Interview with Hugh Cave

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Copyright 1999 by Vintage New Media. All rights reserved.

Hugh B. Cave RevisitedAn Interview Conducted by Tim Dill

August 1999

I first came in contact with Hugh B. Cave when I conducted aninterview with him in December of 1996. I was familiar with hiswork, but had no knowledge of his character. During the intervalbetween that interview and this one, Hugh and I traded lettersand e-mail discussing our work and lives. Today I am veryhonored to be presenting this interview not only because I am afan of Hugh Cave but because I am also a friend.

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Tim Dill: Pumpkin Books just publishedIsle of the Whisperers your first novel since1991 (Lucifer’s Eye, Tor Books). You’vewritten several short stories since this time;why did you choose to return to novels?

Hugh Cave: I guess I write novels whenwhat seems to be a good idea happensalong and grabs me. To stay contented, allI really have to do is keep on writing, andmost of what I do these days is in the short-story form for anthologies and a fewmagazines, such as Cemetery Dance andWeird Tales, that I always enjoy reading.“Whisperers” kept me busy for a while, andDavid Marshall of Pumpkin Books(England) liked it but wanted it to be a bitlonger. I liked his ideas for lengthening it,and we had a book.

Tim Dill: In Isle of the Whisperers yourhero is a 64-year-old female archeologist.I’ve read quite a bit of your work but can’trecall your featuring a woman as the maincharacter before. Why did you chooseMartha for this novel?

Hugh Cave: I’ve written more than a fewshort stories in which women were themain characters, but “Whisperers” is my

first such novel. On the other hand, isMartha actually the “hero” of “Whisperers?”What about Dan Lorimer, her young maleassistant? And what about little Erica,when she crawls alone through the WormHole in the cave to carry a life-savingmessage to Martha? To tell the truth, Idon’t think I “made up” these people. Withthe story-line in place, they just came intobeing by themselves to work it out!

Tim Dill: I thought that Isle of Whispererswould make a great film. Any chances?

Hugh Cave: No one has approachedme yet. Actually, it hasn’t been out longenough for such a development. Keepsome fingers crossed, hey?

Tim Dill: Have you had any of your workchanneled to film or television?

Hugh Cave: Quite a few of my shorterworks have been done on radio andtelevision. “Danger By Night” had DavidNiven playing the lead. “The Woman atFog Point” had Ralph Bellamy. I had amovie offer for “Murgunstrumm” but itfizzled when the star they wanted to playMurgy— I’d better not name him!— declined

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Hugh B. Cave Interview August, 1999___________________________________________________________________________________________

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A production of Vintage New Media™www.vintagelibrary.com

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to play the part because the old inn-keeperwas just “too much”. My The Cross on theDrum almost made it onto the screen too,but the man who was to have played thehoungan (again I’d better not name him)just didn’t want to make another movie atthat time. Still another one that might havebecome a movie was the novel youmentioned above, Lucifer’s Eye. I wasdickering with the “producer” when hesuddenly fell silent. I never did find out why.

Tim Dill: Do you currently have a literaryagent?

Hugh Cave: No, I don’t. I haven’t used anagent for short stories in several years, andI sold my two most recent novels myself.To tell the truth, I enjoy dealing personallywith editors and publishers.

Tim Dill: Black Dog Books is republishingseveral of your pulp tales. What is theprocess of material selection?

Hugh Cave: I put that question to TomRoberts not long ago and he replied that heis collecting my pulp stories and wants toreprint those that hit him hard enough.Black Dog has already published TheDeath-Head’s March and Others byGeoffrey Cave and Hugh B. Cave, WhiteStar of Egypt by Justin Case (one of mypulp pen-names), and a long novelette,The Desert Host, from Farnsworth Wright’sMagic Carpet Magazine. Wright, you’llremember, also edited the original WeirdTales. An accomplished artist and bookdesigner, Tom does a great job with thesebooklets. Up next from Tom’s Black DogBooks will be a second collection of myJustin Case stories called Dark Doors of

Doom (out in October, 1999), then acollection of my Shane Kelley PostalInspector stories called Dig The GraveDeeper (also planned for October, 1999)to be followed by a third Justin Casecollection called Sabali Madness due outabout January 2000.

Tim Dill: Several of your pulp stories havebeen reprinted electronically by VintageNew Media. How is that selection processcompared to other markets?

Hugh Cave: Jack Suto runs Vintage NewMedia and does a fine job with it. Readerswho want a complete answer to thisquestion would do well to seek outVintagelibrary.com/ on the web. From timeto time Mr. Suto has reprinted stories ofmine (and of other writers) from all kinds ofpulp magazines. He packages them bygenre: detective, adventure, shudderstories, etc. The web-site also sells books,including my Isle of the Whisperers.Altogether it’s a fascinating web-site.

Tim Dill: In today’s current environment, itseems that fewer and fewer outlets areavailable for short stories and novels.What are your thoughts on today’s literarymarketplace.

