According to Finn: Why Finn Fancy Necromancy Is No Ordinary Urban Fantasy

When we heard the premise of Finn Fancy Necromancy, we knew we had to read it: An urban fantasy farce about boy brought up in a family of necromancers who is convicted of a dark magic crime he didn’t commit and sent into exile for 25 years, only to wake up out of time (his brain is still 15 and stuck in the ’80s, but his body is all grown up) and on the hunt to figure out who framed him and why, before they can send him back.
We also knew we wanted to hear from the author, Randy Henderson, if only to find out how one comes up with such a wacky, perfect idea for a book. What we got back was, well, not exactly what we were expecting, which is ironically exactly what we should have expected from the author of such a weird, wonderful debut. Read on…
“Weird,” Finn said. “Someone’s staring at us through that computer monitor. Why are we here?”
“They asked me to talk about what makes Finn Fancy Necromancy different from other urban fantasy novels,” I said.
“Well, for one, I would look really dumb with a tramp stamp,” Finn replied. “My lower back is all hairy now. Seriously, when did this happen? I leave my body for 25 years and come back looking like a sasquatch.”
“You look nothing like a sasquatch, and you know it,” I said. “They’re way cuter, for one.”
“Ha ha. Well, I guess that is one thing that makes Finn Fancy stand out. It’s got sasquatches and leprechauns instead of zombies and vampires—well, for now anyway.”
“I don’t know. Sasquatches seem to be all over the place, actually.”
“Yeah, but probably in some serious, metaphorical, researched way,” Finn said. “You wrote with about as much seriousness as Peter Venkman ghostbusting a beauty pageant haunting.”
“Hey, I worked hard on the actual storytelling part, on giving it suspense and drama, action and spice and everything nice. But yeah, I did just want to write something funny, and with minimal research,” I replied. “That’s partly why I set it in a small seaside town I know rather than some distant big city like most urban fantasies, and the reason why I made you an exile from 1986 and gave you a humorous voice. I just wanted to have fun.”
“Okay, Cindy Lauper. So how does that explain your oh-so-brilliant idea to bring my family into it?”
“Why do I sense you may not be entirely pleased?”
“Wow. The force is strong with you. Seriously, why did you do it?”
“I guess I got the impression that the urban fantasy genre was filled with a lot of loner tough guys and gals, who at most had a love interest and a friend or two. I wanted to go a different direction.”
“Fine,” Finn replied. “But, like, Moonlighting would have been another direction. Those Buffy or Firefly shows you love so much would have been another—no, wait, I do want love some day that doesn’t die or leave me. Still, I’m sure there’s better Other Directions than sticking me with a dysfunctional family of crazy misfits, so what gives?”
“Well, I was watching a lot of Arrested Development at the time, and just thought a family dynamic might be fun. In fact, my original title was “The Family Wizness.” But that sounded too much like they were urologists. Or wizards, which you’re not.”
“About that, you do know that when people hear the word necromancer they assume I’m all about raising zombies for world domination or something. And instead, all I got was the ability to talk to ghosts, and this lousy tee-shirt.”
“What do you care? ” I asked. “You want to quit magic and code video games for your Commodore 64 anyway.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t matter. So back to you sticking me with an entire crazy family. Was it just to torture me?”
“Just to torture you? I wouldn’t say just. Again, it was really more for me to have fun.”
“Right, fun torturing me.”
“Well … maybe a bit. But mostly I wanted an ensemble cast of oddball characters I could interact with, not a Game of Thrones gritty and grim plot of interweaving—”
“Game of what?”
I sighed. “I really need to get you caught up on the past couple decades.”
“Oh, I got the big stuff. Cars still don’t fly. Russia never invaded the U.S. And people thought the movie Wall Street was an instructional video not a cautionary tale. I get all that. I just don’t get sticking me with this family.”
“Bottom line is, I just thought an entire family of magic users would not only be more fun to read, but more fun to write.”
“That’s because you don’t have to live with them,” Finn said.
“Fair enough.”
“So in the end, it was just about writing the things you love and having fun?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” I replied.
“Awww. That means you love me.”
“Don’t push it.”
“Come on, give us a kiss,” Finn said.
“Back it up, unless you want me to sing ‘Kokomo’ for the next hour—”
“Do it and I’ll have the gnomes sing “We Built this City” in your head all night.”
“Uh …” I held up my hands in surrender. “What say we put on The Smiths, order a pizza, and fire up the old Commodore?”
“Deal,” Finn said. “Just don’t get extra cheese. Dairy gives you bad dreams, and I don’t need you being inspired to include the Loch Ness Monster or giant spiders or—”
I quickly looked away.
“No,” Finn said. “No, not spiders—”
I held up a floppy disk. “How about a nice game of Curse of the Azure Bonds?” I asked.
Finn sighed. “Why not. You know how much I hate real curses, but—wait, why do you have your ‘inspiration’ face on.”
“Uh, no reason,” I replied, staring at the disk.
“Ah, bat’s breath,” Finn said. “Go ahead and order extra cheese. It clearly won’t make a difference anyway.”
Finn Fancy Necromancy can be found at Barnes & Noble now, provided he hasn’t been sent back into exile.