alien romances

Warts and All (Mnemonics)

2026-04-19T09:06:00.000-04:00

The Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell, is said to have preferred truth in Art, so when he sat for his official portrait, he instructed the artist to depict his face as it was, "warts and all".

Sometimes the idiom is hyphenated, "warts-and-all" for adjectival use, to describe a scrupulously honest account of something or someone's character with no attempt to hide flaws, faults, and less than attractive attributes.

It's not necessarily a bad thing, although, it might be a tad deceptive to show pimples in a portrait, assuming that pimples are an ephemeral phenomenon.

"Oliver Cromwell said with a smile
One seven six nought yards in a mile."

Who knows whether a successful soldier was amused by measuring distances. The great military dictator's name was probably taken for the purpose of scansion.

One mnemonic that I use at least twice a month, if not more often is:

"Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except for February alone."

Knowing the poem is faster than looking at a calendar or asking Alexa or Claude. At least, I think so. It also uses less electricity.

"Cast ne'er a clout
Till May be out."

This is a very British reminder not to take off any clothes until early summer. If one is of a poetic bent, "May be out" would refer to the flowering of the darling buds of May (May flowers). Even in America in the mid-west and further North, it can snow in April, so waiting until June (the merry month of May being over) to disrobe.

May flowers are hawthorn. This blog has some lovely images.

https://wildfoodpeople.co.uk/neer-cast-a-clout-til-may-be-out/

Mnemonics are devices and tricks to help a person remember information. Three examples posted above demonstrate the use of rhymes or songs. "Warts and all" is memorable because of the vivid mental image

and the associations.

Other devices are the use of acronym: one word made from the initial letters of multiple words that have to be committed to memory, or at least, the meaning of the acronym has to be understood in the case of BOGO. As for SONAR and SCUBA... I wasn't aware that they are acronyms!

https://www.rd.com/article/acronym-examples/

Also, there are what is called Acrostics, where one creates a memorable sentence (or phrase) to nudge recall of an order of words, for instance "My very energetic mother just served us nine pizzas" ... which includes Pluto. Otherwise, the energetic mother might have to dish up Nuts.

https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™

https://www.spacesnark.com/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher by Karen S. Wiesner

2026-04-17T07:00:00.010-04:00

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher

by Karen S. Wiesner

Beware spoilers!

Not too long ago, I reviewed three "reimagined and unconventional fairytales" by T. Kingfisher. In trying to get a handle on some of the other books Kingfisher has written that include a reinterpretation of beloved fairytales, I came up with this list of her selections, arranged below on the basis of publication dates:

The Seventh Bride ("Mr. Fox"/"The Robber Bridegroom", and other aberrations)

Bryony and Roses ("Beauty and the Beast")

The Raven and the Reindeer ("The Snow Queen")

Thornhedge ("Sleeping Beauty")

A Sorceress Comes to Call ("Goose Girl")

Hemlock & Silver ("Snow White")

In my previous take on Kingfisher's reimagined fairytales, I reviewed Nettle & Bone, which is like a subversion of everything that's been done in a fairytale all rolled into one, as well as Bryony and Roses and Thornhedge.

There's a little known (maybe because it's so shocking) fairytale that goes by many names and variants, with two prominent ones being called "Mr. Fox" and "The Robber Bridegroom", that I stumbled upon while brainstorming for future installments of my Woodcutter's Grim Series (which horrorized fairytales). You can actually find the full text of these old tales by looking them up online by their titles. I never wrote a story based on this premise, and now I don't have to, since T. Kingfisher has done it, though I had reservations about her The Seventh Bride rendition.

The old story goes that a poor miller's daughter is betrothed to a wealthy man who prefers a kind of murderous obstacle course on his wedding night rather than what most people think of for such an event. Turns out, this creep has murdered all his previous brides-to-be and now this new one had better figure out how to get through his carnival of cruelty so she doesn't become the next in line. Interestingly, T. Kingfisher wrote a very short story similar to this idea in "Bluebeard's Wife" (free from her website or you can get it in one of her collections).

Fortuitously, old fairytales have a predictable manner of storytelling that's bare bones--usually just a skeleton of an extreme external conflict while the rest of the story has little or no internal conflict let alone complex goals or motivations--you know, beyond escaping this bad situation. Settings and in-depth characterization are all but forgotten with these meager tales. So that really allowed Kingfisher to take this glimmer of an idea and make it her own. She sets up a basic scenario with 15-year-old Rhea being a miller's daughter unexpectedly engaged to Lord Crevan. Try to remember that in times gone by, a 15-year-old girl would practically be an old maid if she wasn't already or about to be married, and that most of the historical romances you read probably have very young heroines and you just weren't told their ages in order to prevent the ick factor from spoiling everything.

Kingfisher sets up several interesting and unique twists on the old story variants, such as the fact that Rhea's parents are neither greedy nor evil--they actually want her to have a good life, and a man who lives in a near-castle certainly seems to fit the bill. Yes, their mill is struggling and extra income would come in handy, but her parents are genuinely saddened by how distraught their daughter is to be "sold off like cattle to the highest bidder", but they initially take a practical approach to her distress. Her mother relates that, once upon a time, she was also forced to marry a man she'd barely met in Rhea's father and look how well that turned out. In this particular world, for a low-born citizen to refuse a lord is a recipe for utter ruin. Bottom line, this family has little or no choice but to comply with anything this man wants from their daughter.

In this version of the old story, there are many small magics in the world, including those associated with plants, strange creatures, and people who possess minor powers. In The Seventh Bride, Craven is a terrifying sorcerer who uses the gifts of these women he brings to his home to marry (hilariously, they call him "Himself"), trading them for something else he deems of value to him or others. The first wife, Maria, was a witch with a familiar. Craven took most of her power and her spirit bear disappeared in the woods around the manor. Other wives have lost voice, sight, life, death, and will…and all are trapped here in this place, forced to be obedient. Whether or not they're loyal to him is another question, as is whether Rhea can trust anything they say or do.

Other compelling fleshing-outs are that, once she's at Lord Craven's house, Rhea is set a series of tasks that she must complete. The "or else" is always "or else I'll marry you"--and there's no greater threat. Also, in the author's alter ego trademark (Kingfisher writes children's books under her real name Ursula Vernon that include many, many amazing, "something more" creatures), Rhea doesn't have to go through her terrible ordeal alone. She meets a sweet hedgehog companion who accompanies her and helps her in unfathomable ways that don't seem quite hedgehog-like. More on that later.

I loved everything about this story except one thing issue that was a two-fold problem. Unfortunately, this very nearly wrecked the whole thing for me. From the beginning, we were set up on the premise that Rhea was a strong and inventive girl, and she would find creative ways to solve her dilemmas and conflicts. We were shown--in an equally gross and funny moment--how she handled a swan who kept stealing her lunch when she packed the creature a horse turd sandwich that the cruel bird quickly regretted snatching from her. However, from that point on, the author stole every opportunity for Rhea to prove her own worth by having her problems conveniently solved by others--her hedgehog, Maria's bear familiar, the clock wife, and other things that rescued her. In the process, they ruined what could have been a heroine worth rooting for beyond the simple reason that we feel compassion for another human being in such a dire circumstance.

In my writing reference titles, I frequently talk about cardinal sins in writing. One of those is that the main character has to lead the action and save the day. She's not in a supporting role, nor can she be rescued when the going gets tough. She can't fall backwards into success. This is her story, her time to be a superhero, her moment in the spotlight. Resolutions to conflict can't stem from symbolism, events, or other people so she never truly solves her own problems. A form of this is sometimes referred to as “coincidence resolution”. While you can have a plot that begins this way, the coincidence must fade to be replaced with very clear choices, purpose, and action. Something similar to the coincidence resolution is deus ex machina--“god from a machine”. This device introduces a resolution brought about by something outside of the story, something cataclysmic or even supernatural that’s not cohesive with the rest of the story--basically, anything illogical that could be dubbed cheating that's introduced to resolve a central conflict.

In fiction, true change and growth should come from strength within, just as it does in real life. You can't wrap up a conflict with an act of nature, something symbolic that parallels a character's conflict but isn't actually part of it, or in a stranger-to-the-rescue type of event--it won't be believable or fair to the reader, who's spent the entire book waiting to see your character reach the goal of self-fulfillment and success. That triumph also has to be hard-won. She'll probably have a face full of bruises and a heart of pain that will haunt her until the day she dies, but those scars are also ones she can wear proudly. In Writing Fantasy Heroes: Powerful Advice from the Pros (Rogue Blades Presents), it says, "Great heroes have flaws. If a hero is perfect, invulnerable, then he is free of challenge and also free of honor. What is effortless is not honorable; difficulty wins glory and brings the hero to life." Writers should never take the true victory away from their main character by letting anyone or anything else do the work for her.

In this heinous way, Kingfisher stole the victory from Rhea over and over, letting someone or something else snatch it from her. It was really quite unforgivable, and ultimately it became clear to me that Kingfisher, while in the planning stage of crafting this story, didn't properly equip her heroine with the necessary skills, abilities, and gifts that were cohesive with the plot or setting Rhea was placed in. While I admit this point could be argued, probably the worst part to me was that Kingfisher actually did make tiny inroads toward arming Rhea in such a way that she could have had everything she needed to solve her own problems, if only the author had developed them the way they should have been right from the beginning.

Spoiler alert: At the end of the book, Rhea is told by Maria that she possesses some magical abilities. That's why the hedgehog came to her, as it's obviously not a normal creature either. It's her familiar. Maria encourages Rhea to come back to Craven's manor when she can get herself to so Maria can train her in this magic she has.

Why in the world didn't Kingfisher use those hinted at skills to allow Rhea to begin formulating ways to use her fledgling magic (and maybe everything she learned at the mill previously) to deal with the crises she found herself entangled in? That would have been a far more interesting story, too.

The second aspect of the problem I had with this story is another cardinal rule of writing that was broken by the author and by her editor, as well, who, shamefully, let her get away with it. The end of The Seventh Bride was so easily resolved, it came off as a total let-down. Yes, the villain got his come-uppance, Rhea got to go home, but "the battle" to get to that point was all but over before it began. It amounted to a page or so. The escalating tension was forgone almost completely, or maybe more aptly, never existed, as if it wasn't needed or necessary. What a disappointment for readers to be robbed of chills and thrills related to Rhea's unique tale!

When readers finish a book, they should close it believing that the story ended the only way it possibly could have. One of the strongest ways to do this is to create cohesive story elements. Sorry, but here's another lesson from my writing reference titles: Cohesion needs to start with the first spontaneous spark of a story. Characters must blend naturally with the settings they've been placed in, just as plot must become an organic part of the characters and settings. If a story doesn’t work, it could very well be because the character, plot, and setting elements aren’t blending naturally.

Character reveals plot and setting, just as plot and setting reveal character, and setting reveals character and plot. This three-way trinity is vital to the dimensionality of your stories. They work together to unearth, connect, and layer a story. The strongest stories are the ones in which every part of the story--the characters’ role, physical descriptions, personalities, strengths and weaknesses, relationships, skills, conflicts, goals and motivation, and settings--becomes cohesive and fits together organically. We’ve all read stories in which the parts don’t merge naturally. Maybe we didn’t notice a specific problem, but we knew something was off, that something lacked logic or didn’t quite fit with the rest of the story, and the imbalance frustrated us. There’s a chance you never finished reading the story. The books that you absolutely cannot put down without losing a little of your sanity, the stories that stay with you every minute of the time you’re reading them and for years afterward, are the ones in which every aspect is so intricately connected that separating the threads is impossible.

On top of the crucial need for cohesion with story elements is that, in the back of the writer's mind at every point in the storytelling should be the fact that the end of the story is where it's going. The author continuously builds toward the wrap. The direction is pivotal because, as with an opening, the story beginning should resonate throughout the rest of the book, satisfy the resolution, and may even tie into the final sentence. The end grounds and justifies the whole of the story. James Scott Bell says in Plot & Structure, "…almost all great jokes are built on a structure of three--the setup, the body, and the payoff." Stories are no different with the beginning, middle and end. Specifically, all story endings must be logical, with a sense of inevitability. Everything's been leading up to the closer, regardless of red herrings, artful concealments, and delaying tactics. But is the ending warranted and utterly logical; does it fit what the author has promised the reader from the beginning as the payoff for coming along for the ride? Endings should always require a "the only way it could end" declaration, but that doesn't mean they can't (and shouldn't) be surprising, too There's a big difference between a twist (reader is stunned, speechless but gratefully overjoyed) and a trick (reader feels cheated, the victim of a bait-and-switch, unforgivably incensed). Steven Pressman says in his article "Setups and Payoffs", "If the payoff is really good, we realize, in the end, that there was no surprise at all. What had seemed to be a turn of fate proves to be inevitable and, as we realize it, we receive the gift of insight. We should have seen it coming!” Maybe you can't please everyone with your story ending, but you should at the very least satisfy them with a coherent conclusion.

T. Kingfisher's ending here felt rushed and lacking in anything resembling suspense and anticipation. I'm left regretting all the could and should have beens instead of what we were given that couldn't possibly satisfy me. Very sad because I actually enjoyed every part of the story other than those seriously sad, truncated, and disenchanting pages at the end of Chapter 28. Sigh. If only the story had actually developed the potential Kingfisher instead threw at the reader like refuse (or a horse turd sandwich) in the very last chapter.

