Arisen from the puddle of radioactive goo, Duncan P. Bradshaw wrung out his undercrackers and had a bit of a look around. This part of town was a violent one, and he knew that the only way he’d get enough money for a taxi back to the laboratory where he’d oozed from, would be to write down the events that had been psychically beamed directly into his brain. With a knackered laptop, the dregs of a pint of craft ale and his trademark grin, he sat on the kerb and typed out the weird, gory and hilarious things that he’d borne witness to. And now? You can read about them too.
Cannibal Nuns From Outer Space
With an encyclopaedic knowledge of cake, and exclusive access to the church’s stockpile of holy weapons, the Order of the Crimson Rosary are on the frontline in the eternal war between good and evil. Whether it’s repelling demonic possession, judging the authenticity of supposed miracles or having the final say on the colour of bunting at church fetes, the organisation’s members sacrifice their own freedom to keep the world safe.
Father Flynn, the top operative in the UK, has been responsible for a number of recent high profile gaffs. Given an ultimatum, he must choose between returning to his old job of preserving the last microfiche machine in the church’s library, or submit himself for rehabilitation.
Yet evil doesn’t take a ticket and wait in line, as the dreaded cannibal nuns from outer space land to begin their annual harvest. Can Flynn get himself sober enough to repel their evil machinations? Or will another idyllic British village become the nun’s latest buffet?
One thing’s for certain, to beat them, Father Flynn is going to have to kick the habit.
KR: Coffee?
KR: Could you tell me a little about yourself please?
Why certainly! I am Duncan Phileas Bradshaw, and I may have made up my middle name. That I’ve just given you. Right there in the second sentence. I write a blend of horror, comedy and bizarro. It’s a heady mix, but one I’m entirely comfortable with. Expect swearing, silliness, body parts and some nifty dialogue.
KR: What do you like to do when not writing?
Drinking the blood of my enemies is right out? Yeah? Oh. So, when I engage in normal human activities, you can find me at the local leisure centre, doing everything I can to balance out the beer and biscuits I consume by exercising until I nearly die. I like to partake in a bit of cooking, nothing too fancy, but I like the music blaring and the aforementioned drinking of beer whilst doing so. I also attend gigs, where I’m reminded the day after that I perhaps am getting too old for this shit. But I forget that quickly.
KR: What is your favourite childhood book?
I adored Roald Dahl as a kid, and it’s going to prove difficult to nail it down to one. I’m gonna opt for George’s Marvellous Medicine, but maybe not for the reasons you’d think. When me and my brother read it, and were alone during summer holidays, (don’t worry, it’s not going to turn into a ‘this one time at band camp’ kind of story) we used to get empty bottles, go round the house, filling it with anything we could get our hands on, and make our own marvellous medicine. Though fortunately, neither of us would drink it, as it contained more than enough to kill us a hundred times over.
KR: What is your favourite album, and does music play any role in your writing?
Man, this is a tough one. I’d go for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by the Smashing Pumpkins, as across the sprawling twenty-eight songs, there is something for every single damn mood that takes me.
I listen to music whilst I write, though it has to be instrumental stuff as I find lyrics can get in my brain and mess up my WERDZ. One of my favourite bands is Enter Shikari, and weirdly, their song Redshift is very similar to the main core of my book, heXagram. Though I wrote the book first, so HA! In your face my favourite band.
When I edit, I’m happy to listen to stuff with actual singing in, though tend to go for the albums I bought years ago for one song, and never really gave the other songs a chance.
KR: Do you have a favourite horror movie/director?
Give me a G! Give me an E! Give me an O! This isn’t working out as I’d hoped, so it’s George A. Romero.
The original Dawn of the Dead is one of my favourite films EVER, and was a big influence on me when I started writing. My early work is undead-orientated and I blame Mr Romero entirely for making a very young me become utterly besotted with zombies. So much so, that after his passing, David Owain Hughes and I put together an anthology honouring his legacy. Sure, you have The Crazies and Martin which are both cool, but there’s no way you could beat the three ‘Dead’ films.
KR: What are you reading now?
All I can say it is – whilst trying to keep some shred of coolness – is that it’s a sci-fi book, set during a particular millenia and time period in a famous franchise. Beyond that, I’m keeping schtum. I’m a self-proclaimed geek, but there are limits to what I’ll ‘fess up to in a public post.
KR: What was the last great book you read?
Jesus, that’s a tough one. I’ve read a number of books that I read online reviews proclaiming they were AMAZEBALLS, or some such, and was sorely disappointed. I guess the last ‘great’ book I read was Handmaid’s Tale.
