☼ A Place In The Spotlight ☼ with M.C.V. EGAN: Amden Bog A Novel in Stories by David Rose Genre: Dark Fantasy

What are you currently reading?

Two books, actually. I go in phases where tend to bounce back and forth between some form of fantasy and something real-world pragmatic. The current duo: Caitlyn R. Kiernan’s Daughter of Hounds and Chuck Palahniuk’s Consider This. The former because that delightful dark woman is my favorite living writer. The latter because I believe a writer should always remain teachable. Chuck’s advice is solid gold—plus he’s always a good time!

Which of your novels can you imagine made into a movie?

Not to sound like a huckster, but this one. Two years ago I sat down with a LA type at the Horror Writers Association’s annual get-together. Amden Bog was a finished manuscript at the time, but nowhere close to being a real-life, bound-n-ready book. I wanted to shop it around some and one thing he and agreed on was a swamp setting is about as easy as fantasy gets, when we’re talking what really earns the thumbs up or down: budget. As I understand it, not many genres suck dry the banks like fantasy does, high, dark or otherwise. Probably all the castles. Or the costs of caring for all the horses. Maybe CGI is the frontrunner on fixing all that—god I hope not.

Beyond the logistics, Amden Bog has a sort of ensemble effect, a cast of characters primarily dictated by their obsessive drives, something I think we today enjoy in our television—which of course has augmented how the book industry writes books. Used to be the other way around, yet I could see how our love for anti-heroes and our repulsion for a shallow plot as being positive, certainly brought on all the stronger by Netflix adding a drop or three to the book-writer’s brew.

The second book to expose the grim world of Mulgara:

Loner, bumpkin, self-destructive teenager, Matina thought her life's adventures would reach no further than paddling under night cypress or falling through the parchment of a good book. But she owns a great secret, one coming with her approaching womanhood like the mouths of gnashing teeth.

Boraor Rehton, the inept shaman, would love nothing more than to leave this wretched town, continuously appointing him their spiritual leader. He knows little about the earthly arts, but the same cannot be said for black magic; tools he uses, which, if caught, would earn him a place on Amden's impaling stakes.

Add Pauthor Quithot, recluse, Grubilius Motty, lowlife drunkard, and other malcontents all involved with a mysterious force let loose upon the bog.As the force's mystery wanes, old feuds are inflamed, murder is ready to run rampant, and the threshold separating the living from the dead is hopped over with wicked glee.

Alluring, unpredictable, dripping with idiosyncratic folk, AMDEN BOG is dark fantasy where beauty and brutality often hang from the same sagging vine.

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