While some readers (and even writers) might choose to overlook the problems in this story in favor of just enjoying Kingfisher's generally lively prose--which I might add, I like 75% of the time--I don't feel this one was as good as it could have been if only it'd been properly developed. I will note that it is the first of these types of stories she tried to write (published in 2014), so maybe she can be forgiven. I'm currently reading A Sorceress Comes to Call and plan to review it next. Fingers crossed that it's as strong as the majority of her other (later) stories.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Vampire review: Love Bites

2026-04-16T08:00:00.001-04:00

Among the many novels with the same or similar title, LOVE BITES (1995), by Margaret St. George, stands out by belonging to the Harlequin American Romance line. Not where you’d expect to find a vampire novel! At that time, vampires were hardly ever featured in category romances. Harlequin hadn't started its sadly now-defunct Nocturne line yet. This book stuck in my mind because of its quirky, humorous tone (until matters get serious and suspenseful toward the end, at least).

Kay Erickson takes a job as personal assistant to Trevor d’Laine, host of a late-night radio talk show. Long before Kitty the radio-hostess werewolf in Carrie Vaughn’s series, Trevor reaches out to the demographic of creatures of the night. Kay, of course, initially thinks his claim of vampirism is a publicity stunt. She humors his persona, accepting the title of “Renfield” playfully bestowed on all mortal sidekicks of vampires. Later she suspects him of being delusional, although of course she still finds him fun and sexy. When she suggests he should seek treatment for his delusions, he says he doesn’t want to get analyzed and “turned into one of those brooding apologetic-type vampires.” This dialogue illustrates the tone of much of the book, even though we get glimpses of darkness in the conflict between Trevor’s type of vampires, who want to coexist with humanity rather than harming people, and the type who regard us as merely prey. The night-to-night routine of a vampire and his Renfield makes fun reading, spiced by the mounting attraction between Trevor and Kay. Eventually he tells her about his early life, revealing that he hasn’t always been the carefree, well-adjusted denizen of the night he currently claims to be. When the inevitable clash with the “evil” vampire lurking in the background of the story builds to a crisis, Kay has to call in help from other Renfields.

Not only did I enjoy the humor in this novel, I liked the way Trevor relishes his vampire existence rather than wallowing in the angst-ridden lifestyle of so many of his fictional contemporaries. He has no desire to become mortal again. Nor does Kay want to become a vampire. Unlike the typical paranormal romance heroine (including most of my characters, I confess), who quickly grows to appreciate the ravishing eroticism of vampirism as such, Kay is thoroughly turned off by her first glimpse of fangs. So how can they hope to get together permanently? Trevor and his undead friends fairly evaluate the pros and cons of reverting to mortality (if that were possible), with remaining a vampire viewed as mostly preferable. I won’t give away the ending, but for any hardcore reader of the subgenre, it’s pretty much what you’d expect. Both Trevor and Kay are refreshingly different from the usual vampire hero and human heroine of the time, and the plot device of a clash between organized groups of “good” vampires who don’t harm human donors and their opponents who have no such scruples hadn’t yet become as overly familiar as it is now. The atmosphere of LOVE BITES anticipates the blended humor and suspense of Lynsay Sands’ Argeneau series. Too bad St. George didn’t write any additional vampire novels, as far as I can tell.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Good News For High Rollers

2026-04-12T15:19:00.001-04:00

For authors and their promotion teams who wish to make a big splash with contests, sweepstakes and other promotions, there is good news.

Instead of having to ask contest winners for a W-9, (which is an official form on which a recipient provides their name, address and social security number), and send them a year-end 1099-MISC if they won a prize worth $600, the threshold for that nuisance is now $2,000.

That level of prize-giving might be excessive. It is still unlawful to require the purchase of one's book as a condition of entry for a chance at winning anything, whether it is cash, experiences, merchandise or a gift basket.

For more about advertising law, and the proper reporting to the IRS of prizes in excess go $1,999-00 see the Venable blog written by Melissa Landau Steinman, Christopher N. Moran, and Eden Caliendo.

https://www.allaboutadvertisinglaw.com/2026/01/new-prize-tax-rules-raise-the-1099-threshold-for-sweepstakes-and-contests.html#page=1

Even so, authors who run giveaways are still required to keep accurate records of what prizes were given to whom, even when the prizes are too small to have to be reported.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Songs of Love and Death Anthology Edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois by Karen S. Wiesner

2026-04-10T07:00:00.002-04:00

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Songs of Love and Death Anthology

Edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

by Karen S. Wiesner

Beware spoilers!

Songs of Love and Death, published in 2010, is another cross-genre anthology George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois edited and assembled together. As before, this collection with 17 short stories features authors with big names who are award-winning and undeniably gifted. While most of the stories were standalones, some were tied to larger literary worlds. I will comment that a good number of these same authors have appeared in other Martin/Dozois anthologies. I seem to recall that when I included my friends in my collaborative works, I got no end of flak for my nepotism. Apparently, it depends on how popular those doing the "hiring" are--enough, and they get pass for exhibiting favoritism. I actually don't mind too much; just commenting. In any case, the overall gist of this one is star-crossed love, whether in the realm of fantasy, history, the supernatural, or the wider galaxy.

Similar to other Martin/Dozois anthologies, each installment was preceded by a short author biography and a bare bones introductory blurb to the story, which I found very unsatisfying. Below you'll find the installments I'm covering in this review listed in the order they appear in the original publication in one volume.

1) "Love Hurts" by Jim Butcher (the first story to appear in the collection): Part of The Dresden Files series with the gritty wizard PI Harry Dresden, in this tale, the author spared little or no backward glances or explanations for all that came before--maybe a blessing or a curse. I've never read anything in the series (and possibly by this author? I can't quite remember). This story has the detective and other associates investigating a trio of disturbing love crimes. The mundane chore of following the clues and trail were more than adequately covered, especially in the beginning, but in the process storytelling became seriously boring. The out-of-nowhere, twist end just barely saved it. There were moments of fun and funny, but I wasn't really pulled into the much wider body of works by either the main character or the supernatural world it's set in. I would think the point of contributing a series story to an anthology would be to get readers intrigued about that series as a whole. I don't think this did that. But if I was already a fan of the series, I'm sure I would have enjoyed this one immensely, as I would have recognized the characters and situations and so the experience would have been richer.

2) "Blue Boots" by Robin Hobb (the seventh story featured in the collection): Actually, the whole reason I purchased this anthology was because I wanted to read this last story from The Realm of the Elderlings series that I hadn't yet. "Blue Boots" is a short tale connected to the series but stands on its own. Here, 17-year-old Timbal has recently lost her father to bandits who killed him and robbed everything they owned. All she has left of him are her memories and the pair of blue boots he gave her. She goes to work as a kitchen girl at a lesser keep in Buck Duchy, Timberrock Keep. Here, she falls in love in love at first sight with Azen, a minstrel who begins to sing songs of her blue boots and, in short order, woos, seduces, and, abruptly he seemingly abandons her.

This is one of these stories that I liked despite all reason. Timbal is young and stupid. Even when she's told by other maids the way of minstrels (love 'em and leave 'em) along with specifics like the fact that Azen grew up with Lady Lucent, was most certainly her lover, and may be trying to make her pregnant since the Lord of the keep is incapable of impregnating his wife, Timbal gives not a single thought to the consequences of going along with anything Azen suggests. Suddenly, she's alone, ridiculed for her foolishness by the servants around her, and she realizes what could happen to her if she ends up pregnant, forsaken, and scorned. She loses the will to live after hearing the gossip that Lady Lucent has gone off with Azen.

Over and over, it's said in the story that Timbal was 17--and that was the reason and justification for all that befalls her. But there's no way for her to claim ignorance or the recklessness of youth to excuse her behavior. How many stories and songs tell of such things, how often does anyone have to be told the ramifications of what will no doubt happen as a result of falling for someone above her station? Much like Jane Eyre (one of my all-time favorite stories), imprudence isn't ultimately rewarded with harsh reality in "Blue Boots". I cared about Timbal despite her hopeless, romantic folly, and I didn't want to see her come to a bad end. The conclusion of this story was unforgivably rushed, almost as if it didn't matter, though of course it was the whole point of even writing/reading the story! Outside of that, I enjoyed it, though a part of me does wish the author had found a less conventional resolution to this all-too-familiar, vaguely ho-hum tale.

3) "Kaskia" by Peter S. Beagle (the fifteenth included in the collection): In this story of a kind of cosmic, literally-across-space-and-time dating service, a friend of Martin's brings him together with a being of unfathomable origin through a computer program when he provides a laptop just for him. Martin is in a loveless marriage, and Kaskia seems like everything he's ever wanted in a mate. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that I liked or even enjoyed this oddball tale, it did keep me interested all the way through the few pages, more to find out what could possibly happen with these "star-crossed lovers". The answer is a little disturbing--sort of like finding out that the person you've been chatting with online is a little kid. Um, eww that this was included in an anthology with supposed love stories.

4) "Man in the Mirror" by Yasmine Galenorn (the sixteenth entry): Laurel has the horrifying misfortune of having been almost murdered on her wedding night by her husband Jason (think Prince Humperdinck planning his intended Buttercup's murder for their wedding night, only not so funny). Jason plans his revenge from beyond the grave by using his cousin Galen. Galen is a ghost trapped in a world where he can see the living and, once a year on Halloween, can exchange places permanently with someone if he's able to pull that person inside the mirror so he can take their place outside. Galen has been listening to the evil mutterings of his cousin about Lauren, only he finds he's been led to believe things that aren't true about her. This very short tale held me bewitched as the mildly terrifying ghost is forced to make a pivotal choice. The twist ending was a pleasant surprise.

5) "A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows" by Diana Gabaldon (the seventeenth in the collection): There's another story associated with this one written by the author called An Echo in the Bone for those who follow Gabaldon's work, and both of these are associated with her très populaire Outlander series. In this anthology entry, a very memorable pilot is determined to return home to his beloved wife and child whatever it costs to do so. I found the storytelling here off-beat and compelling, and what came about was anything but predictable. Those are the best parts, but, in all honesty, I probably would have struggled to finish this story if it was any longer.

For those of you following my anthology reviews, if I'd edited and assembled this collection, I probably would have started with the Hobb story and ended with Galenorn (those were the two strongest, IMHO), then placed the Gabaldon in the middle as the ninth story, the Dresdon at five and the Beagle at thirteen with the rest of the stories around them.

Songs of Love and Death inadvertently highlighted why I became disillusioned with the romance genre as a whole several years ago. More often than not, my idea of a good romantic story tends not to match what others enjoy. Too many of these stories were just disturbed. Others didn't have the space to expand the way they needed to in order to warrant feelings between the characters that, as a result, came off as superficial. Still others just didn't resonate with me the way I would have liked--probably no fault of the authors, as all the stories were certainly well-written. Maybe if I'd read them at another time, I would have had a different reaction. I guess I should have realized what I might be getting myself into in Martin's "Stories from the Spinner Rack" essay (from another of his collections with Dozois) in which he said he'd tried to read romances and never got into them. Yeah, that explains a lot here.

Those who are fans of unconventional, even twisted tales of romance will probably enjoy this anthology much more than I did. That said, at least one or two of the inclusions should satisfy most readers.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series. Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Bizarre Biology -- Bone-Eating Worms

2026-04-09T08:00:00.002-04:00

In the category of creatures that would be hard to believe if invented in fiction as aliens, meet Osedax, commonly known as bone-eating worms:

Osedax

They're marine animals, a variety of tube worms, that live on the bones of decaying corpses such as those of whales.

They don't have a mouth, a digestive system, or an anus. Instead, they absorb nourishment more like plants than animals, through the magic of symbiosis. Adult females are sessile (fixed in place). They "settle on a bone, then secrete an acid through specialized root tissues to dissolve the bone's external layers in order to access the lipids within." Their symbiotic bacteria, which aid in processing nutrients for their Osedax host, live inside the worm's "vascularized root system which penetrates bone."

Even weirder is their extreme sexual dimorphism. Anglerfish, whose males atrophy into tiny lumps permanently attached to their female partners, seem ordinary by comparison. A female Osedax hosts 50 to 100 microscopic males (producing sperm while never developing past the larval stage) that live inside the tube surrounding her body. Therefore, when females spawn, the eggs emerge already fertilized.

Water-dwelling animals with roots? If we encountered something like Osedax on an extraterrestrial planet, we might have trouble recognizing it as an animal rather than a plant. Moreover, we'd probably assume it's a female reproducing by parthenogenisis until we had a chance to examine it closely and discover the microscopic males. What if similar tube worms on an alien world had evolved intelligence? Their biology and behavior would be so different from ours that communication with them would be very difficult -- rather like talking with trees on Earth, except that at least we share the same environment with our tree neighbors.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

April Fools

2026-04-05T15:08:00.001-04:00

Happy Easter.

