“Noir, Supernatural Noir, and The Black Lands”
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 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.
I spoke with Ian Rogers in early October 2024 about his new novel from Cemetery Dance, Sycamore. Our conversation is available on YouTube.
We begin our conversation today catching up with some of Ian’s 2024 publications before diving into Sycamore and the Black Lands.
DANIEL BRAUM: Congratulations on the release of Sycamore, the first Black Lands novel. It has been about a year since we spoke about your short story collection Every House is Haunted. Before we visit the Black Lands can you tell us about some of the books that have come out over the past year?
IAN ROGERS: This has been a productive year for me. I sold five books last year, and three of them came out this year. The first one, which launched in August at Worldcon, was a novella called Grey from PS Publishing. It’s a very weird action-horror-fantasy tale about angels and demons and the end of the world, quite unlike anything I’ve written before, which I kind of like as my first new book in the ten-plus years since Every House is Haunted.
The second book was my debut novel, Family, from Earthling Publications. It’s a haunted house story with a twist, which I know makes it sound like so many other horror novels, but I really tried my best to make the characters and supernatural threat unique. The early response has been great, with reviewers pointing out the realism of the family and their dynamic with each other, which to me means as much as the scares and suspense. When it comes to an effective horror story, I firmly believe you have to have strong, believable characters, because it makes you become invested in them. I feel if you don’t care about the characters in a book, you’re probably not going to care what happens to them.
And the third book, is Sycamore, the first novel in the Black Lands series.
Your novel Family is shipping now as we converse. Every House is Haunted is such a wonderful collection and exploration of the haunted house story. How does Family differ from your other Haunted House stories?
When Every House is Haunted first came out, some of the reviewers who enjoyed my short stories wondered what I would do with a full-length novel. Apologies for taking over a decade to get back to them on that — ha! — but I like to think Family is the haunted house novel I sort of silently promised with my debut collection. It’s a greater expansion and a deeper exploration of the concept of what a haunted house truly is — even more, what it truly means to be haunted. It’s a very simple word with a lot of different meanings and subtext.
What opportunities did the novel format bring to you as a storyteller?
Narratively it allowed me to stretch my legs and tell the kind of longer, more involved story that my imagination had been craving for a long time. Also, with a novel you can get deeper into your characters, if through no other means than spending more time with them, which you really can’t do with short fiction, simply due to the nature of the format.
I see it kind of like Bambi learning to walk. Writing those early short stories was a way for me to kind of test my footing, see if could stand up on my own and take a few steps. Once I could do that, it only made sense to see if I could run, and to find out how far I could go. Not every writer moves from writing short stories to novels, and I don’t want to suggest that it’s a natural progression much less a goal that every writer has to achieve. It’s a personal choice. There are plenty of writers who are doing perfectly fine exclusively writing short fiction, and frankly I’m envious of them. I feel like my ability to write short fiction has suffered as a result of my newfound focus on novels. My stories want to run long these days, and I tend to let them.
What are the Black Lands?
The Black Lands is a series of interconnected stories I’ve been writing for over 15 years. I started with a trio of chapbook novellas — “Temporary Monsters,” “The Ash Angels,” and “Black-Eyed Kids” — featuring a private investigator named Felix Renn who works supernatural cases in a world where paranormal phenomena has become a part of everyday life.
Since the 1940s, portals have been popping up all over the planet, doorways to another dimension that lies next-door to our own, a dangerous world of perpetual night filled with every type of supernatural creature and ghostly entity you can imagine (and plenty more you can’t).
I’ve always liked the occult detective character, but I wanted to write about one who existed in a world where belief in the supernatural wasn’t an issue. It’s one of the things that I found increasingly frustrating while watching The X-Files (which was a big influence on the Black Lands series) — the idea that Mulder had to constantly prove the existence of all the paranormal phenomena he and Scully were witnessing week after week — and no one ever believes them, often not even Scully herself.
