Davide Mana was born and raised in Turin, Italy, with brief stints in London, Bonn and Urbino, where he studied palaeontology (with a specialisation in marine plankton) and geology. He currently lives in the wine hills of southern Piedmont, where he is a writer, translator and game designer. In his spare time, he cooks and listens to music, photographs the local feral cats, and collects old books. He co-hosts a podcast about horror movies, called Paura & Delirio. I got the chance to chat with him about his story, 'City of Waking Dreams' in the new Arkham Horror anthology collection Secrets In Scarlet.
Were you a fan of Lovecraft or the Arkham Horror games before coming to work on the books, and if so how did you get into it?
I am quite familiar with the Lovecraft Mythos. I started reading H.P. Lovecraft as a kid in high school, and spent a lot of time playing The Call of Cthulhu. I read a lot of Lovecraftian horror, and even wrote some, and I like Lovecraft’s rational and almost science-fictional approach to his universe. Through the gaming community I discovered the original Arkham Horror, and while not a regular player, I still have a game (usually for Halloween, or New Year’s Eve).
This isn’t your first time writing an Arkham Horror title, having previously written for The Devourer Below anthology book. Is this a universe that you enjoy writing for, and would you want to do more for it?
I love the Arkham Horror universe and the way in which it tackles Lovecraft’s ideas. And I would certainly love to write more in this universe, because I know it well enough to feel at ease in it, and writing within a certain set of “field rules” is both a creative challenge and a lot of fun.
Your story kind of takes a backseat when it comes to the horror elements, and for a decent while it plays out like a crime mystery story instead. Why did you make the choice to hold back on the more unusual elements of the story for so long, and is this a style of writing that appeals to you?
The moment I decided to write in which the central character, Lee Flint, is an Interpol inspector, it was a natural choice to go for a mystery plot. I liked the idea of presenting a rational character facing what looks like a mundane situation, in which suddenly the supernatural horror breaks through and changes the rules.
Your story introduces the first member of the mysterious group of people with various red objects. Over the course of the stories they’re painted as both heroes and villains. How much freedom did you have with the woman with the red parasol, and what was it like coming up with her?
Just like Inspector Lee Flint, the Woman with the Red Parasol is a character from the Arkham Horror universe, and I had a set of guidelines about their personality and motives. I built my story around both characters, trying to give more depth to Flint while preserving the mystery and the menace of the Woman with the Red Parasol. But despite the constraints, I was allowed a lot of freedom in imagining and developing the details of the characters and their relationship. And I added a brand new, original character of mine, to act as a foil for both canonical characters. One of the challenges and pleasures of working on an intellectual property like Arkham Horror is that we are given the opportunity to make these characters our own while maintaining their canonical elements, and add our own creations to the mix.
Your story is set in shanghai, for a series that’s so often associated with a very specific part of the US did you find it difficult or daunting to move into a new location like that, and what kind of research did you have to do about Shanghai in that period?
One of the elements that I found attractive in the Secrets in Scarlet project was its globetrotting structure. I have nothing against Lovecraft’s New England, but it’s good sometimes to go out and explore the world. As for Shanghai, I have loved it as a setting for adventure stories since I was a kid (I blame Indiana Jones, but also old black and white movies like Shanghai Express or The Shanghai Gesture). I have read extensively about the history of the city in the late 19th and early 20th century. Back in the day Shanghai was almost too good to be true, from a writer’s point of view. As a consequence of this continuing obsession about the place and its history, I have set a number of stories in Shanghai, so much so that it’s become almost a running joke among my regular readers – “Oh, let me guess, another story set in Shanghai. What, science fiction this time?”
There’s a lot of pre-exisitng lore in the Arkham Horror series, and your story definitely adds to that in new and interesting ways. Is it ever daunting to go into an established property like this to create new stories and new characters?
As I mentioned, writing within a set of pre-existing constraints is a challenge, but a pleasant one for me. There is often a lot of back and for the with the holders of the IP, because they have to preserve the integrity of their product, and must make sure what I add to the lore does fit within the canon. And the fantastic work of our editor, Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells, makes the whole process really smooth and painless. But in the end, it is not really different from what a writer does when they write adventure, historical fiction or science fiction – you do research, take notes, make sure you do not contradict what’s known about a place, or an event, or a physical principle; the only difference is, you are referencing a fictional universe created by others, and not the real world.
This is the second Arkham Horror story you’ve written, and your Descent: Journeys in the Dark novel, The Raiders of Bloodwood, has some horror-like elements to it. Is horror a genre that you particularly enjoy?
This might sound weird considering what I write (or the fact that I host a podcast about horror movies) but I am not a huge fan of straight horror. I do enjoy horror stories, especially Lovecraftian “Yog-sothotheries” and classic ghost stories, but I grew up reading mostly science fiction and fantasy, and those are still my favourite genres both as a reader and a writer. But then again, some of Lovecraft’s best works are science fiction in the way they approach cosmic horror, so I do not believe there are such rigid boundaries. And when it comes to writing, I consider myself a genre writer, and any genre is fine as long as I have a good story to tell, about interesting people in interesting places.
Can you tell us about any upcoming projects of yours we should keep an eye out for?
Here in Italy, I have a fantasy novel coming out (hopefully) by the end of the year, and I did a lot of work on a new roleplaying game product that’s currently in development.
As for the English-language market, where I currently make most of my living, there is a story of mine in the next issue (#9) of Occult Detective Magazine. Meanwhile, I am working on a couple of short stories I hope will find a home in magazines in the next months. Writers always have a couple of stories in the works, I guess. And there might be a novel coming next year, but at the moment I am not at liberty to say more (but let’s keep our fingers crossed).
Make sure to check back all this week as I chat with more of the authors from Secrets in Scarlet.
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