“Stephen King. Strange Things. And the Children of the Dark books.”
Night Time Logic is the part of a story that is felt but not consciously processed. It is also the name of this interview series here at Cemetery Dance Online and over on my YouTube channel.
Through in-depth conversation with authors, this column explores the night time part of stories, the strange and uncanny in horror and dark fiction, and more.
My short story collection with Cemetery Dance is titled The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales in homage to Aickman and his kind of stories that operate this way. It can be found here.
In June 2024 I spoke with Jonathan Janz about his Cemetery Dance Publications books Children of the Dark, Children of the Dark 2: The Night Flyers, and more. Our conversation is on YouTube.
We begin our conversation by talking about his favorite writer and his influences…
DANIEL BRAUM: In the Introduction to the Cemetery Dance trade paperback edition of your novel Children of the Dark you mention similarities to the hit Netflix show Stranger Things. You elaborate that one did not influence, per se, the other due to the fact they both came out around the same time, rather that they were part of the same zeitgeist and that you and the Stranger Things creators, the Duffer Brothers, grew up with the same influences and enjoyments.
What is it you like about the show Stranger Things? And what are the similarities to Children of the Dark and Night Flyers?
JONATHAN JANZ: Stranger Things does so many things well. The Duffer Brothers focus on crafting dimensional characters. The characters that we find sympathetic still make mistakes; villainous characters sometimes exhibit sympathetic behavior. It’s true that the show helped kickstart a wave of ’80s nostalgia and features the styles and products of that time, but for me, the show’s best trait is how they channel the character work in the best ’80s stories. Because movies and books like “Stand By Me” (The Body), IT, and Aliens gave us heroes to root for and villains to despise, they imprinted themselves on an entire generation of filmmakers and authors, and it’s fun to see how those stories affected different writers. For example, in steason wo of Stranger Things, there’s an amazing set piece in Hawkins Lab in which many of our favorite characters (like Joyce, Hopper, and Bob the Brain) are in mortal danger. That scene bears a strong resemblance to several moments in A;liens (like the “Game Time” sequence later in the film). Similarly, my novel Children of the Dark 2: The Night Flyers opens with a bloody creature attack in a mental health facility. I think the kinship between the aforementioned Stranger Things episode and the sequence in COTD2 is directly attributable to Aliens, and that’s a healthy, marvelous thing. All storytellers are influenced by something. We might as well be influenced by fantastic stories like Aliens.
What are some of your influences and some of these shared influences?
I addressed this a little above, so I’ll just say this: the folks who influenced me the most are Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas. Star Wars is the first movie I ever saw. It and The Empire Strikes Back are my two favorite movies. Steven Spielberg’s filmography is more extensive and varied, yet what unifies all his films is the beating heart of character. Emotion is so important in stories; Spielberg understands this and creates emotional experiences for his viewers. And lastly, when it comes to influence on my work, no one comes close to Stephen King. I’ve talked about him extensively elsewhere, so I’ll keep it brief and reiterate that he’s the person who made me a reader and a writer.
Children of the Dark’s main character is an All-American teenager, Will Burgess. We get him and his band of pals. Will’s family, little sister Peach and his mom. The local girls they grew up with and dream about. And the neighborhood bullies who torment them. The first chapter of the book has to my eye Stephen King structure and elements in play. Introducing us to this cast and ending with an ominous line that flashes forward in time, “nearly everyone I talked to that night ended up dead anyway.”
How does Stephen King influence you as a writer? What are some of your favorite works by King and why?
Hah! I guess I’ll talk more about my favorite writer!
I’m a King junkie. I love the books most people love (IT, The Stand, ‘Salem’s Lot, etc.), as well as the books fewer people talk about, like The Wind Through the Keyhole, Revival, and Duma Key.
For me, there’s never been a better storyteller. He’s got his own style, which I love, but everything is at the service of the story. I never feel like he gets in the way of his characters. When I finish one of his stories, I’m left thinking about Stu Redman or Ben Hanscomb — not Stephen King. That’s what I aim for in my stories. I want to remain invisible. The story isn’t about me; it’s about my characters. King doesn’t take the spotlight from Danny Torrance in Doctor Sleep. He recedes into the shadows so we can fully experience Danny’s guilt, anguish, and hope. Sure, writers reveal themselves on the page, but they don’t do it for attention or pity or clout. They do it naturally in the course of immersing themselves in someone else’s world. At least, that’s what my favorite writers do. And King does it better than anyone else.
Will Burgess is presented as a likable, virtuous underdog. He is good at baseball. He is close with his pals. He looks after and is protective of his little sister, Peach. He does his best to stand up to neighborhood bullies. He laments in the plights of others. He dreams about his childhood crush the “girl-next-door.”
One of the tropes or kinds of stories I find in horror fiction is the “bad things happen to good people” story. How much of this may or may not be in play in Children of the Dark and Night Flyers? How important is it to you to present a sympathetic character as the lead?
I’ve written all sorts of protagonists, sympathetic or otherwise, but Will is more like me than almost any other character. Whether that’s good or bad is up to the reader to decide, but to write him I simply became my fifteen-year-old self. It was eerily easy.
