SHAUN HAMILL received his BA in English from the University of Texas at Arlington, and his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His debut novel, A Cosmology of Monsters, was published in 2019. His fiction has appeared in Carve and Come Join Us By the Fire 2. His nonfiction has appeared at Crimereads and Tor Nightfire and he is a frequent cohost on The Dungeons & Dragons Lorecast. He lives and works near Dallas-Fort Worth.

Welcome to the Hive, Shaun. Congratulations on your release of your second novel, The Dissonance. Firstly, can you tell our readers a bit about it? What can they expect?

Hi! And thank you so much for having me. The Dissonance is a dark fantasy novel (with a dash of horror), about a group of friends in a small Texas town who discover that magic is real, but feeds on negative emotions and pain. We follow their adventures as kids, discovering and exploring this new world, as well as their adult lives, when, as apocalypse looms, they’re forced to return home and confront the unresolved business of their youths. It’s a novel about friendship and wild magic, with a pretty decent action-to-hugs-and-kisses ratio (I hope!).

Can you tell us more about the Dissonance? What inspired its concept? And what kind of abilities can this power give our characters? 

The Dissonance is built on the idea that there’s something broken at the heart of existence–a friction between the way things ought to be, and the way they actually are. This friction–or dissonance–creates an energy that certain people can access and manipulate. The most powerful users (Dissonants) tend to be those who are broken in some way–traumatized, outcast, mentally ill, etc. It’s a pathway to a lot of abilities, from simple levitation to ethereal battle armor, to doorways between worlds. It’s a mysterious force, and knowledge is hard to come by (users hoard it in books), so there are limits on what a person can do, but they’re difficult to define. What the user can do is largely defined by what they’ve learned. This makes the Dissonance a very dangerous force to play with.

I can’t remember exactly where I got the concept, but I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of magic as a resource, something that’s difficult to use. Anyone who’s read my first novel A Cosmology of Monsters, also knows that I have a fascination with mental illness and how it might interact with the fantastical. I wanted to put the broken people at the center of the story, and show how that brokenness can make or break you, depending on your environment and the people in your life.

If you could have any type of Dissonant power which would you choose to use and why? 

I’d love to be able to open doorways to other places! Even being able to get to my day job without a morning commute would be amazing. Also I wouldn’t mind being able to explore other dimensions or worlds. Meet unthinkable creatures. Unravel the secrets of the multiverse.

At the heart of your novel is the theme of friendship and how friends become like the family you never had. Can you tell us more about Hal, Athena, Erin and Peter’s bond with one another? What important aspects of friendship did you most want to portray? 

I know most nerdy people don’t have fond memories of high school. It’s a tough time for anyone who isn’t attractive or good at sports or just comfortable in their own skin at a young age. But I was lucky. I found my best friends when I was 14, and they remain my best friends now, 27 years later. High school wasn’t easy, but we had a lot of fun together, being dorks. I wanted to communicate that sort of bond–young outsiders who find each other early, and form an unbreakable bond. I tried to make that apparent in the love that Hal, Athena, Erin, and Peter share. 

And what of Owen? What drives his character? 

Owen is sort of the flip-side of that dynamic. He’s someone who hasn’t found his people yet. As a result, he’s lonely and isolated and (although he probably wouldn’t put it this way) desperate to be loved. To be understood. And that need powers his journey through the book.

Which leads us to discussing the structure of your novel. Did you always plan to include dual timelines where you delve back and forth between the mid 90’s and the present time of 2019? How did you find writing your characters both as teenagers and as adults?

I tend to think structurally. For whatever reason, it’s how I usually find my way into a story. So I absolutely planned dual timelines from the beginning. I love stories that look at characters in different eras of their lives, charting the journey of years. I’m not sure why. Maybe because IT (which also features dual timelines, and characters as children and adults) made such an impression on me at a young age? I also love John Irving’s novels, which chart a steadier progression through time.

As far writing the characters as teens and adults, it was one of the most satisfying parts of creating the novel. Playing with time meant I got to tease story events in both the past and future, and keep the reader on their toes (hopefully). It was also tricky, though, because I had to make sure that they behaved consistently with what had happened to them in linear time, without giving away certain story events. It was like a big puzzle, but a really fun one (most days–some days I wanted to tear out what’s left of my hair!).

What drew you to Horror and Dark Fantasy? Have you always been a fan of the genres, or did you just start writing something dark?

