Howard Phillips Lovecraft not only designed an entire universe, but was a prolific letter-writer, and has influenced generations of horror writers. While he was not on Titanic (sorry, I made that up), he was a lot of fun to give a new story to. I think he would be happy with my version.
When I decided to write a sea story and Severed Press’ Gary Lucas said he wanted a megaladon, I was mystified. ‘Jaws’ is an amazing movie and book, but besides that, I have never been very impressed with fish horror. (Although Severed Press has the Dead Bait anthologies and they rock.)
I always think that the people can just get out of the water and (bingo) they are safe. No story. Also, the idea that a meg appears in modern time after popping out of a rock, iceberg, egg (!), science lab, or anywhere else feels very dues ex machina.
I thought first to isolate people on a ship that was sinking and of course it had to be Titanic. I love historical horror fiction. Once I had the location, I needed to know how Meg got there but I knew he was old so it was logical he came with more old monsters and (bingo again) I knew he was one of the Old Ones.
I could have left it at that and done fine, but on a whim, I checked dates and found that HPL fit perfectly (as per age and writing). Although this was terribly ambitious (with a strange assortment of book devices), there was not one second that felt forced as I wrote. Strangely, every element fell into place so smoothly that at times, I forgot HPL was not there.
This is how I get my ideas. I had Megaladon. I asked “who, what, where, when, why, how” and I had the entire vision within minutes. I never outline a book and I didn’t this time but allowed the timeline of Titanic to lead me and honestly didn’t know how it would end, until… it did.
RIP:RMS Titanic
Copyright
© 2013 catt dahman
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book, including the cover, and photos, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. All rights reserved.
The characters, places and events depicted are fictional and do not represent anyone living or dead. This is a work of fiction. The statistics and information about Titanic are based on research and are as close to full accuracy as possible. In some cases, I took small liberties.
For David and Nic who toured the Titanic exhibit with me: thank you for sharing in my interest.
Thank you, Gary, for allowing me this ambitious project
Dedicated to those who survived the disaster and their families, and to those who lost their lives. Above all, dedicated to Commander Charles Lightoller who was an amazing hero.
For those with further interest or who would like to see what the ship looked like (inside and out) and how the disaster occurred, and pictures of some of the survivors : http://www.cattd.com
Dead Bait
