I discovered the so-called “Piccadilly Cowboys” series back in the pre-internet days, mostly by stumbling across them in my endless haunting of used bookshops. But somehow I missed Bodie the Stalker. Edge, Steele, The Undertaker, Jubal Cade, Breed … they all made their way onto my bookshelves, but it was only a few years ago I discovered there were other Piccadilly Cowboy series. I started reading Bodie the same time I started reading Claw, Crow, and Hawk (all excellent series as well). And yes, thanks to Google, I am now fully aware that there are even more Piccadilly Cowboy series I need to track down. Anybody know where I can find Gringos #1?
Anyway, if you get high on violent, bloody action-westerns, then you need to be reading the Bodie the Stalker series. They’re written by Mike Linaker (under the Neil Hunter pseudonym), an expert word-slinger who would later become one of the fan-favorite authors of The Executioner series. This time around, our titular bounty hunter comes to the aid—and the bed—of a beautiful copper mine owner who is being bullied to sell her claim, and as the title suggests, all sorts of hell explodes. Along with some dynamite.
While nobody will mistake Bodie for being one of those white-hat heroes, he’s not as rattlesnake-mean as some of his contemporaries (we’re looking at you, Crow). So yeah, maybe he’s not Edge … but he isn’t John Wayne either. He takes no crap, never backs down, and is perfectly willing to go to guns (or fists) if that's what the situation requires. Bodie ain’t afraid of bullets, that’s for sure. No, he’s not an assassin, but he’ll blast a hole in your heart if you need killing. And thank the gods of gunpowder, there always seem to be lots of unsavory folks that need killing when Bodie rides into town.
Speaking of killing, the carnage quotient is high—that’s praise, not criticism, by the way—and in keeping with the Piccadilly Cowboys tradition, the violence is fairly graphic. We're not talking Edge levels of gore, but brain matter gets blown to bits on more than one occasion. Other things get blown too, nudging this toward "adult western" territory at times. Bodie definitely knows how to handle his six-gun, but his love-gun skills are in fine form as well. Yeah, you won’t be mistaking this for a Louis L'Amour novel…
High Hell is the 3rd Bodie title I've read and while the series is not my favorite of the "violent western" era (that title still goes to Edge, with Breed and Crow as runner-ups), they feature enough fast-paced, bullet-blazing escapism to keep me coming back for more. As sure as a vulture will eat a dead man's eyes, if you enjoy blood-soaked six-gun action, you need to hunt this series down.
There will not be a better pure action movie this year than John Wick: Chapter 2. There, I said it, and if anyone disagrees with me, I challenge you to a duel with pistols. Or a thumb-wrestling contest. Your choice.
For this second go-round, our titular assassin rips apart Rome when a specter from his past—one of those smirking villains that you desperately want to see deep-throat a hollowpoint—shows up and cashes in a marker that forces Wick back into the killing game. And director Chad Stahelski makes ample use of the exotic locales, setting the action against one stunning backdrop after another. Seriously, you haven’t fully lived until you’ve watched a world-class trigger-puller destroy dozens of dirtbags with a shotgun in the catacombs.
Just like the first movie, Chapter 2 nails the violence, eschewing the inexplicably popular shaky-cam gimmick in favor of fluid, choreographed—dare I say, balletic?—action sequences. Not since the glory days of John Woo has brutality looked so viscerally beautiful. And speaking of brutal, this flick earns its R-rating with a triple-digit body-count, with a significant percentage of the targets receiving point-blank, blood-splattering headshots. My inner gore-hound gleefully appreciated the carnage. I may or may not have hollered, “Hell yeah!” a time or two in the theater. The old lady sitting next to me did not approve…
The mysterious world of the Continental, part of the reason the original John Wick was so entertaining, is expanded upon, which is something I think we all craved. That said, it is taken to ludicrous extremes, with every other person on the street—from panhandlers to pedestrians—revealed to be part of this shadowy underworld. But it’s all done quite niftily, with tongue-in-cheek panache. And speaking of ludicrous, where can I get one of those Kevlar-lined suitcoats that stops bullets better than Superman’s cape?
Keanu Reeves reinforces his reputation as one of the best action heroes of the decade with a straight-faced, taciturn, and totally killer (no pun intended) performance. If you’ve seen any of his training videos on YouTube, you know he fully invests himself in this role and it shows on the screen. You believe this guy could actually kill three men in a bar with a pencil. And while there’s no dead puppy this time to provide us an emotional anchor, the movie does briefly (for about all of three heartbeats) pause to reminisce about Wick’s deceased wife, reminding us that the man is, indeed, human.