When I created the Black Lands I wanted to make a world where everyone already knew ghosts and monsters were real. I wanted to explore what that world would be like in a way that was both exciting but also pragmatic. For example, take a character like Jerry Baldwin, a friend and associate of Felix Renn who works as a real estate agent for haunted properties. Because in a world where haunted houses exist, someone has to sell them. Or try to.
I’ve written a number of stories featuring Felix Renn (and Sycamore is his first novel), and I have plenty more coming in the future, but I also plan to write novels and stories featuring other recurring characters (like Jerry Baldwin), others that are standalone tales. The idea is that it’s the world of the Black Lands itself that’s the real recurring character.
I’ve encountered the Black Lands here and there as they appeared in some of your fiction over the years. Is there a place you can direct us to where readers might learn of all of the Black Lands stories?
The best place for all your Black Lands needs is the official website at theblacklands.com. I recently redesigned the site so it has all the up-to-date links for the Black Lands stories currently in print, as well everything you need to know about the novel series, starting with Sycamore.
I’d also recommend signing up for my newsletter where I often reveal tidbits about upcoming work. With Sycamore coming out shortly, and the reprint of Supernoirtural Tales set for 2025, I’ve got a lot of exciting Black Lands news to share. You can find my newsletter at onemoreshadow.substack.com.
How long have you been working on Sycamore? When did you decide to tell a Black Lands story in novel format and what opportunities did the long form allow you?
I wrote the first draft of Sycamore several years ago, around 2018. At the time, I think I was having the same issue with my Black Lands stories as I was with the rest of my fiction — my stories wanted to run longer and longer.
The thing about writing a full-length Felix Renn novel was that I needed to find the right story, one that didn’t just feel like one of the short stories drawn out to a greater length simply for that sake. It had to be a story that deserved to be a novel. But at the same time, I didn’t want to write a big showy action-horror novel with huge literary set pieces, because that’s just not what the Felix Renn stories are about. It had to be intimate but still powerful. And since I was looking for a wider audience with a Black Lands novel, I also had to write it in such a way that honored the fans who’d been following the series while not excluding new readers who had never read a Black Lands story before.
In short, Sycamore had to do a lot of different things as a novel. Whether or not I succeeded is up to the reader to decide.
Introduce us to the book. What do you want readers to know about Sycamore before diving in?
I think the main thing I’d want readers to know is that Sycamore is a supernatural detective novel that can be enjoyed as a one-off or as the introduction to a new horror series. There aren’t a lot of ongoing horror series these days. The closest you get are Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, which lean more toward magical fantasy, and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse books, which are firmly rooted in the paranormal romance category. There’s nothing wrong with either one, but I was eager to explore the idea of a series that was pure supernatural horror.
When my agent was shopping Sycamore to the Big 5 publishers, there was interest in the book but also concern about whether or not there was a market for an ongoing horror series. Fortunately, the fine folks at Cemetery Dance had no such reservations and saw the potential in the Black Lands.
When it came to writing Sycamore and the other Felix Renn stories, I was just as influenced by detective stories as I was by horror fiction. And since there are many crime/thriller series with recurring detective and police characters, I thought it only made sense to use that as my access point for the Black Lands.
I’ve always thought of Felix as a kind of supernatural Spenser. So if you’re a fan of Stephen King or Richard Kadrey, as well as a fan of detective books by the likes of Robert B. Parker or Ross Macdonald, then I feel you’ll enjoy Sycamore and the Black Lands series.
Introduce us to your main character, Felix Renn and the noir element of the book.
Felix is a private detective, but in a lot of ways he’s kind of the anti-PI. Which is how I described him to the Spotify folks when they were casting the voice actor for the audiobook edition of Sycamore. One of the people who auditioned was doing a Bogart impersonation, and that is not Felix Renn. Not at all.
