The Worldshapers

The Worldshapers


Episode 70: F. Paul Wilson

November 15, 2020

An hour-long interview with F. Paul Wilson, the award-winning, bestselling author of 60 books and nearly 100 short stories spanning science fiction, horror, adventure, medical thrillers, and virtually everything between.

WebsiteRepairmanJack.com

Facebook@RealFPaulWilson

Twitter@FPaulWilson

F. Paul Wilson’s Amazon Page

The Introduction

F. Paul Wilson is the award-winning, bestselling author of 60 books and nearly 100 short stories spanning science fiction, horror, adventure, medical thrillers, and virtually everything between.

His novels The Keep, The Tomb, Harbingers, By the Sword, The Dark at the End, and Nightworld were New York Times Bestsellers.  The Tomb received the 1984 Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books. Wheels Within Wheels won the first Prometheus Award, and Sims another; Healer and An Enemy of the State were elected to the Prometheus Hall of Fame.  Dydeetown World was on the young adult recommended reading lists of the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, among others.  His novella “Aftershock” won the Stoker Award. He was voted Grand Master by the World Horror Convention; he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers of America, and the Thriller Lifetime Achievement Award from the editors of Romantic Times.  He also received the prestigious San Diego ComiCon Inkpot Award and is listed in the 50th anniversary edition of Who’s Who in America.

His short fiction has been collected in Soft & Others, The Barrens & Others, and Aftershock & Others.  He has edited two anthologies: Freak Show and Diagnosis: Terminal plus (with Pierce Watters) the only complete collection of Henry Kuttner’s Hogben stories, The Hogben Chronicles.

In 1983 Paramount rendered his novel The Keep into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie with screenplay and direction by Michael Mann.

The Tomb has spent 25 years in development hell at Beacon Films.

Dario Argento adapted his story “Pelts” for Masters of Horror.

Over nine million copies of his books are in print in the US, and his work has been translated into twenty-four languages.  He also has written for the stage, screen, comics, and interactive media. He resides at the Jersey Shore

The (Lightly Edited) Transcript

So, welcome to The Worldshapers, Paul.

Well, glad to be here.

You know, I like to give people who, you know, haven’t done much an opportunity to be on the show once in a while.

I understand.

And maybe I can help out your career a little bit. Well, it’s nice to meet you. We’ve never met in person, but your name sort of popped up in something I was reading, and I thought, “That’d be a great guy to talk to.” And I have to say that I have a very strong memory of reading The Keep when it first came out, back in 1981, was it, I think?

Yeah, it was.

And I also remember seeing the movie, and I do remember thinking that it was rather incomprehensible but pretty to look at. So, yeah, I think that was an accurate description. So,