Bottom line, for fans of the guns ‘n’ guts cinema, this is a near-perfect film, with a staggering kill-count, slick direction, eye-popping cinematography, deadpan humor, and bundles of badassery (is that a word?). Yeah, I’m thinking John Wick is back, and action junkies are all the better for it.
I originally wanted to get this interview posted before Halloween, but shit happens. And speaking of that, lots of bad shit happens to the unfortunate people/victims/meat-sacks who populate Tim Miller’s books. Ever since Hell, Texas put him on the extreme horror map, Miller has been carving out his bloody niche in horror’s redheaded stepchild of a subgenre. One of the nicest authors I’ve ever had the pleasure of discoursing with, Tim recently took the time to answer some questions and made one thing perfectly clear—Stephen King is not extreme.
MARK: Thanks for stopping by Guns ‘N’ Guts, Tim. Speaking of guts, your novels have buckets of ‘em. Since you did not start out writing extreme horror, what attracted you to that particular subgenre? And yes, “lack of a gag reflex” is a perfectly acceptable answer.
TIM: I had just always read that heavy gore was against the “rules” of writing horror. Not sure who made up those rules, but I stumbled across Ed Lee and Jack Ketchum and loved it. So I decided to try it for myself and it was a blast.
MARK: Far as I’m concerned, the rule-breakers often make the best horror writers. What is your goal when writing an extreme horror story? Besides inducing spontaneous projectile vomiting.
TIM: I always think of some kind of story. Unlike a lot of extreme stuff, the gore for me is just window dressing. I want to have a compelling story with fun characters and put them in the worst situations I can think of. If I can not only repulse the reader but make them feel sympathetic to my villain and elicit an emotional reaction on different levels—good or bad—then I feel I did my job.
MARK: Are there other genres besides horror that you would like to take a shot at someday? You know, will we ever see a Tim Miller erotica novel? (And no, the skinned-and-raped scene from Hell, Texas does not count as erotica.)
TIM: Well, my stories all border on some level of dark erotica, especially Dollhouse. I’ve toyed with the idea before. I’ve done a sci-fi story and a young adult book already. So if I get an idea, I’m cool with running with it.
MARK: I tried to run with something once, but my mom made me put down the chainsaw. Is there a certain author (or authors) that you draw inspiration from?
TIM: When I first read Jack Ketchum, he’s the reason I decided to do extreme horror. Depraved by Bryan Smith challenged me to write Hell, Texas.
MARK: No doubt about it, Depraved is a deranged classic of the genre. OK, if someone put a shotgun to the back of your melon and told you to gouge out one of your eyes using only your fingers or sever your tongue using only your teeth or else they would splatter your brains, which would you choose?
TIM: I’d probably just opt for the shotgun, LOL.
MARK: Agony avoidance trumps survival instinct, eh? All right, back to more serious questions. What do you consider the most important ingredient in extreme horror: plot, characters, or gore?
TIM: I think characters. I try to make them as fun and colorful as possible. All of those things play a role, and often my stories are plot driven. The characters reacting to things around them. But you can’t make it the same type of reactions in every story.
MARK: What is the single most important piece of advice you would give to an author aspiring to find success in the extreme horror genre? (Other than write romance instead.)
TIM: I’d say to read a lot of extreme authors. I know so many who want to be extreme but they read Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe. Those are brilliant authors, but they are not extreme. If you want to know what audiences want, you need to read what they are reading.
MARK: Good advice. Read some Jack Ketchum, Ed Lee, Wrath James White. And of course, some Tim Miller. What do you think is the single worst mistake new authors make?
TIM: I’ve noticed a trend the last couple years of new authors feeling like they need to latch on to someone with a name. Or who they think has a name. I guess they do so thinking those guys will somehow propel them to fame. But all it does is water down your own brand and forever binds you to that author’s shadow. I’ve seen many do this with a lot of different well known authors. I have a lot of author friends at various levels of the spectrum, but I don’t try to cling to any of them to further myself. I just don’t see how that can work for anyone. Be your own person.
MARK: Good advice for anything in life, not just writing. Anyone who peruses your Facebook Page on a regular basis will see that the cheese grater scene from Return to Hell Texas is perhaps your most infamous torture sequence. Do you have a particularly nasty scene that rates as your personal favorite? (I should probably also ask you where you come up with this stuff, but I’m too afraid.)
TIM: I really liked the scene with Buzz from Return to Hell Texas. I was giggling the whole time I wrote it, but then I outdid myself with the cheese grater scene later, so everyone seems to forget that one. In Rape Van, I coined the phrase “Chocolate Creampie,” so use your imagination on that one. Kinda proud of that.
