Interview - Cameron "Josef K." Suey

While I’m averse to anything remotely resembling risk in real life, I adore horror fiction in any medium, and masochistically enjoy the feelings of tension and paranoia resulting from a particularly effective work. Creepypasta is a font for these types of stories, though admittedly it’s a kind of “diamonds in the rough situation,” with a lot of its content originating from that cesspool of a message board, 4chan. But working late on a lonely winter night a year and a half ago, one of the site’s aforementioned jewels caught my eye: “Zero,” by Josef K., the deeply unnerving apologia of a nihilistic survivalist unleashing a viral plague upon the human race. Intrigued by the short story’s pessimistic, “no turning back” tone, I decided to click the author link and check out more of Josef’s work on his site. Roughly an hour later, I was steadfastly hammering out the rest of my essay, eyes solely on the computer screen and not daring to look toward the nearest window. I had just finished the story “Exit,” and was terrified at the thought of so much as glancing at those panes, only to see some long, pale face staring back.

The author inadvertently responsible for ruining my sleep on several occasions is not actually the protagonist of one of Franz Kafka’s unfinished novels but Cameron Suey, a 33-year-old husband, father and video game producer based out of San Francisco. When he hasn’t been working on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and its sequel, Suey has crafted some of the scariest stories I’ve ever read. He was also kind to answer a few questions about writing, perspective and inspiration I sent to him via email.

Spotlight - "Huh, never thought of it like that."

Earlier today I read a blog post by sci fi author John Scalzi (Old Man’s War, Zoe’s Tale) wherein he compared “straight white male privilege”—i.e. the social advantages straight white males receive from being straight, white and male in Western society—to the lowest difficulty setting in a video game. Speaking as not only a straight white male but a gamer as well, I felt the comparison was spot on. Purely in terms of content, Scalzi didn’t really say anything new or that I didn’t already agree with, but I thought his actual rhetorical approach was utterly fascinating.

Every so often I stumble across an opinionated piece such as this one that’s able to phrase an oft-repeated argument in a new and surprisingly intuitive fashion that hammers the point home better than a straight take (“this is right/wrong because…”) ever could. I call it the “Huh, never thought of it like that” Effect. As someone who enjoys a good opinion piece and good writing even more, it’s as refreshing as a chilly can of Coke on a blazing hot day.