As far as sympathetic leads go…I think it all depends on the story. In The Darkest Lullaby, the “leading man” is pretty much a bastard, though he’d never describe himself that way. For that story, a less sympathetic lead worked. In The Siren and the Specter, protagonist David Caine is somewhere in between. Positive traits mixed with negative ones. I think readers want him to live, but they also want him to get his head out of his rear end.
A serial killer is one of the antagonists in Children of the Dark. What is it that fascinates people about true crime and serial killers? What is the appeal to these kinds of characters to readers? And to you as a writer?
Deep topic, to be sure. I think part of it is wanting to make sense of the world. Most of us would never dream of harming another person. What might someone be thinking when they make that decision? How can they simply not care about others, their families, right and wrong, all of it? Through stories, we can safely explore their minds and, if not makes sense of them, gain insight into them. To paraphrase King, we make up fake horrors to help us deal with the real ones.
Will ends up in an even worse place at the end of Children of the Dark than when it began. Even more of an underdog. Even more loss. Even more of an outsider. How does this lead into the second book?
You’re right about that. He really does end up in a bad place, literally and figuratively, at the conclusion of the first novel. The second book essentially starts the day after the first book ends, so in that way, the flow is really smooth. Having said that, more than a year passed between the climax of Children of the Dark and the epilogue to which I’m referring, so it’s important for the reader to understand what that’s been like for Will, that time in a sort of purgatory. I’m trying not to give away the first book, but those who’ve read it know that not everyone makes it out alive. Many beloved characters don’t survive. So that has impacted Will profoundly, as has the thirteen months away from the other people he loves (the survivors of the first book).
Night Flyers opens with Will Burgess committed to an asylum. With almost no one believing him about the events of the previous book.
What is it about asylums as a setting that lend themselves to the genre?
They’re isolated, for one thing. Even within the building, there are many locked doors and barriers that keep people from moving around or interacting with each other. This specific facility also happens to be in the middle of the forest, which further isolates the characters who are unlucky enough to be stuck there when the opening attack occurs.
Aside from the physical isolation, I think it’s inevitable for most of us to feel negative associations with regard to health facilities. The longer you live, the more likely you are to know someone who’s suffered in one or even died there. That’s just the nature of life and the nature of health facilities. We don’t always get well. So most of us approach any sort of hospitalization with trepidation. Add that to the feeling of isolation and what we already know about Will and his unfortunate knack for running afoul of vicious cryptids, and you’ve got a powder keg of a scenario for horror.
Tell us about Will’s sister, Peach. And about Will and Peach’s relationship. What is the importance of family in these books? And for you as a writer?
Family means the world to me. People probably get tired of hearing me talk about it, but it’s true. So I suppose since Will possesses many of my traits, it’s natural for him to be someone who cares deeply about his family too. His family, of course, is his sister Peach. That relationship is the beating heart of these books. Yes, the other relationships matter, as well. Will and Chris, Will and Mia, Will and Barley, Will and Pierre. But his love for his sister is the most powerful force in the series. I also think Will’s parental figures are highly interesting. I don’t want to give away the books, but both his mother figure(s) and father figure(s) give the story more complexity and depth.
In horror and horror films we sometimes see the set up and the structure of having gangs of people holed up and outnumbered facing down a creature of groups of creatures. The film Dawn of the Dead is one that springs to mind. There are countless others. What is it about the “last stand” that makes it a staple of the genre? How does it come into play in Night Flyers?
I think this is just an example of good storytelling. I’m a believer in putting your protagonist through hell. I also believe you need to let your heroes be heroic. So only by making your main character’s worst fears come true, by throwing the kitchen sink at them, and by refusing to let them off the hook, can you allow them to shine the brightest. Or to get killed. But great stories are about the extremes, and there’s no greater extreme situation than ratcheting up the stakes and placing all the responsibility and pressure on your protagonist. The Stand is one of our greatest novels and one of our best titles for precisely this reason. Stu, Larry, and the others are pushed to the absolute extreme, and they’ve got to deliver or die. I find that dramatic and delicious.
Is Night Flyers the end of the story? Do you plan on more stories about Will Burgess and his friends and foes?
I don’t want to give too much away yet, but I will say this: If readers want the story to continue, I’d love for it to continue. I have much of the third novel conceived in my head, so hopefully, I’ll get a chance to write it. And maybe a fourth book too. ?
Thank you so much for these awesome questions!
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JONATHAN JANZ is a husband, father, novelist, screenwriter, and public schoolteacher. He’s represented for film and television by Ryan Lewis (executive producer of Bird Box), and his literary agent is Priya Doraswamy. His ghost story The Siren and the Specter was selected as a Goodreads Choice nominee for Best Horror. Additionally, his novels Children of the Dark and The Dark Game were chosen by Booklist and Library Journal as Top Ten Horror Books of the Year. Jonathan’s main interests are his wonderful wife and his three amazing children. You can sign up for his newsletter at his website, and you can follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, Threads, Bluesky, TikTok, and Goodreads.
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DANIEL BRAUM writes “strange tales” in the tradition of Robert Aickman. His stories, set in locations around the globe, explore the tension between the psychological and supernatural.
His novella The Serpent’s Shadow and short story collection The Night Marchers and Other Strange Tales are out now from Cemetery Dance.
More about his books and events can be found here.