Hugh Cave: When I was a young manalmost every drugstore in the land had arack of “all-fiction” magazines on display.(There were more than a hundred titles andthey weren’t called “pulps” then.) Anywould-be writer could do what I did at thetime: read them, write the kind of storiesthey published, and mail the stories in. Itwas the same with the so-called “slicks”,such as the Saturday Evening Post (whichpublished 43 stories of mine) and Good

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Housekeeping (which published 36),although the slicks paid better and wereharder to sell to. Now what is there? Thepulps are gone. Most of the slicks nolonger use fiction. There exists a merehandful of small-press magazines that awould-be writer can direct his work to. Asfor book publishing, there used to be manysuch publishers of all shapes and sizes.Now there are just a handful ofconglomerates. You can still be published,of course— there are some fine “smallpresses” out there— but all in all unless youare a very big name, it is much harder tomake a living as a “writer”.

Tim Dill: Since our last interview(December ‘96) a tremendous amount ofyour work has been republished. What isforthcoming?

Hugh Cave: A possible sequel to Isle ofthe Whisperers from Pumpkin Books. Anew novel called The Dawning fromLeisure Books. A collection of my PeterKane stories from Dime DetectiveMagazine, called Bottled in Blonde, fromaward-winning Fedogan & Bremer. TheBlack Dog Books items mentioned above.A new short story in Northern Frights 5, thegreat Don Hutchison anthology series. Anew short story in Cemetery Dance. And—with luck— a handful of other projects nowin the formative stage.

Tim Dill: What is your writing pattern? Doyou work at a steady pace on a definedproject or have spurts of creative activity?

Hugh Cave: I’ve been at this wonderfulgame long enough now to work whenever Ifeel like it. Which could be all morning, all

afternoon, all day, and at times even allnight. I kid you not. Ask my Peggy.

Tim Dill: I recently read ConqueringKilmarnie, a novel of yours from 1989(Macmillan) that was billed as a children’sbook. I was shocked to find that it was justas entertaining to an adult as a child. Didyou conduct much research in thechildren’s book segment prior to startingthis tale?

Hugh Cave: My very first book (of the 37I’ve had published to date) was FishermenFour, a boys’s book done by Dodd Meadin 1942. I had an urge to try the field againin 1988 with The Voyage (Macmillan, U.S.& Collins, England) and again in 1989 withConquering Kilmarnie (again Macmillanand Collins.) I’m flattered that you liked thelatter as an adult, but no one hassuggested I write any more such novels.“Kilmarnie” may have had an adult feel foryou because it’s about the adventures of aJamaican boy and an American boy on acoffee plantation in the Blue Mountains ofJamaica, and I owned and ran such aplantation for 15 years.

Tim Dill: Pulp Man’s Odyssey: The HughB. Cave Story by Audrey Parente waswritten several years ago as a biography ofyour writing career. A new much largerbiography is in development. What is thestatus of this project?

Hugh Cave: Milt Thomas, whoaccompanied me to the London WorldFantasy Convention in October, 1997, iswriting such a biography. He’s a publishedauthor and a darned good one. He is alsoa trusted friend and my literary executor.Anyone interested in publishing his book

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about me is invited to write to me at 437Thomas Street, Sebastian , FL 32958 or e-mail me at [email protected]. Whenfinished, Milt’s biog will be a whole-lifestory, not just a resume of my career as awriter.

Tim Dill: In 1997 at the World FantasyConvention in London you received theprestigious Life Achievement Award. Canyou tell us about the convention and thenyour return to the US?

Hugh Cave: Actually, the Howie theygave me says “Special Committee Award”on it, but Steve Jones did tell me it was aLifetime Achievement Award. I had anearlier one in 1991 from the Horror WritersAssociation. and have since been given aGrandmaster Award by the InternationalHorror Guild. But the flight home from thatLondon convention was pretty stressful,even with my friend Milt Thomas along, andI ended up in the hospital with a bleedingulcer. Trying to find out what brought on theulcer (which was later determined to havebeen caused by water I drank in theboonies of Haiti years before!) the medicsdiscovered I had a 95 per cent blockage inboth carotid arteries (which supply blood tothe brain). The surgeon who repaired themtold me I was lucky I got to the hospitalwhen I did. Had those blocked-up arteriesnot been discovered within 48 hours, Iwould have said farewell to you all.

Tim Dill: During your pulp days, you hadseveral continuing characters such as TheEel. Were you ever offered a writing stintfor a continuing character in a Hero Pulp,such as Doc Savage? If not, would youhave accepted such an offer?

Hugh Cave: If any editor had invited meto write a Hero Pulp tale, I probably wouldhave at least tried to do so. Pulp editorsseemed to be content with letting me writemy stories about The Eel and Peter Kaneand Shane Kelley and Tsiang House, etc.

Tim Dill: Your guest house burned manyyears ago containing your collection of pulpmagazines that contained your stories.Recently, Tom Roberts of Black DogBooks has led an Internet-based campaignto recover your material. Can you give usan up-date on the project and itsbackground?

Hugh Cave: Tom and I were swappingletters about his work and mine, and Ihappened to mention that fire. He took iton as a project. To date he has persuadeda dozen or more fan friends to send himstories of mine, which stories he sends mecopies of. I wrote some 800 stories for thepulps under my own and several pen-names before moving on into books andthe slicks. Thanks to Tom, I’ve been ableto replace all but about 50 of them. Thefans have been simply wonderful, and myheart goes out to them for their caring andkindness. God bless them all— and TomRoberts— and you, Tim Dill.

THE END

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