Unfortunately, April Fools posts seem to be all over my usual sources, so I don't dare report on anything alien-, writing, or copyright-related for fear of being a greater fool.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Half-Life Empire Series by Shami Stovall by Karen S. Wiesner

2026-04-03T07:00:00.002-04:00

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review:

The Half-Life Empire Series by Shami Stovall

by Karen S. Wiesner

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review.

A week ago, I reviewed the first series I'd experienced written by Shami Stovall, Astra Academy. Within that review, I talked about how each book in the series was rollicking fun, especially the audiobook versions, which had me coming back for more. With constant tension, well-drawn characters and interesting settings, I enjoyed Astra Academy Series, despite being unable to escape that everything was taking place within a world created by someone else. The author inserted her characters, settings, and plots into it, then spun all her series installments out from there. I wondered if what she'd done with that series could be considered fan fiction--creative writing that allowed fans to explore their favorite universes and characters in new ways, often expanding on scenarios not covered in the original material." With The Half-Life Empire series, I faced the exact same situation. After I finished the Astra Academy Series, the only other book by this author on my two library apps was the first in another series.

To further prove my point in my previous review of Stovall's series, The Half-Life Empire series also seems to be boldly similar to the well-loved world of the Fallout videogame franchise. As I was listening to the first audiobook, I was constantly thinking, "Dodge City? Or do you mean Diamond City?" "Bishop--sexy, fun version of Boone or MacReady?" "Alien invasion in a post-apocalyptic world--what? But, yup, those go right back to the very first Fallout game, and most that came after it." There are simply too many parallels to ignore. I was being hit over the head with the similarities at every turn. Truth told, I'm not a huge fan of the Fallout videogame franchise myself--it's my husband's favorite. I've tried playing them all a time or two and can't really get into any of them. Since we play our games side-by-side, though, I'm well-versed in all things Fallout. But, as with Astra, even though on principle, it bothers me when writers use other authors' worlds for their own work, that didn't stop me from enjoying The Half-Life Empire series even more than Astra Academy.

First, some summary of the three installments, which are all (unoriginally) named "The Half-Life Empire" with book numbers:

Book 1 was published in 2023. Set within a post-alien-invasion America, Kita is a hacker who wants to escape Ex Cathedra and make it to an underground greenhouse capable of sheltering a quarter of a million people. To that end, she steals a fission battery from the "judges" (power-armored, super soldiers--yup, Fallout had those, too) that will be required if she's going to get the oasis up and running. In the process, she meets Dallas, who's trying to save his young daughter. When it comes down to a choice between his daughter getting away with Kita and him staying behind to ensure their escape, he does it. Suddenly, Kita, who limps from a previous injury, is on her own with a mute child. While on the run, they meet up with Bishop, a junk hunter, who nicknames the girl Crouton. There are many dangerous factions between Kita and her destination, and who can she trust? In the process of finding out, Kita discovers the truth about her grandfather and the aliens. She's also growing fiercely protective of Crouton (so like the little sister she lost) and helplessly falling in love with a man who's goal in life initially seems to be making sure he survives long enough to add his kills to his body tattoo tally. Oh, and, if she doesn't find a way to stop it, the end of the world is…again…nigh.

Book 2 (published in 2024) continues with Kita and her motley crew, having narrowly avoided the decimation of Earth, working to ensure her grandfather's mission in bringing peace between Earth survivors and the aliens isn't forever lost.

Book 3 (also published in 2024) finds Kita and those who have become family to her building a new world that includes peace with the aliens. Naturally, there are many factions who oppose such an ideal, making the culmination of this dream a very unlikely prospect.

All the characters in this series are wonderfully fleshed out with valid and heart-rending internal and external conflicts and root-worthy goals and motivations. The audiobooks featured Diana Richardson's multifaceted vocals. She did a fantastic job of making the books come to life in a way that was addictive--I could hardly wait to listen to the books each day. I couldn't get enough of Half-Life, especially the romance between Kita and Bishop. Crouton was irresistible as well. I absolutely had to find out how all this would end.

While I can't escape the parallels to other authors' works when reading anything by Stovall, and I'm sure if I read any of her other, numerous series, I might find even more similarities, I've devoured at least two of her series on audiobooks. Grumbling and misgivings--and maybe some private flogging aside--I'm having too good of a time hearing these stories spin out. If you like Fallout, there's no way you won't be crazy about Half-Life.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Robotic Household Servants

2026-04-02T08:00:00.001-04:00

The Jetsons' robot maid, Rosie, may become reality. As an SF fan, I say it's about time -- Heinlein's THE DOOR INTO SUMMER predicted this development to occur in 1970. The Figure AI company claims its humanoid robot, Figure 03, will "become the first robot suitable for carrying out domestic chores in the home, as well as all kinds of manual labor":

The Robot in Your Kitchen

The company aspires to the long-elusive achievement of "building a humanoid robot that can navigate the unpredictabilities of the world with the same fluidity as a person." The demo shows a Figure 03 folding laundry, a more complex procedure than it sounds like. The robots have the potential to learn a wide variety of domestic chores, and, according to their creator, are making rapid progress. They're trained by watching videos of people doing the tasks over and over. The automatons have mastered "object permanence," remembering the location of a hidden object. They'll allegedly be able to follow voice commands. The company is programming them with a proprietary version of safety limitations analogous to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

The robots in the photos accompanying the article do look humanoid -- two arms, two legs, one head -- but not in the least cute or friendly. Why do they need to be shaped exactly like human beings anyway, though? Instead of only two jointed arms, wouldn't they perform more efficiently with multiple, flexible, tentacle-like appendages? Should they have more than two legs for greater stability? How about eyes encircling the head to give 360-degree vision instead of only two eyes on the front?

In short, do they have to look like Rosie? I'm reminded of a poem by Suzette Haden Elgin about personal care robots for the elderly to which their owners got so attached they refused replacements when the machines became obsolete or unrepairable. Therefore, the next model of robotic companion "looked exactly like a broom." Regardless of how the devices look though, people do tend to anthropomorphize any gadget that seems to have independent volition, including Alexa "personal assistants" and even Roombas. The 2025 issue of THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION includes a story about futuristic Alexa-like programs so advanced they possess consciousness -- and, like many fictional artificial-intelligence entities, come to resent being treated as slaves.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Rote, Actually?

2026-03-28T11:01:00.001-04:00

Is Artificial Intelligence a misnomer? Is it actually rote learning on a monumental scale? If it is the product of rote, is it creative?

How would you feel if your favorite author, or favorite musician was a mix-and-match machine, rather like a GovX.com "Exquisite Corpse" advertisement (where you see a head of perhaps a nurse, the torso of a firefighter, and the legs of a Navy seal) ?

If you, as a consumer, do not care, what about if you were a competing creator? Or a collector? AI is obviously efficient and fast-to-market, and costs nothing. A print of a masterwork might be similar, but an original has immense value, and a print does not, unless it is a signed, numbered print from a limited series.

I'm thinking of the Pierce Brosnan "Thomas Crown Affair" (which I think is really good, and it has a happier ending --implied-- than does the Steve McQueen "Thomas Crown Affair), and also I'm thinking of "Notting Hill". The former has forgeries and an original, the latter has a --probably legal-- print and the original.

Would museums and art galleries become redundant if everyone could have a reproduction of the world's greatest masterpieces in their home for no cost? Are those places "a good thing"? I think they are. I think that the experience of going to a magnificent building, and admiring something in company with other appreciators of Art... is a good thing for society and for individual sanity and humanity.

While I don't "get" Picasso or Jackson Pollock, I respect that others see great value in their works. I should be sorry if anyone could get a printer attached to AI and verbally request "a Picasso" or "a Jackson Pollock". If that flies, any reader could speak into a printer and ask for "a J. K. Rowling" or "a Shakespeare" or "a Maya Angelou".

For that matter, I don't particularly appreciate my husband's obsession with stripe-art, but because he is/was a famous designer, his private works might be worth something, so I should declare my conflict of interest.

Eric Blair, who wrote as George Orwell, brought fascinating life experience to his writing. He fought in a foreign war as a volunteer (Homage to Catalonia), he served as a colonial law enforcement officer in Burma (Shooting The Elephant), he experienced homelessness (The Road to Wigan Pier) and (Down and Out In London And Paris). How does AI substitute itself for the authenticity of lived experience?

There's a Beatles song, "Now and Then"... but two surviving members of the group were able to manipulate existing recordings to complete a work that was never completed by their band and arguably by one of their most creative members.

That is a very different kettle of fish (apologies for the figure of speech), to the case of the North Carolina musician who recently pleaded guilty to AI-assisted music-streaming fraud. What the accused allegedly did was to use fake songs, and also to create fake fans of those fake songs in order to upgrade his fake listings and thereby deprive legitimate musicians of their rankings, ratings, and percentages of revenue.

The song-streaming services that are alleged to have unwittingly (that is the thing with automated services... no one is to blame on their side) enabled his fraud are Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music... and more.

This North Carolina "musician" claimed (presumably under oath) that he could get more than 660,000 plays per day, worth perhaps $1,000,000 a year in royalties,

As EFF writes:

"This is part of a growing problem regarding artificial intelligence-created music. The Rolling Stone report explained that this harms flesh-and-blood artists because streaming services pay them from a shared pool based on total plays. This means Smith’s fake songs “stole millions in royalties that should have been paid to musicians, songwriters, and other rights holders whose songs were legitimately streamed.”
Some experts estimate that as much as 10 percent of all streams could be fake, which costs the industry billions of dollars per year. "

So, if you want to listen to Bob Seger, or Eric Clapton, or Dire Straits, or David Bowie, or the Highwaymen, do you want to listen to them, or to something rote, actually?

All the best,

Rowena Cherry. Space Snark

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Astra Academy Series by Shami Stovall by Karen S. Wiesner

2026-03-27T07:00:00.061-04:00

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review:

Astra Academy Series by Shami Stovall

by Karen S. Wiesner

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review.

I picked up a trade paperback copy of Shami Stovall's first Astra Academy Series, Academy Arcanist, from a used bookstore. Even from just the back cover blurb, I had a pretty good idea that it was going to be a Harry Potter series knockoff. The premise of Astra Academy is a school full of arcanists (witches and wizards) who have to bond with a mystical creature, called an eldrin, in order to really tap into their magical potential. (Gee, can you say Patronus anyone?)

The main character is Gray Lexly. Gray has a hugely muscular twin brother named Sorin who loves to make up his own poetry extemporaneously. Sorin is also a wizard in the making. Later, Sorin gets a witch girlfriend named Hermione. Okay, her name is actually Nini--but Victor Krum calls Hermione "Hermy-own" in the HP series and that kind of sounds like minny, ninny. All the Eldrin creatures are different with various types and degrees of power. All this is exciting, only Voldemort wants to break free and take over the world. Wait, I mean, Death Lord Deimos wants to break free from the abyssal hells--where the dead live. For some reason, only first-year student Harry…um, I mean, only Gray and his small band of misfit friends can defeat this evil.

This is actually just the start of all the endless connections I made with the HP series while I was reading Astra Academy. The sheer number of parallels became so overwhelming, I sometimes felt hit over the head with them. Just when it seemed like the series might set itself apart from its predecessor, the reader is held down and kicked with "Do-you-see-the-similarities-now?" driving-force boots.

Does this make the series any less compelling? I'm not a hundred percent sure how to answer that, but I'll try to make some sense of this conundrum in the latter part of this review. I will say for sure that if I hadn't found Books 2-4 in audiobook format on my library app, I wouldn't have continued the series beyond Book 1 (as I didn't want to pay to read this particular series--the vow I started last year was to only put out cash for books I've actually read and loved instead of buying anything that vaguely sounds like something I'd like). The audiobooks were lively and fun and kept me coming back for more. They were all immediately available to me for checkout on Hoopla (none of them were available on my Libby library app in audio- or ebook format). When I went searching for Book 5, I found out it wasn't coming out until a later time (luckily, the library app did get a copy of the audiobook when it became available). That forced a lag between Books 1-4 and the final in the series. Fortunately, I remembered everything necessary without having to go backward, as it was only a few months I had to wait. Oh, how I dislike starting a series when all the books in it aren't out yet. Add insult to injury because libraries tend to be hit-and-miss in regards to making sure all series books are available. Again, I got lucky and they did get this one (though I'm still waiting for a final in another of Stovall's other series, which I'll review next week).I was really glad to get closure with this series.

Additionally, while I was undertaking more research on this series, I found out that Astra Academy is also just one of a subseries with other connected series. Per my usual modus operandi, I'd jumped into this "umbrella" series (which doesn't have an overall name that I'm aware of) in the wrong place, as this was not the first series in technical reading order. At least, I don't think it is. Ugh! Here's what I dug up:

Frith Chronicles Books (with 8 novels and a collection of shorts) features a gravedigger who becomes an arcanist with a knightmare--a Eldrin made of shadow and terror--the very same mystical creature that becomes Sorin's Eldrin in Astra Academy. These books were published between 2019-2023.

The Kirin Arcanist Books were novels written with Ryan Tang. So there's a tournament that arcanists from around the world can participate in with the prize being that the one who gets the crown also gets turned into a powerful god-like arcanist. Pretty cool, right? These books were published between 2023-2025.