Unlike other fictional PIs, Felix is not an ex-cop or ex-military. He has a very different background, which I like to think makes him a more interesting character. I did that on purpose, going against the tropes and typecasting of other notable fictional PIs in literature and film. I greatly enjoy turning those things on their head in a way to create something new and exciting.
For example, many fictional PIs have a back-talking secretary with whom they have oodles of sexual chemistry that is never acted upon. For Felix, I thought, what if he actually hooked up with his secretary? Sort of interesting. Okay, what if they got married? Sure, that could be cool. Then I took it even further and said, what if they got married, then divorced, and now they find themselves back in each other’s lives, not because they’re reconciling, but because they discover they still need each other? Felix needs help with his cases and his ex needs a job.
I thought this would be a fun dynamic to set against the horrific backdrop of the Black Lands world, and it has allowed me to explore an unusual relationship dynamic with a future as mysterious as the cases Felix investigates. I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen to them. I don’t see Felix and Sandra getting back together, I think it’s all they can do to be friends and colleagues at this point, but you never know.
I treated the noir elements in much the same way as I do the detective fiction elements. I play with them, twist and turn them in an effort to keep them fresh and make them my own. Which is not to say Sycamore is a parody of noir. I love the genre too much to ever do something like that. And Felix’s wisecracking aside (which is more of a defense mechanism than anything), the Black Lands books are absolutely horror stories. I’ve merely taken noir fiction and dipped it into the supernatural. The two go together so well. Which is why I call these stories “supernoirturals.”
Noir and Weird Fiction might seem an unlikely pairing but they strike me as sharing essential elements. They share that element of the unknown and that the protagonist is operating in a world that is both larger and not necessarily as it seems.
They absolutely go together. I’ve read so much noir fiction that reads like it’s taking place in another world, an alternate reality of isolation, darkness, and betrayal. Read any book by David Goodis or Cornell Woolrich and it could easily be slotted alongside the Weird Fiction of Robert W. Chambers or William Hope Hodgson.
Weird fiction strikes me as often having a structure that does not offer “reveals” and explanations as to the elements, supernatural and otherwise. Noir and detective fiction perhaps could be said to be all about the revelations.
Sycamore is a novel full of twists and turns and revelations. How did you integrate the different elements and strategies?
I don’t know it’s something I do consciously. I’m an outliner rather than a pantser, but that has more to do with being organized than anything else. I never set out to include certain elements in a story. I certainly never wrote any part of Sycamore thinking, well, this section needs more noir, and that section needs more horror. I like to think these elements happen naturally and organically because I’m a longtime fan of both those types of fiction. Sycamore is as much about honoring those genres as it is about providing my own take on them.
That said, I did put a lot of work into making sure the core mystery of Sycamore not only held together under scrutiny, but was also captivating and — I hope — terrifying. I think you can provide answers and “reveals” while still maintaining an element of mystery. It can be a difficult juggling act. Take, for example, the concept of the ambiguous ending. On the one hand, a good ambiguous ending can be tantalizing and promote further discussion. On the other, a bad ambiguous ending makes it look like the author didn’t know how to end their book.
I should add that Sycamore does not have an ambiguous ending. While I’ve laid the groundwork for future books in the series, and left a few plot threads dangling, Sycamore has a definitive conclusion.
Can you tell us about some of the cast of characters? Such as Jerry Baldwin the supernatural real estate agent. And Agent Alice and her partner Diane. How do they fit in what you have planned for us in the future of Black Lands books?
I introduced Jerry Baldwin fairly early on when I first started writing Black Lands stories. Felix doesn’t have a partner — Sandra, his ex-wife, is more of an office manager/research assistant — but that’s how Jerry sort of sees himself. He’s a high-energy person who, despite selling haunted houses for a living, yearns for more supernatural excitement. The Black Lands stories tend to be pretty dark; the world the characters inhabit can be quite dismal. I created Jerry to provide a bit of levity, and also to show that other stories in the series can be quite different tonally.
