F.C. Schaefer

I have always been a fan of such old school monsters as the vampire, the werewolf, the unquiet ghost and the walking dead, and always had the strong ambition to write a novel with one of these creatures in the spotlight. That is why I wrote the BIG CRIMSON series, my vampire trilogy. I consider myself a fan of Anne Rice, having read her VAMPIRE CHRONICLES, but instead of her tales of aristocratic creatures of the night, I wanted my vampires to be a little more down and dirty, less the trappings of nobility and more like organized crime. Most of my blood drinkers lurk in darkened alleys or rundown tenements, and some may be found on the back roads in the wee hours. All of them in search of unwary prey. They come together in clans, ruled over by their “Makers,” who run their fiefdoms with an iron hand. Then there are the outlaw vampires who refuse to bend the knee to any Maker and the allegiance to any clan. They roam from city to city, making their way the best they can having perfected the art of “passing for mortal.” What happens when one of those outlaw vampires is suddenly in need of the help from a mortal is the opening act of BIG CRIMSON. My favorite type of horror story has always been one where the ordinary and the everyday and the supernatural co-exist, where the “normal” façade of the world we take for granted is pulled back to reveal the house of horrors behind. That is the premise I used in BIG CRIMSON and a couple of short stories I’ve written, one of which, PICK YOUR POISON, could best be described as The Stand meets Dracula and the Wolfman. A concept that would make for a great straight to DVD movie back in the day. Another one, YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO COME THROUGH THE DOOR, turns on the mundane encountering the extraordinary when a vampire has to go shopping for a new suit. Another genre I have written in is alternate history. ALL THE WAY WITH JFK: AN ALTERNATE HISTORY OF 1964 is my story of what might have happened if the tragic events of November 22, 1963 had turned out differently. It is one of the great What Ifs of the 20th Century, and I wanted to write something original—or as close to it as I could come—that would engage fans of speculative history. Using the framing device of an oral history of an America where John F. Kennedy lived to run for re-election, I tell the story through the eyes of characters caught up in events that threaten to spin out of control at any moment, as history sails into uncharted waters. BEATING PLOWSHARES INTO SWORDS is an alternate history of the Vietnam War and comes from my lifelong passion for military history. It is the first thing I actually tried to seriously write. Like my other alternate history books, this one too is told through an oral history by the men and women who fought in and opposed a Vietnam War where the course of history took a different turn when the Communists launch the Tet Offensive three years early, and defeat in Southeast Asia appear eminent. This is when President Lyndon Johnson turns to Richard Nixon to help reverse the war, and where this leads, is the heart of the book. I wanted my first work to be something other than the usual alternate history tropes—no What If the South Won the Civil War or What If Hitler had been victorious. I tried to do write something unique, something fans of this sort of thing might enjoy. Hope I was successful. For the better part of the last decade I have been working on a fantasy trilogy, talk about biting off more than you can chew. My story has a lot of influences, more leaning toward anime and comic books than Tolkien. I outlined and outlined and outlined; then I wrote three books. Then I decided the back story of my fantasy world deserved a book of its own, so I outlined another novel, which needs to be rewritten and revised before I can even think about producing a first draft. I might need to find some beta readers before I proceed any further. After I finished the initial three books in my fantasy series, I took a break and wrote another alternate history novel, this one titled WORLD WAR NIXON. It’s set in the 1970s and is a take what would have happened had some key events of the Nixon Era like the Watergate break in and the opening to Red China had gone differently. It still needs some work, but I hope to get it launched soon. Please check me out on twitter at @FCSNVA.