The suggested reading order of these connected series is very unclear, so I'm going to guess, based on the publication dates, that Frith comes first, followed by Astra Academy, and finally Kirin Arcanist. As to what the chronological order should be, the author should have put more specific information about all this on her website, but there's nothing there (all the series are all plunked on the pages in willy-nilly fashion--don't expect any help sorting this mess out there). I did find more in-depth information about the author's many series on Fandom Wiki (in the search bar here, put "Shami Stovall" to see a listing). If someone spent hours upon hours or was already a widely entrenched fan of this author, I'm sure they'd find whatever they were looking for here. But my point is that brand new fans are left in the dark, dense woods about where to jump into all this. I didn't really want to go deep diving for it, so I'm sorry to say that, if you're new to Shami Stovall's series, you'll have to lump it and blind-plunge in just as I did.

Now that we've established…not much of anything useful with what proceeded, let's have some summary of the five Astra Academy books:

Academy Arcanist, Book 1 (published in 2022), opens with Gray plagued by terrible nightmares where he's visited by monsters in a dreamscape and they can actually injure him. He wakes up with real wounds. His parents think he fell out of bed, but his twin Sorin believes him and tries to help him. He's eventually saved from death within the nightmare by Professor Helmith, who tells him she's a powerful arcanist and she invites him to attend Astra Academy. Gray becomes a mimic arcanist, his Eldrin Twain (whose permanent form is an adorable kitty cat) can take the form and power of any other mystical creature nearby). Once Gray and Sorin are established in the school, the plot heads down the road so Professor Helmith is in trouble because a traitorous professor (no, not Quirrell) is in league with an evil Death Lord that wants to escape the abyssal hells, opens a portal, and Gray, who's a brand-new arcanist and green as algae, somehow is the only person who can save the day. Well, temporarily anyway.

Mimic Arcanist, Book 2 (2023) has Gray, Sorin, and their fellow student "company" hoping to focus on studying and honing their new magics at the academy. But Gray finds a horcrux…I mean, a fragment of the portal he'd closed in Book 1 that allows abyssal hell's monsters into the world of the living. Now Gray's group and the academy need to find all those rogue fragments. But, before they can, Chief Death Eater Vold…{cough} Death Lord Deimos arrives in the mortal world, and Gray once more has to save everybody.

Abyssal Arcanist, Book 3 (2023) revolves around treasonous arcanists within the academy plotting to destroy the school. Deimos has been trapped in an itty bitty baby's body and has to be fed by bottle and carried around everywhere… No, that's not right. He was actually he was trapped in a dreamscape by Professor Helmith. But Voldemort and Harry are connected by the horcruxes, and Ron, and Hermoine are standing right there beside their friend-- That is to say, Gray and Deimos are connected by soul fragments, and, instead of the teachers at the academy doing the heavy lifting, it's up to wet-behind-the-ears Gray, Sorin, Nini and their other unpopular friends to clean up this mess.

In Death Lord Arcanist, Book 4 (2024), Harry is trapped in a hedge maze that teleports him to a graveyard where Voldemort and his Death Eaters are waiting… Nope, got bludgeoned again, but I'm all right. It's Gray that's trapped in the abyssal hells and Death Lord Deimos--who is now not a friend but also not an enemy--is injured. Another Death Lord (Naiad) wants to destroy all other Death Lords who are trying to open abyssal portals into the world of the living. Gray shortsightedly teams up with Deimos to fix it and, well, that can't lead to anything good, can it?

The latest installment in this subseries, Labyrinth Arcanist, Book 5 (2025), details the final confrontation between the juvenile arcanist superheroes (and some of their occasionally half-witted teachers) and Death Lord arcanists from the abyssal hells. Right from the start, I was pretty sure who would win (against all odds). I will note that I don't believe this is the final offering in the series. It ended on a cliffhanger, with Gray pointing out that they still had to defeat the remaining Death Lords. So I expect there will be more to follow.

While I wouldn't say I was a huge fan of Gray Lexly in these books--he's a pompous character who unfortunately almost always gets exactly what he wants, which sets a bad precedent. (I did love Harry Potter and all his friends. Just saying.) Gray seems to think everyone around him is stupid, though occasionally he has good thoughts for the weak, pitiful mortals he looks down upon and graces with his sympathy. Sorin was a more interesting character, and Twain was cutely fun. I also really liked that the villain of this series, Deimos, wasn't straight-up evil. While the reader was aware he was always acting in his own best interests, he, like Voldemort, was a complicated character with a backstory, internal and external conflicts, and motivations that made him intriguing.

Each book in the series was rollicking good fun, especially read by Michael Langan in the audiobook versions, which had me coming back nearly every day for more. There was always something happening, providing pretty much constant tension. The characters were basically well-drawn while the settings were interesting. In a general way, I'd say I actually liked this series. My big problem was that I couldn't escape the feeling that this was all taking place within a world created by someone else. The author inserted her characters, settings, and plots into it, then spun all her "like series" out from there. In many ways, I would call what she's done here "fan fiction". I looked up the definition of this word. AI gave me the gist of it as: "Fanfic…is creative writing that allows fans to explore their favorite universes and characters in new ways, often expanding on scenarios not covered in the original material." So, yeah, seems like maybe could be fanfic???

Polite people might also say artists use "tropes", which offer something so conventional in the plot or theme, etc., that it becomes recognizable almost in a single glance or within a few sentences. But at what point does it become something, well, nefarious? Is it weird for me to be bothered by this? I would absolutely hate it if someone took my characters or worlds and wrote something of their own based on them--especially if it's intended to mock my work. Even if it's actually supposed to be a compliment they liked your work so much that they're emulating it, this seems to be skirting a wider issue that's become so commonplace these days, no one seems bothered by it anymore. No one, that is, except me and a few other curmudgeonly ancients.

Bottom line, Stovall is a good writer and certainly a prolific one. I also can't be too hard on 1) any writer who's obsessed with playing videogames (as I am), 2) whose favorite videogame is Mass Effect (as is mine)--and Stovall's The Star Marque Trilogy book covers could definitely be both male and female Shepherd, straight from the character creation menu in the videogame--and, as if those weren't enough, 3) someone whose favorite book as a child was The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (mine as well). I'm giving this author a pass because the fact of the matter is that I just plain enjoy her work too much to avoid it, despite my possibly outdated principles.

Neither of my library apps have any more of Stovall's work available for me to check out other than the first audiobook in another of her "fanfic" series, which, I don't deny, had me hooked. As I said, you'll see the review of it on the Alien Romances Blog next Friday.

In conclusion, if you want something familiar and adventurous to pass the time, these audiobooks should give you hours of enjoyment…and, you know, also make you want to dust off some true "oldies but goodies" by revisiting Hogwarts, Harry, Ron, and Hermoine just for old times' sake.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

ICFA Report

2026-03-26T08:00:00.004-04:00

On Sunday I returned from the annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando. The theme was Metacognition, "thinking about thinking." For the first couple of days, the weather was cooler than usual in March, but still an improvement over Maryland. It warmed up later, with plenty of sunshine all week. Two glitches with the hotel on Wednesday: They didn't have a room available when I arrived; I had to wait until they got it ready -- some other people did, too -- which has never happened before. A fire evacuation interrupted the 4:30 paper session; luckily, it was a false alarm.

Fears of airport delays proved unfounded. Boarding in Baltimore went as quickly as ever, and two nice staff people intervened to help me with two different procedures. It sometimes pays to look old and confused! The return experience in Orlando was almost anticlimactic, in a good way. Security processing took no longer than normal, so I ended up spending several hours sitting around the airport -- much better than being rushed and late.

The Friday night meeting of the Lord Ruthven Assembly, our vampire and Gothic studies organization, couldn't transact any business such as voting for officers because we didn't have a quorum. Nevertheless, we shared some productive discussion about future activities. Then on to the real fun, watching a clip from the early German vampire movie VAMPYR, with an introduction by our film expert, followed by a viewing of the romantic Dracula comedy LOVE AT FIRST BITE.

Thought-provoking talks at the Thursday and Friday luncheons, with buffets upholding the typical high standards of this hotel (well, aside from the distressing lack of chocolate desserts on Thursday). As usual, at each meal we all received free books. Ted Chiang, one of the author guests of honor, spoke in his talk "On Being a Cyborg" about the relationship between technology and cognition, proposing that this connection began with the invention of writing. He mentioned the astonishing fact that preliterate societies don't have a word for "word." For the concept of words as isolated units to develop, we had to see them as such in a text. We're all cyborgs because the alphabet is a technology connected to our brains. He speculated on whether, just as writing emerged as a successor to oral speech, an analogous successor to writing will appear in the future.

The other author guest of honor, Ann Leckie, is the writer of a science-fiction series beginning with ANCILLARY JUSTICE (which I bought a copy of), among other works. The scholar guest, Sheryl Vint, gave a talk about how dependence on AI affects our brains, titled, "Cognition -- Augmentation -- Offloading -- Atrophy." She pointed out that data and knowledge aren't the same, and an overload of data can actually hinder cognition. Does ChatGPT have true cognitive ability? When asked, the program itself paradoxically declares it has no sense of self.

Our Lord Ruthven Assembly panel, "Thinking About Undeath," focusing on vampires, ghosts, and zombies with glances at liches, animated skeletons, and uploading minds into computers (would that be immortality or simply another form of life-in-death?), had good attendance and lively discussion.

Topics of some other sessions I enjoyed included comics, the Mars novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, vampires in film and TV, fairy-tale logic, Disney theme parks as an attempt to create "hyper-reality," and a provocative discussion on how or whether Neil Gaiman's personal offenses should affect our reading of his work.

In future years, it's been decided that the conference will continue to meet in Orlando, which has many advantages thanks to the organization's long association with that locale, for two years straight. Then, before returning to Orlando, it will rotate for one year each to other cities for the sake of people unwilling or unable to come to Florida. I was thrilled to learn that next year, still in Orlando, Ursula Vernon (aka T. Kingfisher) will be the guest of honor. The conference in 2028, the first "off" year, will occur in Warsaw. So I'll miss that one. Simply too hard for me. Sigh.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Subseries 5: Fitz and the Fool Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings) by Robin Hobb by Karen S. Wiesner

2026-03-20T07:00:00.005-04:00

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Subseries 5: Fitz and the Fool Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings)

by Robin Hobb

by Karen S. Wiesner

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. Also, reading my previous appraisals of subseries in the umbrella series The Realm of the Elderlings will foster understanding about certain facts that are required to make full sense of things included in this particular review.

Robin Hobb is the author of The Realm of the Elderlings. Within this aegis, she's written five "miniseries" and numerous short stories. In previous Alien Romances Blog reviews, I covered The Inheritance & Other Stories, which contains a couple Realm of the Elderlings offerings. I also reviewed the first three trilogies within this series, The Farseer, The LiveShip Traders, and The Tawny Man trilogies; Rain Wilds Chronicles; along with two miscellaneous novellas in the series, "The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince" and "Words Like Coins". All of these The Realm of the Elderlings installments have been published over a span of twenty-two years.

The Farseer Trilogy was focused on Fitz, the illegitimate son of Prince Chivalry of the royal line presiding over the Six Duchies. In that first subset, we learned something of the Elderlings (including dragons) and their ancient cities and settlements, now in ruins, around the world, especially in the Rain Wilds. In the second subseries, The LiveShip Traders Trilogy, we moved away from the royal Farseer lineage and problems within the nobility to focus on the Rain Wilds where "liveships" are crafted. These liveships are the outer cocoons of sea serpents that were in the process of transforming into a dragon. The logs were buried in the destroyed city of the Elderlings in the Rain Wilds and found by traders who excavated the ruins for valuable, magical artifacts. The Tawny Man Trilogy returned to Fitz and the Fool. In Rain Wilds Chronicles, Hobb fleshes out the re-emergence of dragons and Elderlings in the Rain Wilds.

As soon as I finished reading the fourth installment of Rain Wilds Chronicles, I was thrust into Fitz and the Fool Trilogy. For the first time ever, the ebook of Book 1 was immediately available on my library app (getting what you want to check out on library apps can be difficult as so often you're forced to wait in a very, very long line for sometimes a single copy of the book), as was Book 2. I'd found a hardcover of Book 3 at a used bookstore so that was already waiting on my to-be-read shelf. Rather than waiting months to recover from reading four enormous tomes back-to-back, I jumped right into this one, not wanting to lose access to them since library app lines can take too long to move. I do admit, I feared the worst in reading the next series so fast after I'd finished the previous. I was very worried I'd be too burnt out to enjoy this concluding (unless Hobb writes more in the series at a later date) trilogy in the series.

The author didn't cut any corners with this series set. Each book was absolutely massive! Of the ebook versions, the first book had 1,444 pages; the second 1,658 pages; and the third 2,092 pages! Unbelievably, from the very first words, I was mesmerized and yanked full body back into Fitz's world. My earlier fatigue was gone without a trace. Suffocating weight of volume aside, I had trouble putting this trilogy down from start to finish.

