Do you ever play horror video games? The Suffering kept making me think of the mid 2000s games like early Silent Hill and Fatal Frame 2, and I was wondering if you had played and were inspired by any of them. I'd also like to say that your books are darker and creepier than many of the horror novels I've read that are aimed at adults, and are some of the best novels I've ever read.

Rin Chupeco Thank you! Dark and creepy were my intentions when I wrote the series.

And I love survival horror games. The Suffering was very much inspired by Silent Hill (specifically Silent Hill 2 - a little because of the James-Mary relationship, though they're a lot more dysfunctional than Okiku and Tark). I love mysteries with a mythos, and always try to incorporate that in my horror books.

I'm also a diehard gamer. I've played these really old crazy scary weird games like D, 11th Hour, Phantasmagoria, I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream, and Alone in the Dark. They're great games, because although they have horrible graphics compared to what's out now, the creepiness still gets to you. And that's what I want to go for with my books - less jump scares and out-and-out gore, and more creepiness and this terrible sense of wrongness.

I've also played a lot of recent ones like the Resident Evil series and Penumbra and the Evil Within, but Fatal Frame 2 has got to be my favorite game of all time. (Clock Tower 3 is a distant second. When that ax murderer jumped down on Alyssa, my character, I abandoned the controller and just marched out of the room going "NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE".)

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