MARK: Well, I’m not sure what your version of a Chocolate Creampie is, but I’m guessing we won’t find it in the snack aisle next to the Twinkies. Now, Halloween season recently whipped by like a witch on a turbocharged broomstick and while it’s utterly cliché to ask, I’m going to do it anyway—what’s your favorite horror movie?
TIM: My most inspirational movie has been the 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
MARK: A classic that I still can’t believe garnered a PG rating … though if I’m being honest, I prefer the remake, even though it lacks the raw, visceral grit of the original. Anyway, books (and films like your books) have been crassly labeled by critics as “torture porn.” What’s your opinion of that particular term and do you object to having that label slapped on your writing?
TIM: I don’t care for that term personally, though I use it myself to describe it to someone who may not be familiar. To me, torture porn means there is no story at all and nothing happening other than some guy torturing his victim with nothing else going on. I guess that is what some people take away from my stories but if you look past the gore there is something being said.
MARK: You write prolifically, cranking out novels on what seems like a monthly basis. How do you keep up that frenetic pace? Copious amounts of Red Bull and Mountain Dew?
TIM: I just set a goal to write 1000-3000 words per day. My books are usually 30-35K so in about 4-6 weeks I can have a new title finished. I use Grammarly editing software, then have two friends who go over and help me clean it up before its ready to publish.
MARK: I had friends once. Then they read my books, LOL. Let’s wrap this up by having you tell us what’s next on your publishing agenda.
TIM: Rape Van went live on November 4th. Then in December I have the sequel to my book Hacked—called Hacked Again—being released. For 2017, I’ve got several stories already lined up and in the works.
www.facebook.com/TimMillerHorrorAuthor
www.twitter.com/TimMiller2011
www.timmiller.org
Confession time: I am freaked out by the thought of being tortured. Spiders, clowns, nude Hillary Clinton photos … none of these things make me shiver. But the thought of being strapped down and unable to move while some sick psycho scoops out my eyeballs with a rusty spoon … yeah, that kind of nastiness crawls right under my skin and stays there. So a movie like Hostel hits the right horror notes for me.
The same thing applies when reading Tim Miller’s The Country Club, because there is no dodging the fact that the book borrows heavily from Hostel. It’s not the soulless rip-off that some critics have claimed, but the word “homage” can definitely be applied. But hey, who cares? Nothing new under the sun and all that jazz, right? What really matters is whether or not the story entertains and as long as you count yourself among the extreme horror demographic, the answer is an unequivocal yes.
What this book does better than the film that seems to have inspired it is get right down to the bloody business. While Hostel took an eternity plus an eon to deliver the good stuff, The Country Club ain’t got time for that. It hits the ground full-throttle, no foreplay, no mucking about—we came here for literary torture-porn and, the gods of gore bless him, that’s what Miller gives us without any teasing around the proverbial bush. No need to slog through 300 pages of dull filler before someone gets their molars power-drilled sans Novocain.
Miller puts his stripped down, no frills, matter-of-fact style to good use here as he details the strap-'em-down-and-make-'em-bleed torments of the titular club. Scalping, cannibalism, starving rats, dismemberment, power sander mayhem … the plethora of punishments dished out by the wealthy clients will make you cringe. In fact, one scene in particular, involving a newborn baby, arguably goes too far (Miller admits to receiving mega hate mail regarding this sequence) and may justifiably be a gag-inducing deal-breaker for some readers. Not since the infant scene in JF Gonzalez’s Survivor has a horror scene hit me this hard.
That said, this is extreme horror, and lines are meant to be crossed, taboos violated, good taste thrown out the window along with the contents of the barf bucket. Reading an extreme horror novel and then complaining about disgusting stuff is like picking up a Dr. Seuss book and complaining that it rhymes. In other words, you should know what to expect and if you pick up a Tim Miller novel expecting something tame, prepare to have your expectations effed up seven ways from Sunday.
Listen, Miller ain't for everybody. Heck, some would say he shouldn’t be for anybody. But if you can handle it raw and rough, he may just put a big ol' smile on your face ... or across your throat. You don’t need to have guts to read Tim Miller … he’ll provide them for you.
Anyway, if you get high on violent, bloody action-westerns, then you need to be reading the Bodie the Stalker series. They’re written by Mike Linaker (under the Neil Hunter pseudonym), an expert word-slinger who would later become one of the fan-favorite authors of The Executioner series. This time around, our titular bounty hunter comes to the aid—and the bed—of a beautiful copper mine owner who is being bullied to sell her claim, and as the title suggests, all sorts of hell explodes. Along with some dynamite.