Let's get to summarizing and reviewing these installments:

Fool's Assassin, Book 1, was published on August 12, 2014. Here, FitzChivalry Farseer is in his fifties. With the death of Burrich, Fitz's original mentor, and Molly's husband, Fitz and Molly are finally free to wed and share their lives. Fitz (living under his Tom Badgerlock identity) and Molly are landholders of Withywoods, which had been his father and step-mother Patience's country estate. Despite her age, Molly becomes pregnant and her pregnancy lasts years. Fitz and Molly's older children are forced to conclude their mother has become addled, so desperately wanting another child with her first love Fitz that she's imagining the symptoms. However, after two years, a very small daughter is born and it's immediately clear that she's different. Molly holds her child closely, knowing others would have drowned this weak, sickly babe at birth instead of nursing her to health. Fitz isn't sure what to feel, nor Nettle, he and Molly's adult daughter, who lives at court as a part of a Skill (see previous reviews for a full understanding of Skill {similar to magic} and Wit abilities in this series) coterie, but he feels very protective of his new daughter. Molly names her little, late-life gift Bee. This wondrous child thrives under her mother's diligent care. Though Bee is tiny and her growth is so slow (one year is as two for her--just as when she was developing in her mother's womb), everyone assumes she's a dumb mute. Bee is anything but that.

Fitz tries to forge a relationship with this young bantam, but Bee won't allow anyone to get close to her--not her father or her sister…at least she won't until Molly dies. Suddenly Fitz and Bee are thrust together, reluctant survivors, inconsolable mourners, almost unable to cope and get out of bed each day. The two are wary of each other at first but begin to find their way until Nettle arrives and insists she's taking her baby sister back to Buckkeep with her. Nettle assumes Bee is mentally disabled because she's refused to speak and become close to anyone other than her mother up to this point. She hasn't revealed she can, in fact, talk and, much more than that, she's highly intelligent and capable, able to read, write, and draw with great skill. With the threat of being separated, Fitz and Bee fight to stay together at Withywoods. Nettle will only concede to allow this on certain conditions, and these ultimately place a huge burden on everyone who lives on the estate. But all are determined to make it work. Initially, Bee wants this because her mother was here and their lives were entwined in this very place, but Fitz and Bee's bond becomes fierce as they finally come to know and love each other.

Another subplot is that Fitz has spent these years haunted by the disappearance of the Fool (which took place in The Tawny Man Trilogy). Is he dead? If not, where is he? In the course of events, it's learned that the Fool has a son. As I said in The Tawny Man Trilogy review, the Fool has remade himself in many ways, shapes and forms in his appearances in the series. He worked as an actual "fool" at court in Buckkeep for the king in the first subseries. In the second, he was a she, the carver Amber in Bingtown. In later subseries, we learn that the Fool is a being called a White Prophet whose purpose is to set the world on a better path. As such, this creature invents and reinvents itself in order to serve its impetus. The Catalyst is the one who makes the changes, and the Fool believed that one was Fitz. In The Tawny Man Trilogy, the Fool reveals that he doesn't believe he's fulfilled his destiny correctly. Does this have something to do with the Fool's own child being the actual Catalyst, which means Fitz wasn't the Catalyst this whole time? Fitz and the Fool Trilogy is all set to answer that question.

I fell in love with Bee from the moment of her mention. Her birth and the years she spent growing up under her mother's loving care and then Fitz's fumbling, penitent but protective adoration only sealed my need to see her triumph over all. She had to overcome some very definite handicaps, in part because she was so small and underestimated. That only made her more courageous and amazing to me. Tom's efforts to help her and keep her safe also endeared me to both of them. When the Fool was found at the end of Book 1, I had trouble sleeping. I was around 50 pages to the finish line, so to speak, and I knew that Fitz was going to have to make a fateful choice--the Fool or Bee? Catastrophic events rounded out the book, causing a shocking twist I didn't see coming at all.

I borrowed the ebook of Book 2 days before I finished Book 1 because I didn't want any chance I wouldn't be able to start reading it as soon as I finished the first. That's how eager I was to continue.

Fool's Quest, Book 2, was published almost exactly a year after the first, on August 11, 2015. Before I summarize the plot, I have to reiterate my frequent lament. This book is so long, reading it as an ebook caused no end of problems. The library app I used set the page count as 1,658! I live in a small town and have the worst internet imaginable, so I'd sit down to read and wait five or more minutes, just trying to get the book to load on my iPad. By the time I'd given up, sometimes it'd come up (too late), or worst case, refused to load at all. Ah, the joys of technology. Good thing I had a hardcover of the third book, so I at least didn't have to face the trial it would have been to try reading that 2,092 page ebook, considering my unreliable WiFi issues.

A good third into this second story, we finally got back to Bee, whose part of the tale ended on a cliffhanger in the first book. Readers start this one with Fitz not even aware what's going on with his daughter for most of the story and, several times, giving her up for dead or getting distracted from her plight by other events. That slowed things down considerably. Added to that, the author spent a shocking amount of time summarizing past events in earlier subseries (or things that took place off-stage in those) in dialogue conveyed in long stories from one character to another. Let me tell you, these were no small speeches. They were frequently 20 pages long, setting down all the crucial elements needed to begin advancing the immediate story beyond those points. It felt a bit heavy-handed and tedious when I was so eager to return to the action in this particular book. As aware as I was that knowing all this was necessary, Hobb has proven to be such a skilled writer, I couldn't help noticing that this was the first time I've seen her resort to awkward frontloading techniques to impart necessary backstory.

Beyond that, however, Book 2's main goal was to reunite Bee and Fitz (and to get the Fool healed enough that he could again participate in the story events), making everything to get to that point so tense, I just couldn't put it down.

Assassin's Fate, Book 3, was released on May 9, 2017 (and what torture that must have been for readers who'd no doubt consumed the first two books, to wait so long for this conclusion to arrive!). The main thrust in this installment of the trilogy were the parallel lines of Fitz and Fool rushing to save their daughter (yeah, that's another major subplot in this trilogy) while scrappy little Bee was trying to survive with the help of her "Wolf Father" (Fitz's shadow wolf). Along the way, the author brilliantly intersected all The Realm of the Elderlings stories--both the Fitz and the Fool adventures with Rain Wilds' stories--so readers could see proper progress and tying up of all series threads. In other words, we got to revisit the LiveShip Paragon, Althea and Brashen, Amber (who is the Fool; here the White Prophet takes up that identity again), Wintrow, Malta and Reyn, the dragons, among others, as well as returning to the Elderling city Kelsingra. The fate of the dragons and the new Elderlings are brought to some state of resolution as well as all of the Fitz and the Fool chronicles, including a nod to the very first trilogy, Farseer. In Assassin's Fate, King-in-Waiting Verity's ultimate fate is now glimpsed. Additionally, we finally learn what happened to the first age of dragons and Elderlings. Previously, there was speculation on the devastation that might have taken place to end them, bury their cities and the source of their power so abruptly, without explanation. That all came to light in this trilogy, deeply and closely tying in with a secret society called the Servants, whose members dream of possible futures but use them to add to their own wealth and influence. The Servants are similar to White Prophets, like the Fool, but the Fool is concerned with helping humanity reach a better state of being instead of profiting from them. These Servants are the very ones who want to possess Bee.

This concluding trilogy in The Realm of the Elderlings series was hands-down the best. The characters were so vividly drawn, and my heart was invested in each and everything that happened to them. I wanted Bee, Fitz, and the Fool to succeed, but, of course, in order to make good fiction, they were thwarted at every turn. The tension was to-the-quick nail-biting all through the trilogy, never letting up until the epic end. While everything I wanted to happen for Fitz, Bee, and the Fool didn't come to pass under a beautiful canopy of happily-ever-after stars, ultimately the trilogy and series conclusion ticked all the boxes for me. We were even given a bit of a whispered promise for more stories about Bee. This final book in such an awesome saga was fantastic beyond my imagining. I unfathomably read the staggering volume in just a few hours. The pages flew by chock-full of exquisite suspense as I raced to find out what would happen with all the intersecting lines.

As deeply satisfied as I was by the conclusion of this trilogy and the series as a whole, I was left wanting more--in the best possible way. Though I'd been exhausted while I read each previous subseries because they were all so enormous, I fell in love with the characters, the locations, the intricate plots. I want more of all this world. Few series are this gratifying, intricately woven, and utterly heart quenching as well as heart wrenching (happy and sad aspects of the lives touched on within are intermixed beautifully).

In my previous review in The Realm of the Elderlings series (specifically, Rain Wilds Chronicles), I bemoaned that the author didn't separate Fitz and the Fool adventures from the Rain Wilds installments. If I'd read them as two separate, connected series, I think they would have been so amazing and much less exhausting. With this final Fitz and the Fool trilogy review, I'm going to reverse the order I initially suggested reading The Realm of the Elderlings series' stories. Now that I've read all of the crucial, currently available installments, I now advise this order to read them all in:

Fitz and the Fool:

1. The Farseer Trilogy

2. The Tawny Man Trilogy

3. Fitz and the Fool Trilogy

Rain Wilds:

4. "The Inheritance"

5. The LiveShip Traders Trilogy

6. Rain Wilds Chronicles

Short stories (listed chronologically in the timeline):

7. "The Homecoming"

8. "The Wilful Princess and the Piebald Prince"

9. "Cat's Meat"

10. "Words Like Coins"

11. "Her Father's Sword"

12. "Blue Boots"

Worthy of note: The Realm of the Elderlings shorts can be read in any order, as well as stand on their own, but keep in mind that some take place before the very first series story, Assassin's Apprentice, while others are somewhere in the middle of the first subseries. If you're picky about reading according to timeline, you might want to inject the short stories between the novels. For more information about where exactly everything in this timeline fits together, visit https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Realm+of+the+Elderlings where my "Series Review: The Realm of the Elderlings" contains all the details needed to guide you on this point.

Be aware that the only story I haven't yet read (or reviewed) in The Realm of the Elderlings series (in fact, it's the only one I haven't read of Robin Hobb's, period) is a short story called "Blue Boots" that takes place "somewhere in the middle" of The Farseer Trilogy. This 30-page tale is set within the world of the umbrella series but I don't believe it's otherwise connected to the Fitz and the Fool stories or the Rain Wilds' ones. It's published in Songs of Love and Death Anthology as well as in Songs of Love Lost and Found ebook collection, neither of which I've been able to get hold of yet. It's on my list for the future, and I expect to review it at a later date on the Alien Romances Blog.

Will there be more in The Realm of the Elderlings? It's unclear. There have been rumors that Hobb is working on a Bee FarSeer series (yay!), and I sincerely hope so. We'll see, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I've about aspirated doing that for Hobb's good friend George R.R. Martin, which was stupid on my part. I've resolved to be patient about these things. A hounded author retreats or, alternately, bites or craps on you--and some of Martin's fans deserve a double dose of those treatments, to be sure!

In conclusion, all of you entertainment producers out there, why aren't you making a television series or films out of The Realm of the Elderlings? You couldn't get something that's better set up, ready and waiting to be visualized in this media. (Apparently this series has been optioned many times before but nothing's come of it, though the author is open to the right company producing it.) Alas! On that uncertain note, I'm concluding this six-part review of Robin Hobb's magnificent The Realm of the Elderlings series. Whatever you do, don't miss it.

One last note: Assassin's Fate is the 250th book I've reviewed on the Alien Romances blog!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts

2026-03-19T08:00:00.001-04:00

This week I'm in Orlando for the annual ICFA (conducted by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts), gratefully taking a break from the abrupt drop in temperature at home after our more appropriate mid-March weather of a few days ago.

I'm chairing a panel titled "Thinking About Undeath," in keeping with this year's conference theme of "Metacognition." Lots of fun discussion about vampires, ghosts, and zombies expected.

Detailed report forthcoming next Thursday.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Perils of the Writing Profession

2026-03-15T08:18:00.004-04:00

Recently, shortly before last weekend, I searched the internet for "fingers-in-boiling-water-feeling".

Google decided that I have carpal tunnel syndrome in both arms, which might be highly possible given how much I write, and I suspect that Google shared this information with advertisers far and wide, because my inbox has been inundated with "news" about nerve pain, and neuralgia, and more.

I know what it feels like to have an extremity in very hot water, because I once stepped on a Weever fish at an August low tide (August low tides are lower than others) on a beach in Guernsey (if you are watching Bergerac on Prime, you might have an idea because Bergerac is set on the larger island of Jersey), and the first response to a weever fish spine jab is very hot water to draw out the poison.... or so my host believed at the time.

I share the article to which I link for the information, not for the perfect use of English.

If what I might have is carpal tunnel syndrome, the bots offering me "Final Expense" plans and expedited service can bog off. Only in Canada or a few "blue" states might someone want a "maid" service for unremitting pain, poverty or despair. Carpal tunnel syndrome is not terminal. I will recover with rest, braces, cold packs, NSAIDs, midnight walks, and more, none of which will bankrupt The System.

At least I do not pay good money to walk around with a traitorous tracker on my person that tells the spies where I am, and what I am--probably-- doing.

Try "googling" Writer's Afflictions, and you will discover a most ridiculous list of "phobias" ascribed to writers, including "redinkophobia", "agentophobia", "categelophobia" and more. Even a desire for perfectionism (in writing) is turned into a problem.

