Many of our readers see the term "slab" and think of comics, coins or sports cards that have been encapsulated by an independent grading service. We promise you, this doesn't have anything to do with that. This is really scary.

The Slab is the latest novel by Jeff Mariotte, who astute Scoop readers will remember as the author of the series Desperadoes from DC's Homage Comics imprint and his upcoming CSI comic. Mariotte, who now serves as Editor-in-Chief for IDW Publishing, says he loves crossing genres, as the gothic western horror of Desperadoes showed. Now he's delving further into the realm of horror with this new novel.

Here's the set-up for the book:

In the extreme southeastern corner of California lies a strange stretch of desert scenery. It's near the shores of the Salton Sea, California's largest lake, created by accident and containing some very poisonous water, not to mention a very bizarre community: the Slab.

During the grim days after 9/11, a skull is found in a fire pit. This discovery leads sheriff's deputy Kenneth Butler into a strange and sinister new world. Butler, Penny Rice and Hal Shipp are each veterans of different wars, and each had their lives saved during those wars by magical intervention. That magic continues to weave in and out of their lives, leading them all to this place and time, where a band of serial killers stalks a new victim and an ancient evil grows under the Earth.

They've got to find a way to understand the terrible bond they all share; it may just be the only way to save themselves and those that they love.

Mariotte is the Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild Award-nominated author of more than a dozen novels, including some set in the universes of Joss Whedon's Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, Charmed and Star Trek. Jeff is also noted for writing the hit comic book series, Desperadoes and many more. Mariotte is a long-time owner of science fiction/mystery/horror specialty bookstore Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, California.

"Publishing the Cal McDonald novels of Steve Niles was a courageous move, but Cal's popularity just continues to grow, so it was obviously a wise one. I was delighted when they agreed to publish The Slab, and with a publishing line that includes Steve's Cal novels and modern classics of graphic fiction like 30 Days of Night, I think it helps to cement IDW's place in the horror community," Mariotte said.

He talked with Scoop about The Slab, as well his other projects after returning from a convention in England.


Scoop: What inspired you to come up with this story?
Jeff Mariotte: The initial inspiration was for one aspect of the overall novel, which could be called the Dove Hunt. A group of hunters goes out every year for a "dove hunt," except the dove they are after is a young woman. I was thinking about dove hunters, the real kind, and Alzheimer's disease, from which my father suffered for the last few years of his life, and what would happen if one member of this fictional dove hunting group had Alzheimer's. The others couldn't trust him with a gun, but they also wouldn't know if he would, or could, continue to keep their horrible secret. That aspect of the story grew from there.

It kind of took form in pieces which I slowly realized were connected, or could be. I was writing it - struggling with it, actually, when the attacks of September 11 happened. After that I had a hard time for a while - I didn't feel comfortable writing about violence, for a long time, and there was quite a bit of violence in the book. But gradually, a few things happened. I became uncomfortable not just with the attacks but with some of the responses to the attacks, as things occurred like the shooting of men with dark skin wearing turbans, or vandalism and terrorism against a mosque in my own neighborhood. These things, I think, led me to some questions about the nature of evil, the capacity we all have for evil, whether it's inside us or an external force. And thinking along those lines helped to propel the story along in my head, to the point that I could barely keep up with it on the keyboard. I had to rewrite sections because the setting changed - it was still California's Imperial Valley, now, but now had changed. The world after 9/11 was simply not the same place as the world before.

The other main driving force behind the novel was Slab City, itself - the real "Slab," which is a real place out in the desert. It's an amazing and bizarre place in which almost anything can happen. You can't look around there and not see stories in your head.

Scoop: What's different about your approach between writing comics, novels based on a particular property, and original fiction?
JM: When I'm writing licensed fiction or comics about characters other than my own, my primary goal is to respect the characters, to treat them as if they were real, and not to force them to do anything they wouldn't do ordinarily. I want to hear the actors' voices in my head (if it's based on a TV show), and if I do then I know I've got them down. With original fiction, or original comics, I have more freedom--but I still have to respect the characters and not try to push them out of character. But if I want to kill one, for example, I don't have to find a way to bring him back by the end of the book.

Scoop: When you work on a novel (or any project), do you do one thing at a time, or do you stop, work on another project, then come back to it?
JM: I prefer to work on one thing at a time, but for logistical reasons, it's not always possible. I'm working on a novel now, for instance, but I have a couple of proposals due, for other novels and a comic project, and I got notes back from a licensor for a book I turned in a month ago. So I need to take time away from the book I'm doing now and go back to that one.

Scoop: Is one specific genre your favorite, or do you prefer mixing them up (like you did in Desperadoes)?
JM: I love to mix genres, but I always seem to come back to horror as one of the genres. In Desperadoes, it's horror and western. In Angel novels, it's horror and hard-boiled mystery. The Slab is primarily a horror novel but a lot of it, maybe most of it, can be read as mainstream suspense. There is a supernatural underpinning but for the most part it's a crime/dark suspense novel.

Scoop: How long did it take you to write the book?
JM: I worked on it, on and off with other projects getting in the way, for about eight or nine months. Since then there have been a few revision drafts, too.

Scoop: What are the differences in your mindset as a writer and as an editor?
JM: As an editor it's my job to help someone else realize his or her creative vision. I have to remember that it's not my thing, it's that other person's, and he or she gets to make the final calls. But I can help steer and guide, so there's still creative input.

Scoop: You've got CSI coming up. What else are you working on as a writer?
JM: After the CSI one-shot there's a CSI: Miami one-shot, and then a miniseries that I don't think I'm supposed to talk about yet. Book-wise, I'm just getting going on a major project that I also can't talk about yet, but my agent just got the contract so I'll be able to announce it pretty soon.

Scoop: If you're the writer, who's the editor of this book?
JM: Kris Oprisko, who was an editor at IDW before I came on but has mostly stepped over to the creative services side of the company. He still keeps a hand in, though, and edits everything I write for the company as well as some other projects.

Scoop: What's the weather like in San Diego today?
JM: Bright and sunny, just like it was in London last week!

Anyone interested in checking out the first two chapters of The Slab can read them online at http://www.jeffmariotte.com.

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