Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome: Dreamweaver, Doomsage, Sunday Times bestseller

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Well, it's an odd one because that is a good question, because the way we've always done gas pros when we wrote it for the show, and when we did it for the live shows was prose was just very immediately bad. So there would be terrible sentences, terrible choice of words. And the problem that I faced was if you do that, for something that's novel length, the joke very rapidly wears thin. And I realized that you needed to have some form of prose style for Garth that was at least competent enough to maintain interest and not let the reader get bored. And sort of, you know, otherwise, it's just very one note, and you just can't read deliberately bad prose for longer than I think a few paragraphs before. You know, your eyes sort of glaze over and you go gray. So I had to kind of strike a happy medium between a competent piece of writing, but one that still had terrible sentences, terrible ideas every so often, but yeah, so it's less, it's less immediately appalling prose wise than say, you know, other other gaff material, but hopefully means that, you know, people will enjoy it for the stories, and perhaps, you know, feeling that, you know, at some level, maybe Garth does have an idea about how to get, you know, from A to B, without going via, you know, every other letter of the alphabet.

I was actually reading mostly Fighting Fantasy gamebooks the subjects in Livingston books and those those Really my entry into book reading, I absolutely adored them and collected them right up until I think number 50. And then I realized I had to sort of stop. But I wish I hadn't. Now I'm collecting them again, I wish I wish I'd carried on. But, but yeah, those were those were mainly the books. I mean, I also had, I had a lot of annuals, and I had the Dracula spine chiller annual, which had the really good house of hammer magazine, graphic novel adaptation of the horror of Dracula. And also, I think twins of evil was another one that's in that particular annual. So I was I was reading a lot of that stuff. But there was definitely, you know, I don't think I was on to horror novels at that point. But I was definitely absorbing as much horror content as I could. I? Yeah, yeah. I know. I feel you on that. And I too, you know, I I sold many of my original games, the original Resident Evils the original Silent Hills, naively assuming Well, of course, that will be available. Well, yeah, no, no, it was Yeah, yeah, I mean, that is often the way that it goes. But I mean, I suppose particularly for horror fans, if they hear Whitstable then it's difficult to not think of Peter Cushing. Absolutely. Well, it's my understanding that you actually met him at an early age. Welcome to This Is Horror, a podcast for readers writers and creators. I'm Michael David Wilson and every episode I interview masters of horror, about writing, life lessons, creativity, and much more. Now, today's guest is Matthew Holness. He is a comedian, writer, director and actor, and he is probably best known for Garth Marenghi's dark place. He also wrote and directed a fantastic film possum and has done a number of other great things including a gun for George and bruiser. But today for this very special Halloween episode. We are here primarily to celebrate the forthcoming release of Garth Marenghi's TerrorTome, the brand new Garth Marenghi book. And I absolutely love Garth Marenghi and Garth Marenghi's dark place I have oft quoted it with my friends. And so it was a tremendous pleasure and an honor to be able to sit down and chat to Matthew wholeness. And even though we only had about an hour we really did get into so much stuff. So of course there's a lot of Garth Marenghi chat. There's a little bit of Possum conversation, but we also delved into a little bit on the editing process on what it was like growing up in Whitstable, and a lot lot more. But before any of that, a little bit of an advert break.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been a tremendous amount of fun chatting with you. I'd certainly like to do a Yeah, yeah. Thank you. I mean, I'd love to do it again. Sometime. There's still so much more. I'd like absolutely to so. Yeah. Wonderful. Would love to. All right, well, where can listeners connect with you? I would say no, I don't think my influences have changed. I I think I was less interested in writing comedy scripts, definitely. I just didn't want to do that. And when I set out to write anything, the last thing I'm thinking of is I want to write something funny. So that's kind of gone as a as a, as a as a reason for doing which is, which sounds odd given that I've just written territory. But actually, it Yeah, I wasn't. It's odd. I want it I think I was more interested in the idea of what had Garth written? What kind of stuff is he writing now? What would actually a Garth book be like? I think that was interesting, me more than wanting to write a book that would make people laugh. So I think it's that I'm always always interested in writers and, and how they go about their job and what they do and what drives them to write the stories and particularly pulp writers. I mean, I love serious horror writers, obviously, I'm a huge Sheridan of the new fan. And but but there's something about the throwaway pulp writing and for the writers that do it over and over that I find deeply fascinating, and, and a really honorable way of, of kind of earning a living in an odd way. Because it's sheer hard work and persistence. And so I suppose that's my, that's what's always interested me in terms of, of, of approaching my own projects, I'm always there always, I suppose in some way. And look at that creative process. And, you know, and and why people do it. And I think I've always written serious sort of short stories. I mean, I've written two or three before I wrote the possum short story, which, you know, a kind of throw away, they were just sort of ways of learning to do it, really. And I think possum was probably the first short story I wrote that I was pleased with and thought, well wouldn't mind. You know, I can, I'd happily put my name to that one. So I've always done that. And that was roundabout at the time of still doing comedy on TV. So I don't think he's changed that much. Actually, I think I just know what I prefer writing about now. And I'm less concerned about, you know, wanting to, I suppose to do a comedy show that isn't that isn't really what drives me anymore. But But what is Garth writing? That does interest me? Definitely. Well, yes. And that was, that was the nice thing, because the teachers encouraged that at my school. And so quite often, I would get the chance to read out a story to the class. And that was, that was great. And I think that was that was such a good thing to be able to do at that age. And very grateful that teachers, you know, our teachers encouraged us and allowed us to do stuff like that. So yeah, that was definitely fun. So it was it would be, you know, would you like to read your story out to the classical? Yes, please. Yeah, it's good fun doing that.