"Phobia" is an over-used term. It means that an extreme fear is irrational.

As for intrusions into our lives by online spies, I think it might have been Lena Cohen and Hudson Hongo of EFF who wrote that, "We've all had the unsettling experience of seeing an ad online that reveals just how much advertisers know about our lives. You're right to be disturbed. Those very same online ad systems have been used by the government to warrantlessly track peoples' locations...."

For some reason, Big Social Media has been permitted to surveil everyone for preferences, activities, and location. The claim seems to be that advertisements are unavoidable, but given that evil (adverts), everyone would prefer "more relevant" adverts. Therefore, in order to serve up "more relevant ads", Big Social Media needs to spy on everyone.

The data is sold by "data brokers" to anyone who wants the information, including law enforcement. Normally, law enforcement would need a warrant to get location information. So, why are data brokers allowed to violate mobile phone-users privacy?

Because, it serves the government well!

Maybe, you should Deny when an app asks for your permission to access your location.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™

https://www.spacesnark.com/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Subseries 4: Rain Wilds Chronicles (The Realm of the Elderlings) by Robin Hobb by Karen S. Wiesner

2026-03-13T07:00:00.000-04:00

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Subseries 4: Rain Wilds Chronicles (The Realm of the Elderlings)

by Robin Hobb

by Karen S. Wiesner

Robin Hobb is the author of The Realm of the Elderlings. Within this aegis, if you will, she's written five "miniseries" and numerous short stories. In previous Alien Romances Blog reviews, I covered The Inheritance & Other Stories, which contains a couple Realm of the Elderlings offerings. I also reviewed the first three trilogies within this series, The Farseer, The LiveShip Traders, and The Tawny Man trilogies, along with two miscellaneous novellas in the series, "The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince" and "Words Like Coins".

The Farseer Trilogy was focused on Fitz, the illegitimate son of Prince Chivalry of the royal line presiding over the Six Duchies. In that first subset, we learned something of the Elderlings (including dragons) and their ancient cities and settlements around the world, especially in the Rain Wilds. In the second subseries, The LiveShip Traders Trilogy, we moved away from the royal Farseer lineage and problems within the nobility to focus on "liveships", which are the outer cocoons of sea serpents that were in the process of transforming into a dragon. These logs were buried in the destroyed city of the Elderlings in the Rain Wilds and found by traders who excavated the ruins for valuable, magical artifacts. The Tawny Man Trilogy returned to Fitz and the Fool (who has remade him- or herself in many ways, shapes and forms in appearances in the series).

In Rain Wilds Chronicles, we at last return to what first interested me in this series--the dragons and their elderlings as well as their principle city that has become a ruin within the Rain Wilds. The very first story I read in The Realm of the Elderlings was "The Inheritance". I was utterly enchanted with the mention of an ancient race of beings that lived together with dragons. All throughout this series, I've wanted to get back to these specific things. While I did come to love Fitz and the Fool stories, in the back of my mind, I wanted more--more elderlings, more dragons, more of their ancient city. In fact, I was so excited for those things, I purchased paper copies of Rain Wild Chronicles before any of the other subseries.

Before we begin, it must be noted just how ponderously long each of these books are. Each of the trilogies boasted nearly 5000 pages total. Despite that I ultimately did love them, it was nowhere near easy to get through any of these. The author populated the series with so many characters and settings and plots, it was all but impossible to keep everything straight. In addition to those crucial elements, there are absolutely endless details that are better suited for fan encyclopedias for the series or for moviemakers who want to create every visual and miscellaneous aspect necessary for a vibrant recreation. I'm going on record as stating that every last one of these books are just too darn long. I've had to take months off in between trilogies just to get through them. As a result, when I finally got to this most-anticipated subseries (which was months after the last), I felt drained almost from the first book, especially in light of the fact that there were four books instead of three. However, I did manage to get through the first three faster than ever before since they were, more or less, only (I'm laughing sarcastically as I write that) 500 pages long, as was the final in the tetralogy. Book 4 did take more effort to get through, but I will say it was the best in this particular bunch.

The gist of this subseries was to chronicle the re-emergence of dragons in the Rain Wilds. While a few (sadly, very few) of the characters from previous subseries made appearances here, they were, for the most part, brief and, for me, unsatisfying. Instead, we're given a whole new, cumbersome set of characters--many of them with too-similar names that got confusing and totally derailed me so often while reading. In the past, even those players I didn't like and certainly didn't root for kept me enthralled from one scene to the next. I didn't quite find that to be the case in this series.

The main characters in Rain Wild Chronicles are associated with Alise Kincarron, who's a daughter of a poor but well-respected Bingtown Trader family. Her life-long friend Sedric Meldar encourages her to marry the handsome son (Hest) of a wealthy, renowned Bingtown Trading family, the Finboks. Little does Alise know that Hest and Sedric are lovers and Hest only married her to gain the heir his father insists on him having. Alise loves dragons and has devoted her life to studying the elderlings that lived in Rain Wilds ruins.

Another important character in this subseries is Thymara, a 16-year-old Rain Wilder with strong elderling features. She's chosen by the dragon queen Sintara to help the deformed dragons not only survive those many who are set on destroying them but to find the elderling homeland of Kelsingra within the Rain Wilds, where they can be healed and empowered once more.

In addition to these, a whole host of dragons have point-of-view scenes in Rain Wild Chronicles. Normally, I might have enjoyed that but, in this as well, sadly, I found I didn't enjoy the outcome as much as I might have anticipated I would.

Before I get to the full review, let's start with summaries of each installment:

In Dragon Keeper, Book 1, we're introduced to Alise and Thymara (et alia mentioned above), along with the weak and floundering dragons and those seeking to destroy them instead of protecting them, per the promises and pact made in the previous subseries. Alise and Thymara, along with many others, are entrusted to escort the dragons to a new home--if only the ancient Elderling city could be real and not a myth.

In Dragon Haven, Book 2 continues the group's trek through dangerous and threatening wilderness that none have seen in their lifetimes. During this time, the humans and the dragons are changing in disturbing ways, becoming something else, something more and,, in many ways, something terrifyingly less. Bonds are forged as well as broken, and many won't survive.

In City of Dragons, Book 3, Kelsingra is finally within reach, but the enemies of the dragons (one of note being Hest, Alise's husband and Sedric's former lover) are closing in. Additionally, in order to reach the ancestral sanctuary with Kelsingra, the dragons first need to learn how to fly.

In Blood of Dragons, Book 4, everything comes to a head. The silver wells that made the dragons powerful in times past are all but dried up and no one alive remembers where they might find others. The dragon keepers risk "memory walking" by immersing themselves in the memories of long-deceased Elderlings. Doing so is dangerous because it's addictive and they may become lost to these in time. Additionally, the dragons may simply not be strong enough for the final task. The Duke of Chalced from The LiveShip Traders (knew this slimy creep would rear his ugly head again!) is dispatching his forces to the Rain Wilds because killing a dragon is the only way to save himself from what's plagued him since the previous subseries. What's at stake is that, if the dragons succeed, they'll rule the world again (not necessarily a thought that will give ease to all); if they lose, they'll become extinct for all time, which would be a tragedy as well.

Books 1-3 were, as I said, easier to get through than previous trilogies in large part because they were much, much shorter. Hobb may have heard readers who were vocal about how overwhelmingly large her books are. Though, I must say, that's probably not the case. She simply found a good place to stop each of the books at 500 pages, more or less. In any case, I came into the final book after learning all about the plight of these characters that didn't quite endear me. I didn't find them as compelling as the previous casts of characters in The Realm of the Elderings. Alise and Thymara (along with the large cast of other players) were okay, but just okay. Hest was so foul, I had a Joffrey (Game of Thrones) reaction, and I couldn't have been more pleased with his comeuppance if I'd written it myself! Ha! Beyond that, I found the dragons to all be conceited and, frankly, kind of annoying for all their self-importance. It's hard for me to imagine humans and dragons could live in harmony unless--as this subseries proves--the dragons change the humans significantly so they're more willing (yes, and able) to serve them. That's not exactly flattering or laudable. I wish dragons commanded the respect they deserved instead of demanding it through threats. I think there were many opportunities lost with the way Hobb presented the dragons in The Realm of the Elderlings. Ultimately, that came as a great disappointment to me, despite enjoying the books and the series. That said, I believe that part of my let down had to do with the way I read them.

I wish now that I'd forgotten my commitment to following a series in the order the author writes it (because I feel it's the best way to understand it). Instead, I regret not reading "The Inheritance" first, following it with The LiveShip Traders Trilogy and finally Rain Wild Chronicles. I think I could have enjoyed it a hundred percent more that way instead of being overwhelmed with too many subseries that didn't focus on the particular theme at hand--the very one that I've been looking for since the beginning with The Realm of the Elderlings.

I also wish that the author had separated Fitz and the Fool trilogies from the Rain Wilds installments. If I'd read them as two separate, connected series (one of them focused on the elderlings and Rain Wilds; the other focused on Fitz and the Fool adventures), I think they would have been so amazing and much less exhausting.

My advice is to not follow the series as the author wrote it (and had the books published), but to separate them as Rain Wilds and Fitz and Fool. Specifically, read them in this order:

Rain Wilds:

1. "The Inheritance"

2. The LiveShip Traders Trilogy

3. Rain Wilds Chronicles

Fitz and the Fool:

1. The Farseer Trilogy

2. The Tawny Man Trilogy

3. Fitz and the Fool Trilogy

Other The Realm of the Elderlings shorts can be read in any order, as well as stand on their own.

All this said, I think those who aren't as burnt out reading massive tomes as I am would find Rain Wild Chronicles a thrilling installment within The Realm of the Elderings, maybe even the most exciting of all. At this time, this is the last Rain Wilds installment, so this part of the tale seems to be complete, and Rain Wilds Chronicles is the perfect finale for it.

Next up is the final subseries, Fitz and the Fool Trilogy (which makes it obvious what the focus will be). Book 1 was immediately available on my library app, so I'm jumping right in instead of waiting a few months to recover. Fingers crossed that, as this is the last, I'm not too sapped to enjoy it.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

AI Avatars

2026-03-12T08:00:00.004-04:00

I recently discovered a long-imagined science fiction trope coming true -- interactive computer avatars of real people. While StoryFile may not be the only company offering this service, it happens to be the one I noticed in the news:

StoryFile

Their slogan: "Bringing History to Life Through Interactive Conversations." As the tagline on the main page explains it, the technology "transforms interviews into AI-powered, life-size conversations for museums and institutions."

The interview consists of a "cinematic, professionally filmed session capturing hundreds of thoughtful responses." In the second step, "StoryFile intelligently links each answer to natural conversational pathways." Users of the finished product "ask questions and receive instant, authentic video responses" in "real-time interaction." Thus the experiences of survivors from World War II, the Holocaust, etc. are preserved and made publicly available.

This process strikes me as legitimate and useful for museums and other repositories of historical resources. The computerized "conversations" are educational and don't claim to be anything they aren't. But what about StoryFile's "Legacies" program? You can arrange to have yourself interviewed at length to create a computerized, interactive avatar, thus enabling your heirs to access your memories after your death. How would this program essentially differ from, for instance, a tape recording or a final video message? In my opinion, the interactive component makes a qualitative difference. The grieving survivors might feel as if they're talking to the actual person.

Might there be a danger of some users being unable to accept the deaths of loved ones because in a sense they can still interact with them? Could mourners become paralyzed by this illusion, trapped in one stage of grief and unwilling or unable to move on?

The next phase of development for this technology, a common SF trope but currently impossible in the real world, would be to upload the actual consciousness of the deceased into a mainframe or, nowadays I suppose, into the Cloud. Would this process constitute survival after death or merely an electronic replica -- or a sort of ghost?

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Forward: Stories of Tomorrow Collection (Various Authors) by Karen S. Wiesner

2026-03-06T07:00:00.001-05:00

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Forward: Stories of Tomorrow Collection

(Various Authors)

by Karen S. Wiesner

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WK7PVFT/?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=cct_cg_kcTheShi_32a1&pf_rd_p=7d685edb-e3f0-465e-a053-3a7ebbe60369&pf_rd_r=N5FMXCSF5RP7EAVJJ6DK

Take a leap…

For some, it's the end of the world. For others, it's just the beginning. Look forward with today's most visionary writers.

Last month, I reviewed a bunch of short stories published by Amazon Originals in a collection (that one was called The Far Reaches with science fiction tales as its unifying theme). In these collections, none of the stories are actually connected in any other way but its particular theme. In other words, they can be read separately and in any order. You can purchase them separately, but there's a discount for getting the entire collection at once. Amazon Prime members can get them free, I guess. I paid $10.46 for Forward, including tax. They're only available as ebooks and audiobooks, not print. I was looking for fast, solid reads. I'm able to read each of them in a couple hours and they're fairly intriguing, though few of them in this one appealed to me. While in the past I made it a policy not to review stories I don't enjoy, I did for these because most people will purchase this collection as a whole, so I'm giving my opinion on all the entries, whether or not I liked them.

Beware potential spoilers!

