Poisoned Rationality Special  Edition   Welcome to another Poisoned Rationality Special Edition! That's right with the help of TOR I hoodwinked another author into being interviewed. Don't worry folks, no authors were harmed in the creation of this post. Welcome Rod to Poisoned Rationality!

Summary: Nevada, 1869: Beyond the pitiless 40-Mile Desert lies Golgotha, a cattle town that hides more than its share of unnatural secrets. The sheriff bears the mark of the noose around his neck; some say he is a dead man whose time has not yet come. His half-human deputy is kin to coyotes. The mayor guards a hoard of mythical treasures. A banker’s wife belongs to a secret order of assassins. And a shady saloon owner, whose fingers are in everyone’s business, may know more about the town’s true origins than he’s letting on.

A haven for the blessed and the damned, Golgotha has known many strange events, but nothing like the primordial darkness stirring in the abandoned silver mine overlooking the town. Bleeding midnight, an ancient evil is spilling into the world, and unless the sheriff and his posse can saddle up in time, Golgotha will have seen its last dawn…and so will all of Creation.

The cover of The Six-Gun Tarot is beautiful and eye-catching (pun totally intended). When envisioning the book what kind of cover did you think it would have? Did you have input on this cover?

It is amazing, right! I love it and I know it has got me a lot of sales. The artist is Raymond Swanland and he is a great guy and an incredible artist.

I was shown the cover art after they had commissioned Raymond for it and I thought it was perfect! I thanked Raymond for wrapping my words in such beautiful, powerful art. He said some very nice things about the book and said he read the manuscript and that it inspired him in his work. I’m very lucky to have my first book have such a great cover! I would love to work with him again, if at all possible.

Oh, and “eye-catching”…Ooofff. You really “blindsided” me with that.

With a tagline like "Buffy meets Deadwood", people must have had a varied idea of what to expect when reading the book. Have you read any responses that you didn't expect?

Yeah, a few. I’ve been said to be “deep and philosophical” and also “shallow and obscure”. I’ll take the lot (hahahahaha). If you please everyone then you produced gray goo and you deserve all the accolades such crap deserve.

I write what I think is fun, cool and interests me. My philosophy is all over the map and I try very hard to write with an open mind and from as many viewpoints as I can stretch my brain to hold.  I’m really happy the majority of folks who have read the book seem to “get” that I was having fun and trying to do something old in a new way. I am very grateful for the kindness and thoughtfulness of the folks who read and enjoyed the book. And I’m honored to have my book produce thought and discussion. Love me or hate me, just please don’t bore me (hahahahaha).

The funniest thing is that the folks I thought I’d get the most shit from about stuff in the book are the ones I haven’t heard a peep out of, and the folks who I thought would appreciate what I was trying to pull off are the most critical. I enjoy having my ideas and beliefs challenged in a thoughtful and respectful manner. In the end, I have to put all of that stuff aside and write what I want, the way I want and hope the reader will get something of value, to them, out of it.

Your story "Orphans" in the Star Trek anthology Strange New Worlds 9, was obviously set in
a universe that has some rules set in stone. Was it hard for you to work within a franchise that's
been around so long?

“Orpahans” was an experiment for me. I was trying out different kinds of fiction and I saw the ad for the contest on the trek.com website and decided to try a genre fiction piece set in an established universe. I am a HUGE Trek fan, by the way. I grew up with the original series in reruns and I love the philosophy Gene Roddenberry established in Star Trek and I love the show in all its incarnations (some incarnations more than others…)

And, to be honest I wrote “Orphans” pretty wild and free. I mashed up a bunch of stuff from many different incarnations of the series and just tried to make a thoughtful, enjoyable story (“fun” is a huge part of my writing philosophy) with the wonderful pile of Legos the Trek Universe offers a writer.  So, No I guess I should have felt some constriction but I didn’t. I won the Grand Prize that year and best of all; Harlan Ellison didn’t sue me (hahahahaha)!

Now, the next year, I did another Trek mash-up story and it made the cut from the editor, Dean Smith, but fell in to a hole once it went into corporate, and was not included in the final volume of the series. So maybe I did step on some continuity toes with that one, I honestly don’t know, but I got a damn good unpublished Trek story out of it.

The sequel to The Six-Gun Tarot has a working title of “The 32 Killers of Golgotha", which this being the business it is will likely change. Did Six-Gun have any other titles you threw around or a working title?

Yeah, the working title of Six-Gun was just “Golgotha”. There was concern that that title wouldn’t evoke a fantasy western vibe, so my Editor, Greg Cox (an amazing writer and editor and a great guy) went through a list of possible titles (I’ve got that list somewhere still...) and decided on The Six-Gun Tarot. In retrospect, I think it was a good choice to change it. I actually asked my friends on Facebook to pitch me title ideas in the middle of the process. I got some real funny ones- Lots of H.P. Lovecraft riffs-“The Horror that came to
Golgotha”, “The Ghoul, The Bad and the Tentacle”…You get the idea ( hahahaha).

I admit I'm highly interested in your other work in progress, The Greenway. Raymond Chandler has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid watching the movies with my granddad.

Me too! I love the noir esthetic and I love detective fiction. I think if you enjoyed Six-Gun, You will enjoy Greenway. It’s an occult detective story- it has lots of weirdness, kink, conspiracy, magic and violence. Think “Harry Potter, the Trainspotting Years” (hahaha).I’m finishing it up currently. I will be happy to talk more about it in future, if you’d like. 

Is there a genre you think you would never delve into?

Nope. If I think of one, I will try to do something in it, just to push me. I love storytelling
and I love trying new stuff and I hate having limits.

Thank you for joining us today!

Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it. I hope we can talk again soon. You can reach me at my website or by email () twitter () and on Facebook (Author RS Belcher and The Six-Gun Tarot). Thanks again!

Readers you can be sure of one thing--soon as The Greenway is avail to consume I will be all over that.