Tuesday, December 03, 2024
Growl at the Moon
I wrote it last year when I was living in India. The idea for the first (lengthy) chapter came to me while I was playing badminton. Everything followed quickly after that. The entire book was written in one month, feverishly, and the frenetic pacing of the writing was responsible for the powerful momentum of the story. That's what I think anyway. But the work was easy, the prose flowed, and I am happiest when projects seem almost to write themselves.
The publisher issued the following summary of the novel to entice readers:
"Bill Bones was a normal human being until he studied under a Mojave Shaman and was transformed into a man-dog called The Growl. Now, driven by a keen sense of justice, The Growl is on the hunt for the villains who killed his boss, newspaperman Ridley Smart and he’ll stop at nothing!
Crossing the deserts and forests of the American continent, The Growl searches for the men he must kill. Along the way he meets more beast-men, more magicians, the avenger Jalamity Kane who is seeking to rid the world of the beast menace, and other dangerous characters, from the artificial to the wild, from the robotic to the demonic.
In the deft hands of Rhys Hughes, this inventive tale becomes a masterpiece of twists and turns, exploring and questioning our definitions of humanity, discovering the very meaning of what life and reality might be."
I am extremely happy with the way this book has turned out. I love the cover and I am delighted it has been published without delays. (Delays are the bane of every writer's life, I imagine). Telos have been marvellous to work with. This is the third book of mine they have published, all of them novels.
I am planning to write two more Weird Westerns in the future. In fact, I have already written the first chapter of the next one, The Boomerang Gang, and I have long had the idea for the one after that, Fists of Fleece. I am sure I will finish both in the next year or two. Whether they will be published by Telos or not when they are ready is another question, a question with an answer that depends on how well Growl at the Moon sells. I hope readers out there will take a chance on it...
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