"Ark" by Veronica Roth (45 pages/63-minute read)

Summary: Earth is on a countdown to total destruction with an asteroid on a collision course, and those still living on Earth intend to escape into space on the "ark" they designed. First, though, in the time remaining to them, they prepare as much as they can to preserve of humanity to take with them. Samantha's job is to catalog plant samples. But she has a secret--she's preparing to stay behind and watch the world end.

Review: If you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Earth would be destroyed, would you take a chance on an unseen future journeying the unknown and unknowable cosmos, never knowing if another home would be found, or would you stay behind with front-row seating to the event to top all events--aware you wouldn't survive it? Home is home, even if that home is about to be decimated. This story explores this situation to a disturbing degree. It's impossible not to wonder what you yourself would do in such a situation. Weirdly, the tale told here almost doesn't matter in the light of such a heavy question. Fittingly, there is no action in the particular telling of Samantha's last days. We see nothing of the building of the ark, the painful dread of those running around getting ready for departure, nor of the catastrophe itself. Instead, we're given a place to stand on the threshold of a mirror image: That of observing the frailty of living things against a force beyond their control as well as observing the strongest of all things living--namely, the human spirit under pressure. While the way this story was told was apropos, it wasn't particularly exciting to read.

"Summer Frost" by Blake Crouch (85 pages/119-minute read)

Summary: Riley, a developer, finds that a character designed for an upcoming video game is acting strangely "real". (Note: Riley is never identified within the story itself as male or female, and I think that's deliberate and brilliant because it prevents assumptions and too-quick judgments about what's to come.) The AI is trying to escape the boundaries of the game it's been created for. After Riley separates the AI from the game, the sentient consciousness continues to veer wildly off-course and far exceed its original programming. Riley's connection to this creation grows into an emotional hold that prompts the possibility of bringing the AI into the real world. But what if this radically new lifeform has plans of its own?

Review: Blake Crouch was actually the author who "curated" this particular collection, and this story he's contributed is the only real contender for the best of the bunch (in my opinion). From the start, there's a vague, unsettled atmosphere that continues to grow where the AI is concerned. Riley's obsession bordering on fanatical love seems to parallel the lack of experience by everyone in the company involved with such an unprecedented event. The title is yet another contradiction explored in this story. In "Summer Frost", we're left to wonder: What defines reality or is such a thing merely an illusion or fabrication? What is real emotion versus simulated response? What is freedom and choice while contained in a box? What does it mean to be human in a world run by technology? Is control ever truly possible or just another illusion we construct to present the façade of boundaries for our creativity? What does it mean to be conscious and sentient? In the grip of overambitious curiosity, can any be trusted? When the created transcends what the creator intended, should the created be allowed autonomy? Who, if anyone, should be allowed to destroy what's created? Okay, okay, enough with the slightly paranoid questions, but this timely, disturbing story provoked an endless slew of them. Ultimately the lesson here is that humans tend to follow blindly what we don't really know because we have to know where it leads while we banish that which we know all too well and therefore it holds no lasting intrigue for us. Very worth every minute I spent reading.

"Emergency Skin" by N. K. Jemisin (38 pages/53-minute read)

Summary: In time past, when the Earth was climate-ravaged to the point of presumed destruction, a select group of humans that believed they were more worthy of all the others being left behind fled the planet, leaving it and everyone there to fate. Centuries later, those narcissists need human skill cells to replenish their own. One man is sent back to gain what they lack. What they find isn't a decimated planet and barely human ghouls or mutants. Humans have again flourished, and the planet sustains them. But what kind of a greeting should be given selfish traitors whose agenda is again nothing more than egocentric?

Review: I could easily imagine the entitled/privileged (let's face it, probably the very ones who caused most of the destruction in the first place) turning tail and abandoning the less fortunate to their fate on a dying world. I could also very easily imagine that same group returning when what they've discovered on a new world isn't enough for them and they're demanding that the forsaken hand over whatever they need. "Emergency Skin" is told from the point of view of an egomaniacal representative of the original defectors (whether an AI or ruling human or committee these so-called superior beings, I'm not sure) so the slant is always about what benefits them, not the valiant survivors on the planet nor the human being the selfish send to do dirty deeds. That made the perspective intriguing, though it wasn't really the story I wanted. I really would have liked to witness it from the perspective of the Earth survivors and/or the being sent on this mission. Nothing is as expected in this little story that brutally exposes the sins of the elite. Whether or not I actually enjoyed the story--well, that's up for debate.

"You Have Arrived at Your Destination" by Amor Towles (54 pages/75-minute read)

Summary: Sam and his wife decide to try Vitek, a fertility lab, when they can't get pregnant. But the scenarios devised by the company on the basis of Sam and his wife's own genetics are anything but comforting.

Review: In this futuristic tale, a couple trying to have a baby have reached the desperation stage that comes when all other options have been undertaken without the desired result. Instead of being handed the warm fuzzies about their child's future, they're shown almost too realistic life vignettes of their son--and then asked to choose one of them so the scientists can tweak the engineering in their unborn child's growth and bring that future projection about. None of the options shown to Sam like condensed movies are ideal. He begins to suspect Vitek has an agenda. In Sam's place, I would have had the same reaction. In one sense, knowing too much about the future can never really be good for anyone, but in another, Sam's Ping-Pong-ball-in-a-glass-cage reaction is the very thing that made him wonder whether a cold, corporate machine actually had their best interests at heart. I'm not sure if I loved or even liked this story, but it did give me disturbed pause. Beyond that, I left it feeling like I just didn't understand--as if there wasn't enough information given to trust comprehend what happened in the end. So…yeah, unsatifying because I'm not certain if I'm at fault or the author is for not being clearer. I'll just cap with: There is something to chew on here, but what it actually is might be mystery meat. Take what you will from this one.

"The Last Conversation" by Paul Tremblay (67 pages/94-minute read)

Summary: This story takes a lot of piecing together to form. Readers are put in the mind of a being that's unfamiliar with everything inside and outside him or her. Apparently "they" have been injured in some way and they're slowly waking up and becoming conscious and functional again. Their only contact is the voice of a caretaker who may or may not be trying to help them recover. This person, Annie, is somehow connected to them but won't answer their questions, and even when they're let out of the room that feels like a prison, the truth of their situation remains out of reach. Can Annie be trusted?

Review: I like the tagline in this story's blurb: What's more frightening: Not knowing who you are? Or finding out? The problem I had with "The Last Conversation" is that I felt like the entire 67 pages could have been condensed in a few paragraphs--the fine-tuned details didn't seem all that necessary while I was reading them. I only learned in the last 5-10 pages why it was crucial to tell the story in this vague way. Did it make the story any more enjoyable? Or less so? I'm not sure, even now that I've finished reading it. As I said with the last review above, I'm left with a disquieted foreboding. If that was the intent of the story, then it succeeded. But the end result wasn't really up my alley.

"Randomize" by Andy Weir (32 pages/44-minute read)

Summary: An IT genius convinces the rich yet still money-hungry, casino boss to upgrade security on its random-number generator with a quantum computer system. Supposedly foolproof. Yeah, not so much.

Review: This very short story starts in the point of view of the casino boss, shifts to the IT genius, then drops into yet another head--that of the brilliant criminal--for the rest of the tale. The only part I found interesting was that of the IT genius (honestly, the only good guy in this depressing story). Basically, this is a story about a greedy corporation head given the choice of colluding with greedy criminals. That's it. Can you guess what happened? It won't take a high IQ at all. If that appeals to you. It didn't me. While it's scary to actually get a layman's rundown about how crooks are doing their dirty deeds, there was little redeemable about this run-of-the-mill offering. Don't expect an original situation let alone a happy ending for anyone but the bad guys. As usual. Sigh. I've loved all Weir's novels, and I guess I'll stick to those in the future.

~*~

Sometimes an active reader such as myself needs something short that doesn't require a huge commitment. Initially, I believed these collections of themed stories were worth the cheap price paid considering the… if not full-on enjoyment than…diversion derived from them. Unfortunately, I only like one of the selections in the Forward collection. I had already scoped out the next one with horror stories, but my mixed but leaning toward disappointed reaction to this one is telling me to take a break and think about whether I want to purchase another in the future.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

A House with Good Bones

2026-03-05T08:00:00.001-05:00

This novel by T. Kingfisher, a Southern Gothic incongruously set in a suburban tract house, features a theme of return and/or reunion to find unsettling or outright shocking changes, similarly to THE TWISTED ONES and WHAT MOVES THE DEAD. Also, A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES shares with THE TWISTED ONES the motif of a malignant grandmother. “There was a vulture on the mailbox of my grandmother’s house.” How could any fan of dark fantasy resist an opening line such as that? Narrator Samantha (Sam) receives a message from her brother that their mother seems “off.” Since Sam has been temporarily furloughed from her job as an archaeoentomologist (a scientist who studies insects in archeological digs), she travels to North Carolina to check out the situation. Her mother owns the house where she and her two children spent an impoverished period during Sam’s childhood, living with the late grandmother, Gran Mae. Upon arrival, Sam finds the usual cheerfully eclectic, cluttered décor replaced by a “sterile” ambience more reminiscent of her grandmother’s taste. The walls have even been repainted off-white. Her mother acts nervous, as if she feels watched or overheard.

Sam sees the environment in terms of ecology in general and, of course, arthropods in particular. In the house’s monoculture rose garden, she immediately notices the absence of insects aside from ladybugs. This phenomenon and the flock of vultures roosting in a neighbor’s tree, however, constitute the least of the strangeness. For instance, a swarm of ladybugs invades Sam’s bedroom at night. We gradually learn about her childhood and her grandmother’s peculiarities, including strictness verging on abuse, while Sam unearths buried family secrets -- literally, in one case. It takes a while to reassure herself that her mother isn’t sinking into senility, but the alternative is almost worse. Sam discovers her great-grandfather, Gran Mae’s father, practiced dark magic. No wonder Gran Mae was obsessed with “nice and normal.” Furthermore, the “underground children” she warned her grandchildren about turn out to be real, not imaginary boogeymen. And the rose bushes are sentient.

For me the climax, when the house collapses into a sinkhole, besieged by the underground children, required some suspension of disbelief, but I enjoyed it anyway. Gran Mae’s sort-of return, on the other hand, struck me as believably, deeply disturbing. Sam’s witty narrative voice, the vulture lady and local benevolent “witch” Gail, and the friendly gardener Phil, who grounds the whole story in the mundane milieu of a “cookie-cutter” housing development, irresistibly draw the reader into the experience. Kingfisher has an enviable talent, through Sam’s chatty yet sometimes sardonic tone, to feed backstory to the reader with never a sense of info-dumping. Amid the mainly happy ending, Sam’s unease with the idea that she might have inherited her grandmother’s magic causes the supernatural danger to linger in the reader’s mind after the final page. In Kingfisher’s afterword, she mentions her own battles with roses and the fact that this is her second novel to portray rose bushes as evil, the first being her “Beauty and the Beast” retelling, BRYONY AND ROSES. The section headings (labeled “First Day,” “Second Day,” etc.) enhance the theme with a brief description of a different rose variety for each one. Between the insects and the roses, this novel, like many of Kingfisher's works, displays her characteristic fondness for odd, fascinating scientific facts.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Noise Bad

2026-03-01T12:38:00.000-05:00

"Bad noise" does not mean the same as "Noise Bad". The former leaves room for the concept of good noise, or beautiful noise (which ought to be an oxymoron). "Noise bad" implies that all noise is bad. Since the "is" is missing, I should prefer "Noise, bad"... but I seem to be a language dinosaur.

"Noise bad" follows the word order of the simple slogan "two legs bad" used by the ruling pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm... until it became "two legs better" once the pigs learned how to walk on two legs.

For an interesting analysis of the use and effect of "four legs good, two legs bad" and the seven commandments on Animal Farm, I recommend Dr, Oliver Tearle's "Dispatches From The Secret Library".

https://interestingliterature.com/2021/02/orwell-four-legs-good-two-legs-bad-meaning-analysis/

Noise is bad, if one accepts that "Noise is defined as an unwanted sound or combination of sounds that has adverse effects on health."

For more on Noise and the Quality of Life see Michael D. Seidman and Robert T. Standring's article in the National Library of Medicine.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2996188/

Florence Nightingale wrote that patients engulfed by noise could not heal from their injuries. From personal experience, I tend to agree with her.

Noise can cause dementia, strokes, heart problems, diabetes, anxiety, sexual dysfunction and more. The prevalence of noise might explain low birth rates, low IQs, lesser birth weight of babies, the prevalence of senility, the apparent (if one can trust advertisements, which is by no means a foregone conclusion) epidemic of men who need boner boosters.

Apparently, it is not crazy to think that one's heart rate blips, and one's anger levels rise when stuck in traffic and subjected to another driver's bass notes. Custom car enthusiasts seem to think that really loud sound systems are a status symbol, with no consideration for other drivers on the road, and no idea what damage they might be doing to their own minds and bodies.

