Josh Reynolds is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories, including the wildly popular Warhammer: Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. Born and raised in South Carolina, he now resides in Sheffield with his wife and daughter, as well as a highly excitable dog and something he hopes is a cat. I got the chance to chat with him about his story, 'The Red And The Black' 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 was, yes! I got into Lovecraft at the ripe old age of twelve, when I read “Pickman’s Model” in an anthology that I forget the title of. I started playing Arkham Horror in college, since it made for a great drinking game (lose a sanity point, take a shot, the usual sort of thing).
This isn’t your first time writing an Arkham Horror title, having previously written a number of novels set in that universe for Aconyte Books. Is this a setting that you enjoy writing for, and would you want to do more for it?
I do enjoy it, yes, and I’d certainly love to do more for it! It’s got all the best bits of Lovecraft’s creation without the baked-in racism that marred so many of the original stories.
Your story is the last one in the book, and after some of the other stories showed a more human side to the Red Coterie yours made them into a really sinister force again. Did you know that your story was going to round out the collection when writing it, and did that influence the story in any way?
I didn’t, actually. When I’m asked to write something for an anthology like this, I tend to assume I’m writing a filler story, i.e., the ones that go in the middle, to provide the reader a bit of a breather between the really awesome stories that open and close the book. Thus, I decided to do something a bit slower, a bit less in-your-face. Basically, a story that hit the right beats for the characters and the setting but doesn’t go in any surprising directions. That it got placed at the end made me wish I’d made the whole thing a bit more exciting!
Your story introduced some more elements about the Coterie, and revealed a bit more of their history and motivations. How much freedom were you given for that, or were there certain pre-established pieces of lore that you had to stick to?
I was given quite a bit of freedom, actually. I stuck to what I read in the gamebooks, and used that information to extrapolate certain things about the Coterie – thankfully, everyone in charge approved, so I didn’t have to change anything!
Your story is set in Venice, 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 Venice for your story?
Not at all. The wonderful thing about Lovecraftian elements is they’re very flexible – for all that they’re inextricably linked to New England, they can just as easily be fitted to another setting, especially one as odd as Venice. And as far as research goes, much of what I used in the story was drawn from my last visit to the city. Incidentally, Venice is one of my favourite places in this old world, and I’ve been collecting books about it since college.
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?
It can be, but I tend to view it as a challenge more than a trial. I like to see what I can get away with, while still colouring within the lines, so to speak.
You’ve written other stories for the Arkham Horror line, as well as other horror stories set in the Zombicide universe, and mystery stories for Legend of the Five Rings. This story seemed to combine horror and mystery elements. Are these particular genre's that appeal to you?
Oh definitely! I love mysteries and horror both, and read them whenever I can. And I’m a big fan of stories that combine the elements of both. If a book or a short story has a mystery with eldritch or uncanny elements, I’m there.
I really enjoyed Trish as a character, and she made for a really enjoyable protagonist to follow, is she a character that you’d be willing to come back to in the future? And can you tell us about any upcoming projects of yours we should keep an eye out for?
Oh definitely, and I did, in a way – she’s actually one of the characters in my forthcoming Arkham Horror novel, Shadows of Pnath. The novel picks up where my previous book, Wrath of N’kai (not to mention my story for Secrets in Scarlet), left off, and it finds adventuress Alessandra Zorzi in Paris, up to her neck in ghoulish horrors. And Trish is along for the ride!
Make sure to keep an eye on out this week, as I sit down and chat with several of the authors in this collection!
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