A perfect Sunday with... Peter Clines

Every week, a top writer, artist, actor or creator reveals how they’d fill their perfect Sunday, sharing their favourite comfort reads, movies, food… anything that would make their weekend great.

Today, for our 100th Perfect Sunday, it's the turn of God's Junk Drawer author, Peter Clines!

Peter's perfect Sunday… brunch

A lot of my comfort food tends to be very simple. I think it’s that Ratatouille thing of finding peace in the foods you remember from earlier times. My perfect brunch would just be something like waffles, scrambled eggs, a few slices of bacon (okay maybe a little more than a few, but not enough to be “several”), and a glass of orange juice. That’s a wonderful half hour for me right there.

Peter's perfect Sunday… read

I’ve been reading a lot of wonderful stuff lately, but a lot of it isn’t available until next year so it feels a bit cheaty to mention it. For current reads... honestly, my favorite thing I’ve read this year has been Overgrowth by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire). It just ticked off so many boxes for me. Found family, feeling like you don’t belong, alien invasion, it was such a fantastic read

Peter's perfect Sunday… comic

Another tough call. I’ve been reading a lot of old Marvel Omnibuses lately (ROM!) and I just got the latest Atomic Robo collection, which are always fantastic. Also really enjoying Void Rivals. But I think the best relaxing-Sunday thing I’ve read recently has been Misfits of Magic from Matthew Dow Smith. It’s barely-teenage versions of a bunch of DC’s magical characters (Doctor Occult, Blue Devil, the Enchantress, and more) trying to solve a mystery at a library summer camp. It’s just a wonderful book.

Peter's perfect Sunday... movie

Tie between Spider-Man: Homecoming and Into The Spider-Verse. There are a lot of films I love, from tentpoles to weird little cult  B-movies, but I’ve probably watched each of these Spider-Man films a dozen times. I’m a Spidey fan from way, way back, and both of these movies remind me that Spider-Man is always at his best when he’s kind of an awkward dork trying to do his best and just having fun. It honestly lifts my heart to watch Miles and Peter stumble through trying to be a superhero and refusing to give up.

Peter's perfect Sunday... TV binge

There’s been some wonderful shows recently, haven’t there? I loved Fallout and Murderbot. Weirdly enough, the thing I’m loving right now—and it really is a perfect Sunday binge show—is Avatar: The Last Airbender. I’m ashamed to admit I’d never seen a single episode until about a month ago, but now I’m finally working my way through and absolutely loving it.

Peter's perfect Sunday… podcast

I’m much more a fan of narrative podcasts than, y’know, two people just talking about Iron Man for a while. So I’m a big fan of Lore and Midnight Burger. The hands down winner for me, though, is Old Gods of Appalachia. It’s so wonderfully light and creepy and interwoven all at the same time, and Steve Shell, the narrator, has such an amazing delivery. I’m so far behind on it, but I love taking an afternoon to just sit and listen to two or three episodes back-to-back.

Peter's perfect Sunday… album

I have very weird musical taste. I know a lot of folks say things like that, but I’ve never met anyone who didn’t go through one of my playlists and just say “...what the hell?” I listen to a lot of soundtracks and scores. Two things I’ve been listening to a lot are The Peripheral by Mark Korven and the third season music from Hilda by Ryan Carlson.

Honestly, though, the thing I fall back on all the time as relaxing music is Danny Elfman’s Nightbreed soundtrack. No idea why. Something about it just syncs up with my brain and relaxes me. I used to fall asleep to it at night (which weirded out a few girlfriends).

Peter's perfect Sunday… treat

I have so many hobbies. I’m an action figure collector. I like working in the garden. I used to be a big tabletop gamer, but as of late, all my unfinished armies have just become this ongoing art project. That’s really a perfect day for me. Anything where I can just put on music or a movie or a podcast and work with my hands for a while. I’m a big believer in letting your brain flex other, non-writing muscles, and to just sort of drift off, and then to have that visible evidence of what got done—a finished garden path, a few dozen shoulder pads painted, whatever—that’s just fantastic.

Forty years ago, the Gather family—James, his daughter Beau, and his son Billy—vanished during a whitewater rafting trip and were presumed dead.

Five years later, Billy reappeared on the far side of the world, telling an impossible tale of a primordial valley populated by dinosaurs, aliens, Neanderthals, and androids. Little Billy became the punchline of so very many jokes, until he finally faded from the public eye.

Now, a group of graduate astronomy students follow their professor, Noah Barnes, up a mountain for what they believe is a simple stargazing trip. But they’re about to travel a lot farther than they planned …

Noah—the now grown Billy Gather—has finally figured out how to get back to the Valley. Accidentally bringing his students along with him, he’s confident he can get everyone back home, safe and sound.

But the Valley is a puzzle—one it turns out Noah hasn’t figured out—and they’ll need to solve it together if there’s any chance of making it out alive.

Pulling from Earth’s past, future, and beyond, Peter Clines has created a complex, dangerous world, navigated by a dynamic ensemble cast, and a story that is thrilling as it is funny and heartfelt.

PETER CLINES is the toy-collecting, movie-loving, New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels. Some of which you may have read.

He grew up in the Stephen King fallout zone of Maine and—inspired by comic books, Star Wars, and Saturday morning cartoons—began writing horrible X-Men and Boba Fett stories at an early age. He got his first rejection letter when he was eleven from then-Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, and made his first sale to a local newspaper at age seventeen.

His writing includes The Broken Room, Paradox Bound, several books set in the Threshold universe, the Ex-Heroes series, a pair of short story collections, a classical mash-up novel, some unproduced screenplays, and countless articles about the film and television industry.

He currently lives and writes somewhere in southern California. If you have any idea exactly where, he would really appreciate some hints.

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