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Saturday, January 28, 2012

Mac Tonnies "interviews" Whitley Strieber

Mac on a road trip production for a documentary with the CBC

During one late night phone call, Mac Tonnies told me about a back and forth series of questions he asked Whitley Strieber. Years ago, in a long ago era of the internet, Whitley briefly maintained a simple on-line bulletin board system. His goal was to provide a forum to answer questions from his readers. Mac used this forum to connect with Whitley; this must have been sometime in the early 90's.

I just found the interview on Mac's website, it's still on-line, and it makes for bittersweet reading. The interview is posted HERE and it is in a readable print-ready PDF format below.

If I remember the conversation correctly, Mac sent in questions over a period of time (perhaps weeks), and then collected his questions and replies from the forum and ganged them all into one document, and this document created an "interview" of sorts. I clearly remember him explaining to me how impressed he was with the thoughtful quality and seriousness in the way Whitley answered those questions.

Mac wrote of Whitley: "I was impressed with the quickness and sincerity of his replies."
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Mac Interviews Whitley
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3 comments:

  1. Red Pill JunkieJanuary 31, 2012 at 8:45 AM

    Very interesting and poignant questions. I could almost say Mac's Posthuman approach influenced Whitley's writing in later years —e.g. the idea of 'soul-faxing' to transport consciousness through vast distances across the stars was employed in the novel The Grays.

    But that's what happens when 2 great intelligences meet: they cross-pollinate each other :)

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  2. Mike Clelland!January 31, 2012 at 8:52 AM

    Mac told me about this series of Q & A's during one of our late night phone calls. This might have been in 2008 sometime, and I found the webpage and read it then.

    Later, in 2010, I was a guest on Whitley Strieber's DREAMLAND (it's available to members) and I spoke about Mac, his work and our friendship.

    Now, Mac had a very strong set of opinions about Whitley, and they could be downright antagonistic. It seemed to be the anger of youth directed at the established elder. Mac used his blog to rant about Whitley and his web-site. This came up in the audio interview, and I was put in the uncomfortable position to have to defend Mac and his role as social critic.

    All that said, Mac was very much a fan of Whitley's and he had read ALL his books. He mentioned more than once that the only book he had ever read twice was MAJESTIC.

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  3. Red Pill JunkieJanuary 31, 2012 at 9:21 AM

    I used to have a Spanish edition of Majestic —I never borrow books now ;)

    I really liked it. It was the first time that I considered the possibility that Roswell had been a staged crash. And the way he portrayed the fears and suspicions of the higher members of government when dealing with such a preposterous situation was right on the money IMO.

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