Interview with Brian E. Niskala- Author of Rhinehoth

Quick Questions

B (me): Who’s your favorite author?

Niskala: “Well I have a few without putting one as a favorite. Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, J.R.R. Tolkien, H.G. Wells, Mary Shelly with some more modern authors, Dean Koontz and Anne Rice.”

B: What’s your favorite book?

Niskala: “I find myself going back to ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’. I love the story of a man trapped (in prison) but through a chance of luck and overcoming incredible odds, escapes. He finds a long lost treasure and in the midst of revenge finds himself and true love.”

B: What motivated you to be an author?

Niskala: “Oddly enough, boredom; I found myself unemployed from a 6 figure corporate job and on the verge of insanity sending out thousands of unanswered resumes. In the sleepless hours of night, I wrote for the hopes of getting tired enough to actually fall asleep. Of course the opposite happened and out popped a Gothic horror novel, Rhinehoth.”

B: How many books have you written? Can you give us a few titles?

Niskala: “Rhinehoth is my first, I wrote a small book called Articles in Horror Volume 1 which is just a group of exactly what the title says. I wrote some articles for an online horror site and put them together in an eBook form. I am close to finishing a SciFi novel called ‘Space Cell 11’ about a space penal colony who the government along with a large corporate contractor abuses the prisoners for slave labor. I give it a good twist on traditional prison escape stories with the big bad corporate entity abusing power as they often will driven by greed. Besides the hind of the escape plot, there is also an interesting plot on human gene manipulation as well as the practical science behind the development of artificial gravity, teleportation and the future of resolving food and fuel shortages.”

B: What are your interests?  

Niskala: “My main interests are movies and film. I want desperately to be able to produce movies, but know I need to become a writer/screen writer first to better know and understand the process from the creative aspect to the practical business part. Hopefully through my writing I will be able to get there. I already have produced a few small book trailers, one for Rhinehoth that has helped the novel get noticed.

 Other than my career interests I have 4 amazing children and a wife of over 20 years, they are my main passion and interest.”

About Rhinehoth

B: What was your initial inspiration for Rhinehoth?

Niskala: “I saw the recent phenomena of Twilight, I like the stories, but found them insulting to the classic tales of vampires and werewolves. I guess it filled a romance gap for the teens, but I knew like myself, more adult or mature audiences would be craving something modern, but they could call their own. Something more violent with more adult sexual content, even though I purposely do not get too raunchy or graphic with scenes. Just enough to let the imagination run. So in the end, I wanted something to give the feel of the classic Dracula but with a more modern twist.”

B: The story focuses heavily on religious folklore; what kind of background/interest do you have in the subject?

Niskala: “Well my back-ground is from Catholic Schooling, not my entire education but a big part of it. Religion was a very big part of my education thanks in part to my parents making sure I had the best Catholic education possible. Religion is always a factor in everything, commerce, war, literature. “

B: Do you believe in any of the folklore you write about (literally or figuratively) or are the stories purely fictional to you? (Ex.- three crosses “marking” some sort of savior)

Niskala: “Folklore is what it is, I believe in God and that Jesus was sent in one way or another through him. You have to look at two things when it comes to religion and the ancient writings. If you have ever played the game telephone as a kid, you form a line, the first person tells a phrase or sentence and then the next person in line tells the next kid and so on. Eventually when you get to the last person, the story is completely different. Same as adults, we try our hardest to remember the details, the specifics, but the overall story changes a bit. Religion I look at as the same way, the core of the story is there, but things have changed, from print, to translation through an author’s interpretation. The 2^nd is the faith in God, the faith that these stories have come to us as the word of God and the small changes made by man has not changed his intention. With all this considered, I have a very open mind. One of my main studies in High School was religion, where I studied all the various religions around the world. One thing I learned is that God is one hell of a salesman and marketed himself to the culture and region of its people. Either that or we as humans created him in our own form to fit into our cultures and regions. So to review and to answer yes and no.”

B: In Rhinehoth, you use a lot of (fictional and factual) history to tell a story in the present; what made you want to combine the two time periods?

Niskala: “I love how history shaped the world, the maps and how we look to the future. History cannot be changed, only by authors of fiction or when H.G. Wells’ ‘Time Machine’ is actually built. I wanted Rhinehoth to have an epic feel. The true history of the period made this possible and would help bring you into the story no matter who the reader is. We all learn history in school, all learned the stories of religion, the Roman’s and the conquering of Europe. I thought this all put together would give a great, interesting back drop and keep your mind going and become engaged with the characters and the time periods.”

B: Throughout history, we have seen this continual battle between vampires and werewolves; what made you want to tell your own version of the animosity? How do you think this animosity began?

Niskala: “I like the obvious tension created by different races and species. Telling this animosity is credible in a story, you don’t have to paint elaborate pictures of explanations, it is right there. Humans have always been brutal to each other with differences to race or color, it is only natural to bring this into a classic telling of a Gothic story. It fits the time periods and even the present. We all try to be accepting of differences in people, but you always have the inbreed instinct to fear the difference in other peoples of race or color. Animals of different species will eat animals that are not their own kind, it is the natural structure of things. So from that I think the animosity has always been there, from its inception.”

B: There you have it- straight from the source, leave a comment and let me know what you think!!

Happy reading,

B