When Mike Hodel interviewed SF writers on his Los Angeles radio show, Hour 25, he'd ask them what their "room 101" was.
It referred to George Orwell's 1984. It was the room authorities threatened detainees with, containing their victim's most dreaded fear.
For poor Winston Smith, it was rats. So when a cage of hungry rats was attached to his face, he screamed for them to do it to his illicit lover, Julia, instead. He knew that was what they wanted.
He was forever broken.
The paradisiacal island of Maui holds a couple of my deep phobias: sharks and caves. Sharks, brr, I hate 'em. No way to run. And caves, when I've been in them, have always given me claustrophobia.
No wonder I've made Concrete face both these threats repeatedly. For me, tasting my fears in fiction offers the comfort of a bitter, wet storm -- battering on the window of my warm, dry room.
Anyway, where there are volcanoes, there are lava tubes, and Concrete has to go down one again in "In a Wound in the Earth." Good luck, big guy.
--Paul Chadwick
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