K.G. McAbee's "A Whole New World" is just one of the mad mechanical tales featured in Murder and Machinery. Out April the 3rd. Kindle pre-orders available now.
Tell us three interesting facts
about yourself.
1. I have a passion for old Universal horror movies with Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Basil Rathbone—incidentally, the BEST Holmes ever—and Claude Rains, and Hammer Films with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing...as who among us does not?
2. I live in a 200-year-old log cabin with resident ghost, a woman in a long blue dress who walks by my window. My second-floor window.
3. In a former job, I programmed robots.
What drew you to this particular theme?
The delicate balance between humanity and machinery has always fascinated me. We humans love to create machines, and we need machinery to do what our puny muscles and minds cannot, but we’ve always had a love-hate relationship with it. Luddites, anyone?
What’s the most frightening machine for you personally?
Airplanes! The complete and total lack of control as you’re flung through the sky, defying gravity, is terrifying. Not to mention take-offs and landing.
Which short story authors or authors in the horror genre inspire you?
H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Eddie Poe.
Do you have a favourite story about machines, other than The Pit and the Pendulum?
I’m a serious Tolkien geek, and I’ve always been struck with how Saruman is happy to have trees shopped down to fuel his furnaces and make more weapons. Furnaces. Weapons. What can possibly go wrong?
What does your editing process look like?
After I finish a story, I let it sit for a few days to get cold, then I read it from the beginning, editing as I go.
Do you write everything and then edit or do you meticulously plan before you write?
I’m a die-hard pantser. I write first, then edit. My stories often take interesting and unexpected turns, true, but I can—usually—get them back on track.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a science fiction short about androids, and also on a new mystery series set at writers’ conferences. Because, really: haven’t we all seen people we’d like to murder at pretty much any conference?
Where can we find you online?
At my website: www.kgmcabeebooks.com and at Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and all sorts of other places.
Thanks, K.G.!