I’ve written a couple of Jerry Baldwin stories, and while I would never call them outright comedies, they are certainly lighter in tone than some of the Felix Renn stories.
Alice Baffle is an agent of the Paranormal Intelligence Agency, which is the main government policing body in the series, tasked with investigating paranormal crime and eliminating supernatural creatures that cross over from the Black Lands. Alice is a tough-as-nails loner, which is why the agency saddled her with Diane, an agoraphobe agent who works remotely from home.
The Alice Baffle stories are different from the ones featuring Felix or Jerry. Hers deal with larger issues, supernatural terrorism, political intrigue, and government conspiracies. The way I break down all of these different stories is like this:
The Felix Renn stories are straight up supernatural noirs — supernoirturals. The Jerry Baldwin stories are horror capers in the vein of Elmore Leonard crossed with The Amityville Horror. And the Alice Baffle stories are paranormal procedurals, mash-ups of The X-Files and The Silence of the Lambs.
For me it’s a way of keeping the series fresh while exploring how people from different walks of life are trying to survive in a world where ghosts and monsters exist.
You’ve mentioned Clive Barker and William Hjortsberg’s supernatural detective novel Fallen Angel as inspirations. What are the outstanding things that stay with you from these works?
Both books are well-known for their supernatural elements — magic, demons, deals with the devil — but I don’t think as much attention and credit is given to how they’re also great examples of noir fiction. Both authors understand the darkness and isolation of the very best noir stories. The black cloud that hangs over everything, the sense of dread and hopelessness that the characters fight tirelessly against. Also, both Barker and Hjortsberg set their stories in New York City, which may be the best location for any noir story simply because NYC feels like a world all of its own — and sometimes not a very nice one, especially when the sun goes down.
I think that’s the thing that really resonated with me. I’m a horror guy, always have been, but the noir and detective fiction elements of those stories are what hooked me and made me wonder if I could not only create my own occult detective, but also a world that was just as captivating and compelling. Something more than a New York that was tilted toward the supernatural. How about an entire planet captured in the dark shadow of a whole other dimension?
What are some of your favorite works of noir and detective fiction?
Oof, too many to list. Anything by David Goodish, Cornell Woolrich, or Jim Thompson. Start there, then check out The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler and The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. A great resource is The Best American Noir of the Century edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler. Basically it’s the bible of short noir fiction. I’d also recommend Horace McCoy’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? which is about a dance marathon during the Depression but is absolutely noir.
After Sycamore what is next book of Black Lands fiction coming our way?
Supernoirtural Tales is coming out in Fall 2025. It’s a reprint collection that was originally published in 2012 and is composed of four Felix Renn novellas and a short story. The novellas combined lead up to the events in Sycamore, while the short story acts as a kind of coda or epilogue to the novel. Which is why I’m excited to see it published as the second book in the series, since it functions as both a prequel and sequel to Sycamore. After that is the second Felix Renn novel, which is what I’m working on right now. Stay tuned!
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
IAN ROGERS is the author of the award-winning collection Every House Is Haunted. The book was optioned by Sam Raimi and a feature film adaptation of one of the stories, “The House on Ashley Avenue,” is currently in development at Netflix.
Ian’s debut novel, Family, was published by Earthling Publications. His novella, Grey, was published by PS Publishing. His short fiction has appeared in Tor.com, Cemetery Dance, and Shadows & Tall Trees.
Ian is also the author of the The Black Lands series featuring paranormal PI Felix Renn. For more information, visit TheBlackLands.com.
In addition to his writing, Ian was a central figure in the CBC documentary “UFO Town,” which explored his days as a teenage UFO investigator. He is also an accomplished artist, having published a comic strip in his local paper at the age of twelve. He has also worked in radio broadcasting as guest co-host of Strange Days… Indeed on NewsTalk 1010 CFRB Toronto.
Ian lives with his wife Kathryn and their three cats in Peterborough, Ontario.
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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.
