INTERVIEW: C.M. Caplan

C.M. Caplan is the author of the Four of Mercies, a series featuring cyborg horses, autistic quadruplets, and all sorts of Weird Shit. The Fall Is All There Is, book one of the series, was an SPFBO9 finalist and the sequel, The Diplomacy of the Knife, was released on February 20th, 2025. When not writing, C.M. is usually rambling on Bluesky, chugging Dr. Pepper by the gallon, and talking to other unique souls. Grimdark Magazine‘s very own Z.B. Steel was fortunate to get the chance to catch up with him and talk about his writing, his reading, and what is on the horizon for C.M. Caplan.

[GdM] Hey Connor, thanks so much for doing this interview! To get things started, want to pitch Four of Mercies to the lovely people reading this?

[CMC] Thank you for inviting me to do this interview!

Okay, so Four of Mercies is science fantasy trilogy about a set of quadruplet royals undergoing a succession crisis, told from the point of view of the youngest. It’s a really tight, almost claustrophobically first-person narrative that involves cyborg horses, motorcycles with an engine made of nerve endings and spinal fluid, ghosts that you can breathe in and get infected by, castles are made from prehistoric skeletons, and ships with engines powered by gigantic human hearts that sometimes require surgery.

It’s batshit insane, is what I’m saying.

[GdM] The title’s for Four of Mercies so far have come from The Lion in Winter and the works of Robin Hobb. This begs two questions: Who is on Connor’s “favorite fantasy author” Mt. Rushmore & do you have working titles for any future works?

[CMC] Oh god, this is like asking a parent who their favorite child is. I feel like this answer changes yearly, if not every six months or so, in relation to where I’m at in life and what I feel I need from SFF. I think right now I’d probably go with Robin Hobb, NK Jemisin, Tamsyn Muir, and…I’ve been really vibing with M John Harrison, at the moment. But if you asked me even a couple months from now you would probably get a completely different set of answers.

As far as future titles are concerned—the working title for book three is The Blood is Compulsory, but that feels a bit too pretentious so I’m not sure if it’ll stick. It’s from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

“I can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and I can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and I can do you all three concurrent or consecutive, but I can’t do you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory—they’re all blood, you see.”

[GdM] You were a finalist in SPFBO 9, a huge accomplishment. How’s life been since then?

[CMC] Oh it’s been phenomenal! I just put out book two, The Diplomacy of the Knife, about two months ago! I’ve been getting some really angry DMs about it, which has been lovely. And I’m trying to figure out if I can finish book three in hopefully a bit less time than it took me to write book one. Though at the rate I’m currently going I dunno how that’ll pan out.

[GdM] Speaking of SPFBO, are you pulling for any of the finalists for SPFBO X?

[CMC] Oh god you can’t make me choose! I know how stressful it is to be in any spot on that scoreboard! I just hope they’re all having a great time with it! It’s such a great honor to get picked for SPFBO so really I just hope everyone’s buckling in and enjoying the ride. 

[GdM] I’m going to give you some rapid fire topics, give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear them:

Cyborg

The guy on the Teen Titans animated show. Specifically the 2003 version.

Weird

A short comic from Weird Fiction (I think??) published by Timely Comics in the 40s (I think??) where two scientists invent time travel to see if the past can be changed, send a capsule back to the Jurassic Era, then it cuts back to them and they’re both dinosaurs and they’re going “It worked! See? The past can’t be changed!”

Alright, that wasn’t very rapid fire. I’ll speed up with the rest.

GOAT

John Darnielle.

Narnia

Peter Pevensie’s sword, Rhindon

Sword

Sorcery

Spider

A Guest for Mr. Spider, a terrifying little book from The Magnus Archives

Grimdark Magazine

INCREDIBLE!!

Pepper

True love.

[GdM] Petre makes a lot of dumbass decisions–do you ever feel sympathy for him or do you like seeing him (and your audience) suffer?

