It’s time to say farewell to Dublin, because as far as this podcast is concerned, the 77th World Science Fiction Convention is finally about to end. I previously invited you along to sit in on a Javanese dinner with the Nebula Award-winning Lisa Tuttle, share crab and eel with the Hugo Award-winning Cheryl Morgan, and brunch on the delightfully named dish Breakfast of Champions with Arcade Award-winning Maura McHugh. As for this fourth and final episode recorded during Worldcon, I can’t think of a better guest to bring live for you on Halloween than the great horror writer Ramsey Campbell.

Ramsey published his H. P. Lovecraft-inspired first book of stories The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants in 1964 when he was only 18, and hasn’t stopped since. He’s a two-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award, a four-time winner of the World Fantasy Award, and a TWELVE-time winner of the British Fantasy Award. He’s also received lifetime achievement World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Awards, and was named a World Horror Grandmaster. Previous guest of the podcast T. E. D. Klein called his collection Demons by Daylight “perhaps the most important book of horror fiction since Lovecraft’s The Outsider and Others.” High praise indeed!

We got together on the final day of Worldcon, long after the 4:30 p.m. closing ceremonies had ended. So instead of traipsing around to the usual dead dog parties, we had dinner at Rosa Madre, which I found via Eater’s list of the 38 Essential Dublin restaurants — where at one point as I looked across the table, it seemed as if he was nibbling on Cthulhu! (And sure, I know it was only baby octopus, and not the the Great Old One … but we horror writers like to dream.)

We discussed his early relationship with Arkham House editor and publisher August Derleth, who he might have been had he never discovered H. P. Lovecraft, how this master of unease is able to keep the sense of dread going for the length of a novel (hint: he’s not entirely sure himself), why he loves The Blair Witch Project, what it was like writing novels in the Universal monsters universe, how he felt when The Times listed The Doll That Ate its Mother as one of the silliest titles of 1987, how Twilight Zone editor T. E. D. Klein changed his life, our shared memories of the 1979 World Fantasy Convention, why he feels his attempts to write science fiction have been “clumsy,” the way he was made speechless on his first meeting with J. G. Ballard, why he admires Vladimir Nabokov, and much more.

Here’s how you can eavesdrop on our conversation at Rosa Madre —

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3) Or check it out using the embed below.

Here’s what we ate during our meal —

Moscardini al Sugo
baby octopus cooked in tomato sauce and olives

Capesante Gratinate
oven-baked scallops topped with bread crumbs, parmesan, tomatoes, and basil

Risotto al Nero di Seppia e Pecorino
Risotto with fresh local squid and squid ink
served with Pecorino on the side

Sogliola alla Mugnaia
Pan-fried black sole with butter and lemon sauce

Tiramisu

Cannolo Siciliano

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Please come back in two weeks when we head to SPX where my guest will be Paul Kirchner, who breathed the same air as I did during the mid-‘70s comics scene, and went on to draw such surrealistic strips as the bus for Heavy Metal and Dope Rider for High Times. Join us!