I’d seen series one of the TV show by then, and I hate doing it that way round, but the book was something else and more. I read a fair amount of dystopian fiction, but that one hit more than most, up there with 1984 for me, and I’m looking forward to Atwood’s follow-up, The Testaments, in a few months’ time.
KR: E-Book, Paperback or Hardback?
I’m a book-snob and don’t read digital. That’s a lie, if I’m going abroad I’ll take the Kindle, but I much prefer the tactile nature of an actual, physical book. There’s just something about it. Reminds me of my childhood I guess, of a simpler age. That and the smell. Mmmm, book fingers.
KR: Who were the authors that inspired you to write?
This is gonna sound like a suck-up job, but it was two chums of mine that inspired me. One is the erudite J.R. Park, real name…Justin, the other is Dan Chant. For years I’d been saying I was going to write a book, and whilst I was spouting this bullshit, the pair of them actually went ahead and did it. I was so impressed that they made the time to do so, that I finally pulled finger from posterior and wrote my debut, Class Three, about two brothers in day one of the zombie apocalypse. So you can blame them.
KR: Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer to just see where an idea takes you?
If you look in a dictionary under, pantser, you’ll see my smiling mug looking back at you. Don’t get me wrong, I need an idea first, I’m not a complete savage, but once I have that and an opening line, I just type away and see where it leads me. For the most part I have certain scenes, lines or characters in mind, but tend to completely forget when I’m supposed to introduce them, and have to go back and write them in during the second or third draft. I find an outline way too constricting. Nothing better than a blank page, a synapse or two of ideas and my stupid brain to run wild with it all.
KR: What kind of research do you do, and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?
I tend to only research when I need to. For as much as I love to pants (totally a word) I am a bit of a pedant and want stuff to be vaguely accurate. The book that I spent the most time researching stuff for was heXagram, which is still my favouritest thing that I ever did write, even if no-one else thinks so. The amount of detail in that was stupid, but my brain would not have it any other way.
KR: How would you describe your writing style?
Man, you are opening me up like an onion today! That and the complimentary beer. Apparently, I have a writing style, but I don’t believe it’s like anyone else out there. Okay, pet peeve time, do you know what annoys me? Reading a book where someone is trying to ape their favourite author. I get it, you FUCKING LOVE JAMES HERBERT, but do you know what? I’d rather read your book written by YOU and not you trying to be Mr Herbert. That’s literally the only piece of writing advice I have, write as if you are telling the story to a mate down the pub, that’s your voice and yours alone, use that. Everything else is a piss poor imitation. So I write as if I’m me, because I am. Therefore, it’s silly, OTT, sweary and not to everyone’s taste.
KR: Describe your usual writing day?
Don’t really have a typical writing day. Even if I go to bed the previous night with the bestest idea ever, my brain requires waking up time before I can go loco with the keyboard. I’ve tried writing at the beginning of the day, the middle of the day, the rump of the day and last thing at night, all of which are cool, but it just comes out when it’s ready. Sometimes I write because I feel I have to, and a few hundred words in, I’m just going BLAH BLAH BLAH in my head. I call it a night and go back to it the next day, usually salvaging most of the words, but find that the exercise has at least spurred my brain into life.
KR: Do you have a favourite story/short that you’ve written (published or not)?
I have three, which I appreciate is a poor answer to your question. I’m only talking about short stories now, as I’m a bit of a waffler, so find the art of honing what the Dickens I’m trying to talk about down to a few thousand words one that requires more attention. Right now if it was just one, it’s a story called I Got a Hole In My Belly, which will be published in the upcoming anthology, Breaking Bizarro by Death’s Head Press. I seem to have a yearning about body horror, as I’ve written a couple of other stories around delving inside of oneself – Freud would have a field day – but this story is the culmination of it. Honed by my bloody marvellous editor, Linda Nagle, this is peak-short-story-me at the moment. The other two (if you’re interested), are Glassjaw in the Wrestle Maniacs anthology, and It Sucks To Be All Seeds And No Feathers, in the Visions From The Void anthology.
KR: Do you read your book reviews?
I’d love to act all aloof and say no, but of course I do. Writing is such an insular art that I consider myself lucky that I get to see its impact when my wife reads my work. Other than that, all I get to go on is reviews from other people. I love hearing what people make of my work, but on the other hand, I write for me, and ‘er indoors. I used beta readers early on, and it didn’t work for me. I’d get five people telling me conflicting things about something that I’d created. Nope. I write it my way, and my editor tells me what works and what doesn’t, end of. But…there is nothing sweeter than reading a review by someone you’ve never met, and hearing that your words affected them. That will never get old.