[CMC] Oh I love him so much. I feel tremendous sympathy for him because he’s the product of a family and a system that has let him down at every turn. He’s been convinced that the only way to solve problems is through having more power than other people, and being more violent. And you can see these glimpses where he’s actually much smarter than even he thinks he is. But then he goes and does a bunch of stupid shit anyway because it’s been drilled into him that he has to be a certain type of way in the world.

But at the same time, there’s a part of me that really relishes the wince you feel before he makes a lot of his decisions. If I’ve done my job right, you both see how he’s fucking up, and why he’s going with such a disastrous option. And on that level I do like the suffering, if only because I’ve put so much work into crafting this exquisite torture, and the agony afterwards is the sign of a job well done.

[GdM] What are you currently reading?

[CMC] I just finished Lord of Scoundrels, a delightful romance novel Quenby Olson recommended to me to familiarize me with the genre so we can eventually co-write something (if our schedules ever clear up enough to get to it.)

[GdM] In your interview with Rune S Nielsen you said that you hated the ending of a comic book so much that you became a writer out of spite. Any chance you can reveal the name of the comic?

[CMC] It was the ending of Secret Invasion. And don’t get me wrong—Bendis is one of the best writers in the business. He’s got top tier dialogue. His style is incredibly decompressed. I really love his work with street level heroes in particular. He’s did some incredible stuff for Luke Cage and Jessica Jones especially in the 2000’s. But I think Norman Osborn assassinating Veranke, the Skrull Queen was just—it wasn’t a bad decision. It made for a phenomenal run of books themed around Osborn as director of SHIELD. But I think it was a mixture of both event fatigue, and just…a feeling that the narrative momentum wasn’t fully there to earn the initial twist. You’ve got Nick Fury coming out of hiding, all these heroes who had been at odds during the era after the Superhero Registration Act, and it looked like it everything was going in the direction of tying that all up. And then suddenly one dude blows Veranke’s head off on TV and all that narrative momentum fizzled out.

But again, Bendis is an incredible storyteller and I dunno who came up with what decision, and the arc that came out if that twist was truly incredible. I don’t know how I’d feel if I went back and reread it as an adult. But as a kid it annoyed me enough to get me writing my own stuff. And I can promise you that early stuff was absolutely not better than Secret Invasion.

Author C.M. Caplan

[GdM] What’s your favorite Arthurian legend?

[CMC] I’m trying to remember if I’ve divulged the fact that Petre’s earliest roots as a character started in a YA book I wrote about the suburban ancestors of the Knights of the Round Table…

Anyway, it’s gotta be Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It’s got everything. Weird court rules, beheadings, phenomenal character arcs, homoerotic undertones. I mean the Grail Cycle is cool too if you want something big and epic depressing. That’s not meant sarcastically, it’s genuinely really good. Like it’s genuinely my second choice pick. But Green Knight is this really tight narrative with a clear character arc that wraps up real well. I really dig it a lot.

[GdM] Between Ghostfog, Cyborg horses, the swords, and Petre himself, you got a lot of weird, dope shit going on in Four of Mercies. Were there any ideas that you scrapped because they were TOO weird?

[CMC] I very nearly scrapped the cyborg pugs because they seemed a little frivolous, but Sara from Fiction Fans, who I was living with at the time, made me keep them so I could name a pug after one of hers.

There were some ideas I scrapped for not being weird enough. The first version of book one had chainsaw swords instead of science swords. And I changed it because like—sure, that’s cool. But it’s been done, y’know? If it wasn’t weird enough to make someone go “is this guy okay?” I had to keep refining the concept.

[GdM] Thank you so much for doing this interview! Anything you wanna say to the people still reading? Maybe threaten them with yelling, bribe them with make-up pictures, or finally admit you don’t actually drink Dr. Pepper?

[CMC] How dare you, sir. I drink so much Dr. Pepper I’m pretty sure my blood is carbonated.

Go buy my book and/or I’ll bring back thirst traps. Which is either a threat or a bribe depending on what your disposition is towards the ones I posted a few years back.

No, but seriously, there’s so much dope shit in those books you’re gonna love it.

Read The Fall Is All There Is by C.M. Caplan

Read on Amazon

Read The Diplomacy of the Knife by C. M. Caplan

Read on Amazon

 

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