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the Official P.N. Elrod Website
FAQs on BOOKS
(And Other Stuff!)
Chances are someone else asked your question first...check and see!
When do we see the next Jack Fleming book??
The latest is Song in the Dark now out in paperback. There are often new/used copies at a discount available on Amazon, eBay and Half-dot-com. Or there IS that big building in town with all the books you can borrow for free. What is it? Liberty, Labrador...library! You can ask them to stock a copy on the stacks.
I'm presently working on the 12th Jack Fleming novel, Dark Road Rising, and will send it to my agent as soon as it's done. After that, cross yer fingers!
I don't! Details here: http://p-n-elrod.livejournal.com/14707.html
Where can I get the rest of your books?
Amazon has a number of used copies that come up for sale all the time, with varying price ranges.
There are also used stores, and you can ask the library to do an InterLibrary search for you. It’s free! That way you can at least read the story until you get your own copy.
You can collect them from eBay. Make sure the book's not from a smoking household if you are allergic. Make sure they show a picture of the cover or you could get a mangled copy.
Where are the hard covers of the Vampire Files?
Sorry, there are none to be had for the first six. They were always in mass market paperback.
Ace has released the first three in one volume in trade paperback in 2003. The Science Fiction Book Club now has a hardcover edition of this available.
There are now trade paperback collections Vol. 1 & 2 available.
Are you going to write any more books about Quincey?
I sure want to! It depends on whether or not the publishers will buy a new story from me. I could have a whole book finished, but if they don't think it will sell to readers, they won't buy it to print. But I'm not a negative person, so I think that another Quincey book is somewhere in the future for me.
If you want to lend a helping hand, please feel free to go to Amazon and post a review about any books you enjoyed. It's FREE!
Now DON'T give away the whole plot!!! Make your reviews a spoiler-free zone, <G> just let people know what you liked about it! (There is an infamous review on one of the Barrett books that gives away a MAJOR plot point. Though it's favorable, they've been asked to take it down. Still waiting! <G>
Why don't you make a movie of the Vampire Files?
I WISH!!! Sorry gang, but a lowly scribbler of novels has NO control over whether any of her books ever makes it to the screen. If I had my druthers, there would have been a Jack Fleming movie out in 1990! (Along with action figures, comic books, T-shirts, a clothing line, and a spin-off TV series, and I would have a MOST different life than the one I've got at present!)
The reality is Hollywood calls you; it's hardly ever the other way around. If some producer wants to make a film of any of my stuff, he will go through my agent, who will let me know what's going on.
I have a partial screenplay of Bloodlist in the works, doing it on spec, which means my agent sends it around to see if anyone is interested in optioning it, but novel writing takes up most of my time. Trust me--if any of my books makes it to the screen, you'll HEAR about it! For now, it is out of my hands.
If they made a Vampire Files movie, who would
play Jack?
I think Vincent Ventresca (The Invisible Man) would be the perfect Jack Fleming. He’s long and lanky and can go psychotic on an instant’s notice; what an actor! I adore the man!
Vincent Ventresca--Pat's ideal pick to play Jack Fleming.
And Escott?
I have rather fancied Anthony Stewart Head (Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer) for that part. He’s a marvelous actor. Yes, I adore him, too! On the other hand he doesn't have Escott's big honker of a nose. I'd always visualized Basil Rathbone in the part.
But lately it's been Steve Valentine from Crossing Jordan. He's just got certain qualities, both physically and in his acting style that would totally work for Escott. Of course if they set the film in the 1930s he'd have to cut all that nice hair!
Steve Valentine--Pat thinks he'd make a very sexy Escott.
How did you get to be a writer?
I read everything I could about everything. You have to do the homework. Get to the 808 section of the library and read all the books that tell you how to write a book. It will keep you from re-inventing the wheel. Even Mozart took piano lessons from his dad before starting to write music.
Then after 10 years of scribbling I finally finished something, sent it in, and kept sending it until it sold. You have to be really, really stubborn and keep trying. Just pick up a pen and go to work. FAQs Writing
Will you write any more Jonathan Barrett books?
Yes, I really would like to write at least one more Barrett novel, but it won’t be this year! I can write all the Barrett books I want, but a publisher has to want to buy them before I can get them in front of readers.
In the meantime all four books have been reprinted by BenBella Books!
Now there's more Barrett for your buck! I did rewrites of the novels and added in more pages of stuff as pare of my "final polish" process. This is not material edited out by Ace in the original edition, but all new stuff. There were areas in the books where more detail was called for, so I filled in a few areas, smoothing things out.
Will Jack and Bobbi ever get married?
You’ll have to ask them!
I was, but got over it.
Do you always cast actors as characters in your books?
Sometimes, but not always. It helps me get a handle on them, but often a character jumps full-blown into my head and boots me into writing. I’ve a few of those on the back burner waiting to appear in books. Mind you, I don’t steal any other writer’s character—not consciously! When I "cast" someone I look on it like seeing an actor playing a different part, an inspiration thing. In Art in the Blood if you were looking for Alex Adrian to be a clone of Avon from Blakes 7, you’d be disappointed. I was "seeing" how Paul Darrow, the actor who played Avon, would play the part of Adrian. And it worked! Same thing for those times when I’ve visualized Basil Rathbone as playing a character in a story. I’d try to imagine how he would do a scene. It makes the characters marvelously independent of me! When they act all on their own away from MY ideas, I know it’s gonna fly and fly high.
Will you write any more I, Strahd books?
No. Wizards of the Coast owned that character and they’re cutting their Ravenloft line. It will likely always be the 2 novels and the short story in the Tales of Ravenloft anthology. We had some artistic differences, enough so I know I am not fond of work-for-hire writing. (That’s any book written in someone else’s universe, like Star Wars or Star Trek. You have no control over it and the publisher can mangle your story all they like. Ouch!) It’s too bad, cause I REALLY loved the Strahd character; it was such fun to play a bad guy. But I expect bits of him will be back as characters in other novels using a different name.
Hasbro, which now owns the series, is reprinting I, Strahd for another generation which may have missed it. Can't say as I'm crazy about the cover, but you'll have to take that up with their marketing department. I just hope the kids don't think it's a whole new book, find out different, then blame me.
The evening news and drivers on cell phones. Pedestrians on cells, too. They never watch where they're walking, which is usually in front of my car. D'oh!
YES!!!! And Angel. Amazing characters!
Rupert Giles -- I WANT you, please go to the "Contact Page" and make contact. We can be stardust!
Stargate SG-1 (I've totally geeked out over this one, gang) there are others, and you can ask me that if you're buying the beer.
General O'Neill, you are ordered to join me in the hot tub. I have beer and pizza.
Mine!
(No self-esteem problems here, sport. Move along.)
Oh, gimme a break. And pass the Guinness or a nice cold root beer.
Oh, yes, absolutely! (Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.)
Of course, I’ll have to eat those words if Dracula shows up on my doorstep.
But if he’s got a pizza, a six-pack, and looks like Richard Dean Anderson he won’t know what hit him! Hubba-hubba!