I mean, that's, that's has that has happened to me. And I think it happens to an awful lot of writers. And it's not a great feeling, I have to say, Yeah. Yeah. So I know that a lot of people want to hear about Garth Marenghi. And this is the book that you're here to promote as well. So jump into that early. But I mean, it was originally you and Richard Ayoade created Garth Marenghi so I mean, what's the origin story there? I'm wondering what conversations the two of you are having to conceive of a spoof pulp 80s Horror offer? I mean, would you often entertain your friends and your classmates with stories? I mean, I'm wondering what the kind of scene was there? Terrifying Entity is the one we’re going to be testing first – with the number of interactions based around terrified , having your general project a 6” Aura of Dread rather than 3” could be quite nasty. It doesn’t give your general any personal bonuses, but Nighthaunt heroes have always been more about buffing their army rather than being blenders themselves. Faction rules completely redesign the way the army is played, rewriting Nighthaunt into an incredibly mobile scalpel of an army.I wish I had heeded the warnings to skip over the truly disturbing sections, but I listened thinking perhaps those were the funny bits. I love it. I absolutely love it. It's one of my favorites. And and I think at that time, I remember it coming out. And it was odd because it really was that transition stage between the sort of the 80s king and and the and the 90s, more mystery thriller, sort of King coming in. And it was a really good it's like the perfect bridge between those two genres. I think literally, in the book. It's, you know, you've got a thriller writer in the book, but it's a horror novel. So it is like the perfect transitional book between one genre and another. And now, I mean, I certainly have been enjoying it a great deal. And I mean, I could tell from the start, okay, I'm in safe hands here. And you've nailed the Gulf marine voice once again. I mean, you know, from the, from even the introduction, where Gulf records, assaulting a former editor with his company paid, you're right. All right. There's just gonna be a good time.

It’s important to note here that the bodyguard ability happens instead of your hero taking a ward save, and the spirit host doesn’t get to make any kind of save either. Bodyguarding means you’ll take more damage, you just get to allocate where it goes , and that can be vitally important. Bladegheist Revenants Yeah, well, I mean, they did a hell of a job, you know, with the interior. They really did. And, you know, it also evokes for me, the the atmosphere of I don't know if you've played the video game Silent Hill for the room.

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Yeah, writing your answer in terms of wherever they would be another dark place on the screen is the best possible answer someone could hope for, you know, it's like only if all the right conditions of the air only if you don't compromise any your artistic integrity in terms of doing it, you need that creative Yeah. Well, I mean, as a huge Silent Hill fan, perhaps such as myself, you were very excited this week, when they had a plethora of Silent Hill announcements. They're remaking Silent Hill to finally they've got a brand new Silent Hill game coming out that will be set in Japan. So that's intriguing, because, you know, they're all set in America and then there's gonna be a new Silent Hill film, so And there's other games as well. But yeah, it's, As a fan of Darkplace this was an instabuy as soon as I became aware of it. Glad Garth narrated this. It wouldn’t have been the same otherwise. Matthew Holness is an English comedian, writer, director, plus actor. He is best known for creating and playing the fictional horror author Garth Marenghi. His brand new book Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome is out early November and his film Possum is out right now. Show notes Finally an equivalent for All Out Defense ! As we’ve spoken about in Hammer of Math articles before, a 5+ ward is more than twice as good as a 6+ ward, because any saved wound has a higher chance of being saved again. Using this ability at just the right time will be absolutely game winning. We’ve taken to calling this ability All Out Ghost in the Goonhammer office. Frightful TouchThe other unit that had mortal wounds on 6s to hit, Spirit Hosts lost it and got given a new bodyguard rule, which allows nearby (3”) Nighthaunt heroes (so no Nagash) to pass wounds off onto this unit on a 3+. Nighthaunt have traditionally always fallen apart as soon as their support heroes die, so having a bodyguard unit that both has the summonable keyword so can be replenished and also doesn’t require a subfaction to use is fantastic. Along with the Cruciator these are almost auto include for at least one unit, if only to help stop enemy shooting from messing with your hero hammer too badly. Yeah. Oh, I've I can see it's available. It's in. It's in Japan. It will be I can get that delivered to me in two days time, then yeah. Yeah, that is happening. Well, I did have a couple of questions from one of our patrons. Okay, yeah, go for it. Dan Howarth says, How has your approach to writing evolved over the years from something as hilarious as dark place to something as weird and bleak as possum and have your influences changed? There’s a couple of key things to note here. Firstly, there’s no cap on how low you can reduce a unit’s save. With enough rend and Wave of Terror results, you can absolutely strip a unit down to no save whatsoever.