GG: Welcome to the Gaslight Gallery. I am delighted you could join us for a quick visit. Where are you located?
Kim Newman: I live in London.
GG: What is the name of your story in Gaslight Arcanum? Without providing a spoiler, please give us a summary of your story?
Kim Newman: The Six Maledictions - it's a self-contained extract from my just-published collection-cum-novel Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the d'Urbervilles (Titan Books), in which Colonel Sebastian Moran, Moriarty's Number Two, recounts the various crimes he was involved with. Here, Moriarty is approached by a rogue who has committed the not-uncommon imperial crime of prising a jewel off an idol in a far-flung corner of the globe and found himself persecuted by fanatical priests out to avenge the sacrilege. This sets Moriarty to musing about the number of cursed objects and fanatical factions in circulation.
GG: What do you like the most about this collection?
Kim Newman: Sadly, I've not had time to read the rest of it - but I look forward to getting the chance.
GG: What is the most "uncanny" thing that has happened to you personally. Please take the opportunity to tell the strangest tale you want.
Kim Newman: I seem to be immune to the uncanny.
GG: What is the best piece of writing advice that you have either received, or given?
Kim Newman: Get a good start on your second novel before the first one comes out.
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GG: In our Bitten by Books event many of the authors sent questions for other authors to answer. Stephen Volk posted a question directly to you.
Stephen Volk to Kim Newman – what were Moriarty and Moran doing during the crimes of Jack the Ripper in 1888 and did they know his true identity?
Kim Newman: Admittedly it takes place in an alternate world, but my novel Anno Dracula (Titan) does have an answer for this. I thought the world didn't need another Ripper story so I didn't mention the case in the Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the d'Urbervilles. Nevertheless, here's the skinny - they didn't know who the Ripper was or much care but they weren't happy about the way the increased police presence and activity in Whitechapel cut into their other businesses and so they tried to pin the crimes on Montague Druitt, then murdered him and made it look like suicide, hoping to close the case.
GG: Thanks Kim, for being with us today.
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KIM NEWMAN is a novelist, critic and broadcaster. His fiction includes Anno Dracula, Life’s Lottery and The Man From The Diogenes Club. His non-fiction includes Nightmare Movies, Horror: 100 Best Books and BFI Classic Studies of Cat People and Doctor Who. He is a contributing editor to Sight and Sound and Empire. His Moriarty and Moran story ‘The Red Planet League’ appeared in Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic tales of Sherlock Holmes
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