When I was a kid I read my copies of Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books to tatters. I always liked spooky stuff. My first “adult” novel was IT when I was 13. I grew up on King and Anne Rice in particular. It’s strange, though–when I first started writing, I wanted to write books like Nick Hornby. I thought I’d be a “funny relationship dramedies about men obsessed with pop culture” writer. I even wrote a novel like that. It got me into my MFA program, got me my first agent, etc. 

But when I got to grad school, I had sort of a crisis of identity. I went in thinking I would write Serious Literary Fiction, like Ethan Canin or Alice Munro. But I wasn’t having much luck. It was then that I turned to the fiction of my youth–King and Rice and the rest–and realized that I had a lot to say about the genre. So I changed direction, and haven’t looked back since. A small part of me knows that my MFA professors would be disappointed in my choices, but I do better work when I embrace genre than when I try to be Raymond Carver or whatever.

Can you briefly describe what defines Horror for you? Do you have a favourite or least favourite trope?

That’s a big question. It’s a lot of things for different people, right? I guess, for me, it’s a genre that gets right at your survival instincts and kicks them into gear. It forces you to face the possibility/inevitability of pain and death, but in the end you get to walk away and keep living your life.

I think a lot of great horror knows exactly how to play on those survival instincts. At his best, nobody does it better than King. The scenes in Misery when Annie is punishing Paul still make me sick to my stomach. I also start squirming in my seat every time I watch the closet scene from Halloween, where Laurie is cornered and Michael Myers is trying to smash in.

But, while I love a good slasher or monster movie, I think what really attracts me to the genre is what I call “dark wonder.” It’s more about the religious experience–the peek behind the cosmic curtain, to see that reality is larger and stranger than you can ever know. It’s what attracts me to cosmic horror, like Laird Barron and John Langan and and Gemma Files . Maybe this preference springs from my own religious background? I’ve always wanted to see behind the curtain, to know there’s more, but I also suspect that whatever I find would be terrifying.

Just for fun, What’s your favourite scary movie(s)?

I’m kind of basic. Alien is my favorite movie. Halloween is my favorite slasher. And in both cases, I have an abiding love for the entire franchise (I’ll watch any Halloween or Alien movie and be happy). What else? Annihilation blew my socks off. The Blackcoat’s Daughter, too. Cabin in the Woods never gets old for me. Still love 28 Days Later. Oh! Let the Right One In has my heart forever. And Mandy is precisely my vibe.

If you were to have The Dissonance or A Cosmology of Monsters adapted, what medium would you choose—anime, Netflix series or feature length film? Who would you cast for your main character? 

This is an interesting question, because both books deal with the passage of time, so casting and format become tricky. How do you capture all that? Or do you just pick one age for the characters and stick with that?

For Cosmology, I’d love to see a TV adaptation, whether ongoing or limited. I’m not sure who I’d pick for Noah, since he’s kind of always changing ages through the book, but I’d love Kate Siegel or Carrie Coon to play Margaret. For an adult Noah, I’ve always liked John Gallagher Jr. He has a gentle energy in 10 Cloverfield Lane that’s really nice.

For The Dissonance, I think it could work well as a movie, as long as you keep both timelines intact. A TV show could be good, too, but for that I’d probably stick to a single timeline. Focus on them as kids, tell that story. Maybe do a time jump later? As far as who to cast, for the kids I’d prefer they go with unknowns. For the adults… 

I really love Valorie Curry for Erin (same for Mary Elizabeth Winstead). For Hal, you need someone who’s charismatic but also seems like kind of a mess, so maybe Jeremy Allen White? I also like Adam Driver, but I think he might be a little too intense. Athena’s tougher. I love Jessica Williams in Shrinking, but she’s really tall and Athena is supposed to be short. Lupita Nyong’o would be a get. She’s always great.

This is hard! I don’t usually write with actors or actresses in mind, so it’s difficult to figure out what age-appropriate actors could play them.

Can you tell us a little something about your current work(s) in progress? Will there be a sequel to The Dissonance?

I just turned in a novel that’s my first for-hire work, for a franchise very near and dear to my heart, and I’m about to start work on another for-hire, for a different franchise. For my original work, my agent currently has 2 outlines on his desk to help me choose my next novel.

I would love to do a sequel to The Dissonance. If there’s demand for Dissonance 2, I’m ready to meet it. I. Have. Thoughts. And. Ideas. It depends on if enough readers buy and like this one, I guess!

Finally, what is the one thing you hope readers take away from your writing

I hope that they find characters and a world to care about, a place they won’t want to leave behind. If I’ve done that, I’ve done my job. Anything else is icing on the cake.

Thank you so much for joining us today!

Thank you so much for having me! This was so much fun!

The Dissonance is out now from Titan Books – you can order your copy HERE