Daniel Patrick Corcoran Explores Distant Planets in the Middle of Eternity

The good news is that our Kickstarter campaign to bring you volume two of our Middle of Eternity anthology series has managed to raise $944! However, we have only 15 days left to raise $1,500 to meet our goal. Otherwise, the project will not be funded at all. If you’re considering whether to back our project, please click here to check out the various donation levels and the rewards we’re offering on Kickstarter.  We deeply appreciate your support!

The next featured author on our menu is Daniel Patrick “Renfield” Corcoran.

Renfield is a familiar face in the Baltimore convention scene, most notably having performed with the Usual Suspects and Cheap Treks comedy troupes, as well as sometimes lending his voice to Prometheus Radio Theatre. He has recently turned his energies to the printed page under the pen name Daniel Patrick Corcoran.

I see you’ve suited up for another daring expedition into the Middle of Eternity! This time around, you come equipped with a brilliant story that harkens back to the days of the golden age of science fiction. Please tell us what inspired “The Hard Place”.

When the last Middle of Eternity anthology came out from Firebringer I heard a few people lamenting that among the various supernatural and fantasy stories included, there were very few science fiction stories. I therefore decided that my contribution to this volume would be science fiction, and I wanted to make sure it was as science fiction-y as possible.

So I set it in deep space, on a space station, near an alien planet. Got it. Why are they there? Aliens! Great! Problem? Asteroid! Ethical dilemma. But I didn’t want to tell an entire story about an ethical dilemma. Science fiction twist! Bigger dilemma. Great. There are a lot of different elements in there, because I did keep harkening back to the classic science fiction stories and remembering how much fun they were. I like to think I crafted a story that will keep the reader entertained.

What other writing projects are you working on now and are there any genres outside of SF and horror that you would like to explore as a storyteller?

A local game company recently approached me about writing a backstory and flavor text for a humorous fantasy strategy game they’re producing. It’s still in the early stages, but sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun.

I really enjoy mysteries, and I have been wanting to explore that genre for a while now. I have ideas for a series with a sleuth character I’ve been kicking around, as well as a series of puzzle-solving stories that I’ve been wanting to develop.

Most people know you by one name: Renfield. Of course, we know this to be a main character from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but how precisely did you come about this sobriquet?

Actually, that was just a fan name I picked up shortly after I started attending science fiction conventions regularly. When I first met my wife that was the only name she knew me by, and she told her family she was dating this guy named Renfield and, well, she has a pretty big family. Now I have one side of my family that knows me exclusively as Renfield.

When it came time to print my story in the previous Middle of Eternity volume, I asked my wife what name I should publish it under. She asked, “What’s wrong with Renfield?” I replied, “Honey, it’s a vampire story!”

What does Renfield do when he isn’t writing?

When I’m not herding house rabbits, I’m usually out exploring the food scene of Baltimore.