Goodreads asked John Huber:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

John Huber "The Big Red Devil" is a long time in the making--8 years. I've been telling John Harker's story in one medium or another for longer than I've known my wife. As I grew up and learned how to write in an acceptable manner, I always knew it would become a book.

The way it turned out, though, with the devils and demons--the ones you know and the ones you don't--came through life experiences. Those lessons came hard, sharp. I learned a lot about the darkness at the heart of the human condition from an early age. It's always fascinated me to write about it in a personal way, to drag others through it, rather than be destroyed by it. I love the idea of grabbing a reader by the throat and pulling them through my own shadows kicking and screaming--whether they want to or not. So, I keep my writing personal, the shadows as dark as I remember . . . the horror as I lived it and remember it.

That's a tangent. Back to the topic.

I played a variety of online RPGs where you create a character and walk audiences through their life. John Harker was shaped over time through those RPGs and as I became a bigger fan of horror, John Harker and his story took shape.

I love Halloween (1978) and Rob Zombie's remake. I sort of fused those two, what I saw happening to the character's in my head--their personal thoughts. I tried to put the personal thoughts of those types of characters in that kind of story into a very personal, tragic story.

I wanted suffering on the pages the way I'd seen and heard it on screen. I wanted horror in the most primal and animalistic sense. So, the story became a very tragic pull and swirl of those characters being eaten alive by the shadows they'd always known.

What's darker than the things that have always darkened you?

I tried to make that come alive and I hope I succeeded.

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