Monster Mash
Author Tom Sniegoski on Vampi, Buffy, and the demonic aspects of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
      by Tara O'Shea

Another challenge for Sniegoski involved writing for Angel's pre-established characters, who already have distinct voices. "I have to work on all of them," he says. "Again, I'm new at this, and I'm really paranoid about screwing up, is what it comes down to. But the thing that I find most interesting when I'm doing Doyle I'm very conscious to make sure he doesn't sound like the Lucky Charms leprechaun. I'm very cautious with it -- because all of the characters have a very specific voice. When you hit it, you're very proud of yourself. But it takes a while to get to that point where you feel confident. You know, 'That's it. That's what Cordelia would have said. That's perfect.' You know, it takes a while to get there, with me. Chris has been reading the chapters as I write, as backup. 'This is terrible. Does this suck? I think this really sucks.'"

Tie-ins give us more good stuff with this guy.

And you get to that point, two-thirds of the way through, when you just can't tell up from down anymore...

"Exactly! I can't anymore. I can't anymore. I mean, I've been literally working on this since May, every day from when I get up in the morning until when I shut down for the night, and right now it's just this numbness. And I'm close to being done. Chris said, 'Four pages a day, or more. You don't quit until you do four pages a day,' and I've really stuck to that. I went to San Diego this year, and actually brought a laptop so I could keep with the deadline. And I'd get up at 6 o'clock every morning and make sure I did my four pages or more."

As the second seasons gets underway, the tie-in novels continue to be set during the Doyle era, allowing for a more noir feel than the later half of Angel's first season. It's the noir aspect of the series that intrigues Sniegoski, and one he embraced in Soul Trade.

"It's a hardboiled detective story with monsters," he says. "Very hardboiled. I've always loved that. That's what I love about the show. I'm trying to make it as hardboiled as possible, in the good sense of the word. You know, lots of asking snitches on the street, who just happen to be monsters."

While the flashbacks in the novel revolve around Angel's little sister, seen in the episode "The Prodigal," it's the classic film noir elements that really gets his juices flowing. Living on the opposite coast, did he find writing Los Angeles difficult?

"I try to remember the best of my Raymond Chandler. Use my LA reference books. And I've been out to California, and do my best to try and retain it. And it's interesting, because the character of LA in the TV show is a fictionalised version of LA, so I try and keep that in mind too. There's no time on the freeway. It's all alleys. Alleys, and office buildings. I try not to make it too ultra-realistic, like 'Oh, I know that street, I know that street...'"

So, what do fans of the series have to look forward to?

"Basically, Doyle has a vision about a small child being struck down by something. They have no idea what happened to her, but she was struck down by something in her home, and they go and they investigate and they find the child is in the equivalent of a coma. She's still alive, but no response or anything like that. So they poke around, and find out that her soul's been taken. And it opens up a whole can of worms that there's this soul trade. They're buying and selling souls. Two guys that are the main villains of the piece are in charge of the whole business. A sorcerer by the name of Anton Meskal, and an inter-dimensional demon by the name of Mr. Shugg, who's so obesely fat that he basically just sits on the couch and eats these crystals that contain souls. He's repulsive. He's really a lot of fun to write. At one time, he was this fierce, terrifying demon from another dimension responsible for consuming the souls of his entire race. They basically developed a taste for the life-force of any living thing, depleted the planet of any life other than themselves, and then started feeding on each other, and he's the last one. He's the toughest.

"Meskal's philosophy is 'Oh boy! I bet this guy could teach me something.' And so they form this little strange little relationship where Shugg supplies Meskal with the knowledge of how to take souls, and Meskal has used to that to create a drug called 'Uforia' that demons really like... The rave drug of choice for the demon population."

One of his favorite original characters in the novel is a snitch named Charlie Nickels

"He looks like a potato skin, he's all twisted and discoloured. At one time he was this super handsome software guy who made all this money, and was top of the heap, handsome, everybody loved him -- and he got involved in the supernatural and screwed around with some sorcerers, who cursed him. So they made him this twisted, awful thing, and he just sits in this bar called the Ninth Level, and he loves showtunes. There's this whole scene of him trying to get Angel to listen to Evita. He loves Andrew Lloyd Webber."

Yep, that sounds like a demon.

"And my wife is really offended, because she likes Webber's stuff. 'Why are you making fun of Andrew Lloyd Webber?' and I said, 'I'm not making fun, it's Angel that doesn't like it.'"

Yeah, sure.

"It's Angel that doesn't like it," he insists, "and Charlie Nickels is all excited, because he's listening to Patty Lapone, and Angel's like 'I think it sounds like cats being strangled,' and stuff. So I had a really good time with that section."

Somehow, we get the feeling, so will his readers.

The 11th Hour would like to extend special thanks to Tom Sniegoski for paying the bar tab.

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