The Big Idea: Dan Rice

Inner demons: we have them! We (mostly) don’t love them! And in this Big Idea for The Wrath of Monsters, author Dan Rice looks at how these inner demons affect (and maybe even prey on) the characters he’s created.

DAN RICE:

One of the great things about speculative fiction is that a fantastical spin can be put on everyday occurrences, from tidying the house to resisting temptation. Honestly, who wouldn’t want to clean their kitchen with a wave of a wand, such as Mrs. Weasley in the Harry Potter series? And most people resist temptation all the time. Do you go back for seconds? Do you eat one more chocolate? With the right words and setting, resisting everyday temptation becomes refusing to turn to the dark side of the force.

In The Wrath of Monsters, the third installment of The Allison Lee Chronicles, Allison and her friends battle inner demons with varying success. In many ways, their trials are manifestations of the struggles people face daily. Allison must coexist with a literal monster living inside her, always pining to unleash its transgressive desires upon the world. Is her inner monster different from the cookie monster in many young children, constantly pressuring them to filch one more cookie from the jar? In a literal sense, there is a difference, but metaphorically, I think not…

The Wrath of Monsters: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|IndieBound|iBooks

Read an excerpt. Visit the author’s website. Follow him on twitter.