baldwin is the ULTIMATE blue collar guy in my books. Finally, Val's mentor, the dwarf troll mage would be Verne Troyer.

Thanks so much for stopping by Sean!  Come back anytime.

Giveaway

A copy of Shade Fright by Sean Cummings

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