Lights Out! Issue 1, July 1989
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The Robert R. McCammon Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 1 July 1989 Vol. 1 No. 1 Page 1 Lights Out! Goat Busters Lights Out! A Message from the Editor The Robert R. McCammon Welcome to the ¯rst issue of Lights Out! - The Robert R. McCammon Newsletter Newsletter. It is my intention to provide you with news on upcoming Vol. 1 No. 1 July 1989 McCammon novels and short stories, interviews, photos, original ¯ction and non-¯ction, and contests. Let it be known that my full-time job is computer programming, not writing, so I'll make no claims or guarantees Presented by: for the quality of the articles I do. However, I hope that you will ¯nd the Hunter Goatley newsletter informative and entertaining. As most of you know, Robert R. McCammon goes by Rick; throughout Title by: the newsletter, you'll ¯nd that I refer to him as Rick, McCammon, RRM, Robert R. McCammon and Robert R. McCammon. Why the di®erences? Variety, I guess. Logo Drawn by: My ¯rst McCammon novel was They Thirst, which I picked up simply Dana Goatley because it was a vampire novel that had a neat cover! To this day, the book has the distinction of being the only horror novel I've read that has Additional Editing by: spawned a nightmare. After They Thirst, I read Mystery Walk and decided Karl Hayes that They Thirst was not a one-shot: Robert R. McCammon was good. I Curt LeBaron collected his ¯rst 3 novels and looked for more of McCammon's works. Heather Stone I started kicking around the idea of doing a newsletter when Stinger was released, but all I did was talk about it. I wasn't sure where I could get the information that I would want to put it in the newsletter, and I didn't Subscriptions know how to start looking for those sources. I pretty much gave up on $12 per year (4 quarterly issues). the idea for about 6 months. Send check or money order to: In August of 1988, I talked at length with a book dealer in Atlanta, David Hinchberger of the Overlook Connection. Dave mentioned to Rick that I Lights Out! was thinking about doing a newsletter and, with Dave's encouragement, I c/o Hunter Goatley wrote to Rick to present the idea myself. 44 East 600 South Orem, Utah 84058 A few weeks later, Rick called to talk about the newsletter. He liked the idea and, very modestly, said he was flattered that I wanted to do it. I warned him that I wasn't sure if I would have the time to do it, since I already have one job, but that I wanted to provide a means of Special thanks to the following people for all communication among his fans. of their help. Without them, this newsletter would never have been possible: Rick and Nine months later (only two months after our daughter was born), the ¯rst Sally McCammon, Dave and Laurie Hinch- issue was mailed out. My apologies to those of you who sent in requests berger, Adam Rothberg, Sally Peters, Craig Goden, Karl Hayes, Lisa Rubilar, Heather for more information and thought I forgot about you. Stone, Curt LeBaron, and Dana. Very spe- Because of production delays, I was overwhelmed with stu® I had collected cial thanks to you for supporting me in this for this issue. As a result, the promised bibliography will appear in the next venture! issue. You'll also notice the absence of pictures; at this point, production costs are too prohibitive to include much. As the newsletter grows, the This newsletter was typeset on a DEC format will change to reflect that growth. VAXstation 3100 using the TEX typeset- ting system developed by Donald Knuth at This is your newsletter; I'm interested in hearing what you would like to Stanford University. TEX is a trademark of see in it. Please send your comments to: the American Mathematical Society. Hunter Goatley °C 1989 by Hunter Goatley. All rights 44 East 600 South reserved. Permission to reprint required. Orem, Utah 84058 And now, on to the goodies... Page 2 July 1989 The Robert R. McCammon Newsletter Who is Robert R. McCammon? by Hunter Goatley Robert R. McCammon, who prefers to be called Rick, is in 1981, They Thirst was the book that ¯rst brought quickly becoming one of the most popular horror authors well-deserved attention to Robert R. McCammon. A new around. Two of his novels, Swan Song and Stinger, market opened up when Rick was published in hardcover. sold over a million copies each and landed RRM on The New York Times bestsellers list. His publisher, Mystery Walk was the ¯rst of RRM's books to be published Pocket Books, recently re-released