KR: How do you think you’ve developed as an author?
It’s difficult to nail. I think for me, it was when I realised that it is perfectly acceptable to write what I want to, and not try to please everyone. Finding bizarro was probably the turning point I’d have to say. Those who know me in real-life will testify that I’m a little peculiar (that’s down to some things beyond my control), but finding a genre where my weirdness makes sense is cool, even if I realised that I was far from the strangest person out there. So now, I’m still learning about my style – you always do I think – but I’ve stumbled into what I’m good at and more importantly, enjoy doing. It’s OTT, gory, stupid and (hopefully) funny. It is not to everyone’s taste, my brother recently read Mr Sucky, and pointed out how much I swear in it, but that’s me. I’m crude, and how I am. As above, you have to tell the story your way, even if it means a few f-bombs here and there.
KR: What is the best piece of advice you’ve received regarding your writing?
I wouldn’t say advice, more of a validation. Chris Hall at DLS Reviews reviewed a book of mine and said ‘Bradshaw always walks his own path, there’s no-one else out there writing anything remotely similar to the stuff he thinks up…if Doestoyevsky is the Rembrandt of the literary world, then Bradshaw is surely the Andy Warhol.’ That’s cool as fuck to me. I want my work to stand out, and the fact that it does (to at least one person) made my day. It was like what I said earlier, it made me feel like what I was doing was worthwhile. I’m no literary god, I’m an entertainer, and to think that my work is different to what else is out there, is exactly what I aim for.
KR: What scares you?
Vast expanses of water. It is absolute pant-filling terror. Couldn’t tell you why, just always hated it. Other than that, it’s the randomness and sheer nastiness of humanity. We seem to be capable of such extremes, it really gets to me. No fictional creature dreamt up by man will ever surpass us and the things we are capable of doing.
KR: Can you tell me about your latest release please?
I love old B-moves, their shoddy effects, ridiculous characters and mental storylines. I woke up one morning with a book title in my head, and a fair amount of the scenes mapped out. The title? Cannibal Nuns from Outer Space! I went home that day and started typing it out, I love it. It’s perfectly fitting for what I’m trying to do right now. It’s not something I’d do forever, because I have a low boredom threshold and will be onto something else in a few years’ time. But, if you’ve never read one of my books, this is definitely the place to start.
KR: What are you working on now?
Right now, on the third draft of a book called, Don’t Smell The Flowers! They Want To Steal Your Bones. This book doesn’t so much as break the fourth wall, as rip it down and sit on the chair with you. It might even be too much in places, but I kinda have to push it and see where I end up. It’s the weirdest novel-length book I’ve written, and I’m not sure how you could even begin to classify it. I can’t, and I’m writing the bloody thing.
KR: You find yourself on a desert island, which three people would you wish to be deserted with you and why?
You can choose…
a) One fictional character from your writing.
b) One fictional character from any other book.
c) One real-life person that is not a family member or friend.
Most of my characters are obnoxious or ‘orrible, so that’s a tough one. Probably choose Ceepher, from Dead Drop in my Chump zombie collection. The guy is a courier in the apocalypse, so being stranded on a desert island would definitely give him a well-deserved holiday, and he’s quiet, so wouldn’t bug me too much. Tyler Durden from Fight Club would be good company, if a little unsettling at times, but with all that time to kill it would be cool. Finally, I’d go for Tom Delonge, of Angels and Airwaves, Blink 182 etc. Big fan, and would guarantee decent conversation on aliens.
KR: Thank you very much Duncan.
Duncan P. Bradshaw
You can find out more about Duncan via his official website www.duncanpbradshaw.co.uk
You can follow Duncan on Twitter @DuncanPBradshaw
Cannibal Nuns From Outer Space
With an encyclopaedic knowledge of cake, and exclusive access to the church’s stockpile of holy weapons, the Order of the Crimson Rosary are on the frontline in the eternal war between good and evil. Whether it’s repelling demonic possession, judging the authenticity of supposed miracles or having the final say on the colour of bunting at church fetes, the organisation’s members sacrifice their own freedom to keep the world safe.
Father Flynn, the top operative in the UK, has been responsible for a number of recent high profile gaffs. Given an ultimatum, he must choose between returning to his old job of preserving the last microfiche machine in the church’s library, or submit himself for rehabilitation.
Yet evil doesn’t take a ticket and wait in line, as the dreaded cannibal nuns from outer space land to begin their annual harvest. Can Flynn get himself sober enough to repel their evil machinations? Or will another idyllic British village become the nun’s latest buffet?
One thing’s for certain, to beat them, Father Flynn is going to have to kick the habit.
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