171 – C.S. Humble & Come For the Horror, Stay for the Horses

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We’ve had Cowboys versus Aliens but have you ever considered a threeway fight between gunslingers, vampires and weird cosmic cultists to an Elder God? 

If not why not? What do you even think about when you are washing the dishes? But fear not, C.S. Humble has you covered. His weird western trilogy, That Light Sublime is packed with all of the above and more. In The Massacre at Yellow Hill and  A Red Winter in the West Seth introduces a cast of lovable rogues and the stakes of their battle against the worst that this and other worlds can offer. Now, in the concluding volume, The Light of Black Star, he brings it all home, with honour, humour and shattering heartbreak.

We talk about broadening the scope of the western, how That Light Sublime links with Seth’s Black Wells series, and he explains his fundamental disagreement with the tenets of cosmic horror. We cover what Mister Rogers has to oteach us about horror writing…and how to write stories that, in Seth’s words… “attain the high romance that the human heart is reaching for.”

He’s a poet and a raconteur. I’m also present.

Enjoy!

The Massacre at Yellow Hill, A Red Winter in the West and The Light of Black Star were all published in 2023 by Cemetery Dance.

Books mentioned:

• East of Eden (1952), by John Steinbeck
• Lonesome Dove (1985), by Larry McMurtry
• Merciless Waters (2023), by Rae Knowles
• Midas (2023), by Tyler Jones
• Lone Women (2023), by Victor Lavalle
• Red Rabbit (2023), by Alex Grecian
• The Legend of Charlie Fish (2023), by Josh Rountree
• The Demon of Devil’s Canyon (coming 2024), by Brenna LeFaro
• “Pigeons From Hell” (1938), by Robert E. Howard
• The Thicket (2013), by Joe R. Lansdale
• Cold in July (1989), by Joe R. Lansdale
• The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All (2013), by Laird Barron
• Moby Dick (1851), by Herman Melville
• Fevre Dream (1982), by George R. R. Martin

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