his ¯rst four novels and in hardcover. Holt, Rhinehart, and Winston placed the published The Wolf's Hour in March 1989. With each cover art for Mystery Walk on the cover of Publisher's release, McCammon's books are drawing an ever-widening Weekly for the week of February 25, 1983, and on the audience, making him one of the true masters of modern cover of their own catalog for the season. The story of Billy horror. Creekmore and Wayne Falconer was selected by the Literary Guild Book Clubs that year. Mystery Walk continued to What is it that makes RRM's books so popular? First, bring in the same praise garnered by They Thirst. his characters are some of the most realistically drawn in modern ¯ction. McCammon's characters are you: they are In Usher's Passing (1984), RRM updated readers on the so well-de¯ned, that you can quite easily put yourself in the Usher family from Edgar Allan Poe's short story, \The Fall characters' shoes. Second, McCammon's knack for writing of the House of Usher." Usher's Passing was virtually suspense is unparalleled. He is as capable of writing gut- ignored by the publisher (again, Holt, Rhinehart, and gnawing tension as he is of writing gut-wrenching horror. Winston) for some unfathomable reason. The book tells With so many trash horror novels published today, it is the story of Rix Usher, who has been called back to exciting to know that there are some real authors who can his family home, Usherland, because his father is dying. make a scary story without \going for the gross-out." One of the 3 children will inherit the $10 billion family business, Usher Armaments. The story, which contains RRM's ¯rst novel, Baal, was published in 1978 by Avon many autobiographical elements, is still considered by many Books as a paperback original. Rick was working for a to be one of RRM's strongest works. At the very least, Birmingham newspaper as a headline writer when Baal sold Usher's Passing is a daring book that produced wonderful over 300,000 copies. Not bad for a ¯rst novel, and good results. enough to encourage Rick to work on his next two novels. 1984 also saw the release of a paperback edition of Mystery The next book to see publication was Bethany's Sin (1980 Walk from Ballantine Books. The edition was printed with by Avon Books), although The Night Boat was actually three di®erent covers: all have the title stamped in foil and the second book Rick completed. The Night Boat had all feature a small painting in the upper right corner. The already been accepted for publication by Avon when an di®erences lay in the colors of the foil (gold, silver, and red) Avon executive heard about a movie that had something and the subject of the painting. to do with Nazis living underwater. He assumed that the storyline of The Night Boat was too similar to the movie, Though Usher's Passing was reprinted in paperback by so he decided Avon would not publish Rick's book. Rick Ballantine in 1985, it was 3 years before RRM published scrambled for something else to sell and managed to write anything new. By this time, a new publisher was behind Bethany's Sin in about 3 months. Meanwhile, someone him: Pocket Books; they were ready to give McCammon's else at Avon saw the Nazi movie (Shock Waves, 1977) and new novel the advertising push necessary to make it very decided that The Night Boat was not at all like the movie, successful. In June 1987, Pocket released Swan Song, and so Avon bought both Bethany's Sin and The Night Boat so began the journey that would make RRM one of the for publication. In the end, Bethany's Sin was released in most popular authors in the horror genre. Swan Song made January 1980 and The Night Boat followed in August of the New York Times bestsellers list, where it stayed for 4 the same year. At this point, RRM's books were selling weeks. Swan Song sold almost a million copies in its ¯rst well enough that he was able to quit his newspaper job to printing; it is currently in its fourth printing and is still concentrate solely on writing. selling well. They Thirst was written when Rick wondered what would The enormous success of Swan Song was followed by happen if vampires tried to take over a large metropolitan Stinger in April 1988, also from Pocket Books. Stinger area. Though originally set in Chicago, the ¯nished book tells the tale of a small, dying town in Texas called Inferno told the story of Prince Vulkan and his attempt to gain and how its inhabitants, at war with each other, react to control of the world, beginning with Los Angeles.