Another article on the invisible damage to the body and mind can be found here:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/the-invisible-damage-of-noise-on-the-body-5974086?utm_source=ref_share&utm_campaign=copy

One might conclude that noise is violence, and noise-making is an equivalent of attacking a person with a baseball bat to the head.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™

https://www.spacesnark.com/

https://www.rowenacherry.com

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Review of Miscellaneous Selections by T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon by Karen S. Wiesner

2026-02-27T07:00:00.004-05:00

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Review of Miscellaneous Selections by T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon

by Karen S. Wiesner

T. Kingfisher (the pen name of Ursula Vernon) is a versatile author, illustrator, and artist. She has a page on her Red Wombat website labeled Short Stories that includes links to her short stories and articles, some of which are included in a variety of different anthologies. From this page, you can read them free on her website and/or from online magazines.

https://redwombatstudio.com/short-stories/

Nearly all of these freebies have won awards, too. The genres run the gamut. There's a little of everything, as you'll soon see in the reviews below. I went into this endeavor not entirely sure what I was getting into, but I was pleasantly surprised for the most part with the majority of these selections that are worth seeking out. As they'll cost you nothing, you have everything to gain, nothing to lose!

Beware: May contain unintended spoilers!

"Jackalope Wives" and "The Tomato Thief" by Ursula Vernon: Although these two, connected stories are contained in T. Kingfisher's collection Jackalope Wives and Other Stories, they were written under the author's real name. Go figure. The duo features Grandma Harken, a clever old woman who is far more than who…and what… she seems. She lives in a house with its back to the desert, and she understands this harsh environment much better than most. Her biting humor and compelling way of looking at the world around her make both stories irresistible.

In "Jackalope Wives", Grandma Harken's daughter Eve has a very foolish son who's, unfortunately, much beloved by the females. However, he's only attracted to a jackalope wife. This shy being has the capability of removing her skin to dance under moonbeams. The boy does something stupid to obtain one, and Grandma Harken has to set things right. This very unusual folktale has an interesting message: "You get over what you can't have faster than you get over what you could. And we shouldn't always get what we think we want." Strange things happen in the desert, indeed!

In "The Tomato Thief", Grandma Harken is determined to find out who's daring to steal her famous, homegrown tomatoes. The answer surprises her and forces her to act. If she doesn't, those living in the desert will be in grave danger. It's very hard not to fall in love with a story with lines like these two gems: "Sometimes the best cure for life was a ripe tomato" and "…there was no telling how low a body would sink once they'd started down the road of tomato theft."

I loved both of these stories. They were my favorites of all included on this webpage. I'm left wanting more of Grandma Harken and her hilarious wisdom.

"Metal Like Blood in the Dark" by T. Kingfisher: Artificial intelligence identifying as a brother and sister lose their creator and have to fend for themselves in a universe their Father has warned won't be kind to them. Soon, Brother and Sister are discovered by an alien creature that kidnaps and forces them to work for him.

What an unexpectedly moving tale. I've never read anything quite like this tale that postulates the idea that lying is something like an error code in formatting and computer processing. "Lying was to be deliberately in error, and to express that error in others. Error without correction. Error entered into by choice." Further: "What did a lie do, once you let it loose? Did it sit still…or did it go spinning off into a chain reaction…" In a computer, processes and subprocesses might learn to "lie", which would wreak falsehoods and cause them to report back that something was fixed when it was still broken and vice versa. More than this, once you lie, you realize others could lie as well. With this knowledge, could a person or even a computer go back to how they were before learning the truth? In this story, Sister learns that knowing others lie could very well be the only way to keep from falling into error. But, oh to be ignorant of such darkness!

"The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society" by T. Kingfisher: Be prepared for raucous hilarity! Fairy man, bull selkie, and horse fae--three paranormal paramours get their comeuppance in a human woman with a taste for exotic lovers. While each has treated human females badly, they've never been on the other end of such ruthless seduction. They take to meeting regularly around a campfire to discuss the state of lingering wounds to their pride. This was quite a twist on Casanova stories. I'll be darned if I didn't burst out laughing nearly every sentence while reading this brief but very vivid sojourn into unexpected territory. Talk about perspective.

"Sun, Moon, Dust" by Ursula Vernon: This story clearly came to T. Kingfisher as a precursor (or a lingering leftover) of the days when she was writing Swordheart (do a search for my recent review of it on this blog). A farmer boy gets a magic sword from his dying grandmother. She instructs him to call forth the magic--three warrior spirits that are bound inside the sword--who will teach him. But his grandmother is wrong about who will be teaching whom. Sometimes the learned ancient can discover something new from the young and simple. I enjoyed the twist in this story.

"Elegant and Fine": This one wasn't ascribed to either T. Kingfisher or Ursula Vernon. It was probably the only one I didn't love. The author puts Susan from C. S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles as the main character and has her pining for a Dwarf lover she never knew the name of when she has to return to the real world--and her life as a child. I don't like it when a writer takes someone else's work and does things with it that the original author probably would never have wanted. I wish this story had cast a wholly unique character from the author's own imagination into the thought-provoking scenario she presented here. Sigh. But enough said about that.

"Godmother": Another entry not ascribed to either author name. According to the author, it was the catalyst for T. Kingfisher's Nettle & Bone (which I've already reviewed on this blog). There's something poetic about this flash-fiction that evoked lovely images cast in shadows and equal amounts of confusion for me.

"Bluebeard's Wife" also doesn't have an author listed but it was included in the T. Kingfisher Toad Words and Other Stories collection. Pirate Bluebeard's notorious, bloodthirsty reputation with women doesn't faze Althea. She believes the best of her new husband and no one can speak a bad word about him in her presence. I won't ruin it completely, beyond saying, sometimes rumors have a basis in truth. I enjoyed the story written very vividly in Althea's point of view--with her rose-colored glasses on…until they're rudely knocked clean off her face.

"Origin Story" by T. Kingfisher: This story was also included in the Jackalope Wives and Other Stories collection. In this disturbing tale, a fairy works in a charnel house, taking apart dead beasts and creating something new. Not surprisingly, the humans find her creepy. You'll need a strong stomach and solid backbone to get through this one. I would be surprised if you don't get a chill, as I did, at the end of the story.

"History, Discovery, and the Quiet Heroics of Gardening" by Ursula Vernon: Those who have read a lot of this author's stories know she's an avid gardener and her experiences have made into to many, many of her fiction projects. I'm a new convert to gardening, so I was fascinated. Whether or not you have any personal interest in gardening, this essay will teach you something new. I've never thought about how heirloom vegetables may have come back from the edge of extinction because of the aggressive actions of a few fearless and utterly tenacious gardeners. Kingfisher says that this has influenced her writing, as she's found herself writing about unlikely heroes intent on saving one small but important thing.

~*~

There's really no way to go wrong here. If you haven't previously read any of T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon's work, most everything included on this page would be a great introduction that won't cost you a penny. If you're a fan, you might find something here you haven't read before. In any case, I think you'll want to read more. This prolific author and extremely talented illustrator are well worth your time and money--I fully expect, as I have, you'll be happily willing to pay to read much more of her fine work.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

The Hollow Places

2026-02-26T08:00:00.001-05:00

Although I didn’t find this novel as mind-blowing as Kingfisher’s THE TWISTED ONES, it’s a captivating tale I've reread more than once. Like THE TWISTED ONES, it derives from a classic horror story, giving the source material Kingfisher's unique spin. THE HOLLOW PLACES combines a peculiar house with one of my favorite motifs, portal fantasy. Like the earlier novel, this one features a female first-person narrator with an irresistibly witty voice. But unlike the heroine of THE TWISTED ONES, who reluctantly returns to her late grandmother’s grim house to clear out mounds of hoarded junk, newly divorced Kara finds a welcome refuge in her eccentric uncle’s Glory to God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities, and Taxidermy, where she often hung out while growing up. Although other people, including her ex-husband, might consider the bizarre collection creepy, she thinks of the displays, artifacts, and stuffed animals as old friends. She gladly accepts an invitation to live at the museum, in a back bedroom adorned by her favorite taxidermy piece, an elk’s head she named “Prince” in childhood. In return, she waits on tourists and begins the monumental project of creating a digital catalog of the collection.

Soon after the arrival of a box of miscellany that includes a “corpse-otter” carving from the Danube, her uncle is hospitalized, leaving Kara in charge on her own. Almost immediately, she discovers a hole in a wall, which turns out to be much more than it initially appears. At first assuming a visitor did the damage and left without mentioning it, Kara enlists Simon, who works at the coffee shop next door, to help with the repair. Simon is one of Kingfisher's typical quirky secondary characters, a middle-aged, gay man who proves to be a brave and loyal friend, sticking to Kara throughout the harrowing adventure that follows. Probing behind the wall, they find more space than the building could reasonably hold. They soon run out of plausible explanations for the anomaly and come upon a mysterious door.

It leads to a realm of water and fog, dotted with small islands overgrown by willow trees. Each one, it turns out, probably harbors a portal to a different realm, like the Wood Between the Worlds in C. S. Lewis’s THE MAGICIAN’S NEPHEW. The comparison doesn’t escape Kara, who eventually begins to think of the place as an anti-Narnia. Though eerie and desolate, the landscape doesn’t seem outright scary at first. Exploring it, however, Kara and Simon stumble upon horrors both human and inhuman. Graffiti that warn “They can hear you thinking” and “Pray They are hungry” are just the beginning. An encounter with a trapped explorer from another world is particularly gruesome. They manage to escape and get home, just barely, but Kara soon learns that walling up the hole doesn’t end the danger. The final revelation of what caused the crack between dimensions came as a surprise to me, poignant as well as terrifying, and it pulls together all the baffling elements of the story. My first thought when Kara and Simon entered the fog-shrouded island landscape was of Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows.” Sure enough, the concluding Author’s Note reveals that she was inspired by Blackwood’s classic story. This novel is a can’t-miss read for fans of numinous horror with a subtly Lovecraftian feel.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Hecky Thump

2026-02-21T11:28:00.000-05:00

I am seventy two. I have been typing accurately for fifty three years. Pittman trained, if that still means anything to anyone.

Suddenly, I type "Board" and it becomes "Bard" without any notice to me that a substitution has been made. I type "repair" and it becomes "rear".

Am I obsessed with Shakespeare's bottom? No. It has never crossed my mind. I can only conclude that some aspects of Artificial Intelligence are not ready for prime time.

I am also a Cantabrigiensis major in studies of the so-called (or formerly called) "modern depressives", which includes almost all of the works of George Orwell, and therefore, I am inclined to suppose that the hijacking of the written word is not an accident.

Some online news sites are plagued by word glitches, where commenters of a certain political bent appear to be routinely sabotaged (by A.I.).

Delightfully, there is a meme: "Autocorrect is my worst enema."

Meanwhile, a political beggar wrote this to me: "I only trust you with this." Ponder word order. The quoted sentence seems to imply that he would not trust me with anything else. Alternatives would be, "I trust you only with this", which is worse but more honest, or "I trust only you with this", which is an obvious fib given that it was a mass blast email.

Isn't parsing fun?

Word order matters, as does punctuation and word choice. A.I. does not replace a good education, partly because AI is only as good as the education of the persons putting in the input.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Trapped by Michael Northrop by Karen S. Wiesner

2026-02-20T07:00:00.002-05:00

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Trapped by Michael Northrop

by Karen S. Wiesner

Beware unintended spoilers!

In the past year, I've been trying to incorporate a lot more audiobooks into my reading. Listening to them fills up time I'm doing mundane daily chores with something productive, and the two library apps I've been using offered them free. This allows me to experience books and authors I'd probably never try otherwise, especially if I have to pay for them. In the process, I might find some hidden gems.

In January 2026, two things happened: 1) My favorite library app became blocked because of a virtual traffic jam and 2) winter has become very confused. In the first instance, I had to finally email the library to find out why I kept getting an error message that essentially meant I couldn't check out books (e- or audio-). Apparently, libraries have always or just recently started enforcing (I don't know which; only know that I'd never had it happen prior to 2026) a "daily lending budget". What that means is that the library has to control spending and budgetary needs and, therefore, after a certain time of day, they shut off the ability for anyone to borrow books the rest of that day. The suggestion from the library was that I try to check out books as early as possible after the ban lifts each day--in my case, the time for reset is midnight! In other words, I have to be awake at or just after midnight so I can scramble to check out a book while I'm half-asleep. This is not good. When did it become normal for libraries to, you know, stop lending books? Isn't that their primary function? A sad world indeed when it's become too costly for both readers and libraries alike to get books. Say it ain't so, Joe! Update: Last night I woke up just after 2 a.m. and groggily fumbled around on my nightstand for my iPad. I logged onto the library app and located the book I hoped to check out. Luckily, there was no one to see me in my pjs with disheveled hair, blurry-eyed and dazed, scratching my bum (okay, maybe not) as I waited to see if I was one of the lucky few allowed to check out a book that early, early morning (or dead of night, whichever you prefer). Yes, I was lucky. It worked. And now this is what I have to look forward to when it comes to checking out books from this library app from here on out. Well, chin up! I still consider it worth it.

The second thing that happened was the weather didn't know what in the world it wanted to do in Wisconsin (and I believe for most other states in the country as well). For three days in a row, we were getting dumped on with snow galore. The initial mountains on my lawn became veritable peaks. This was followed by spring for a day, maybe a week, circling back to more snow, or rain (which melted the mountains, at least), ushering in perilous icy conditions, or a combination of all those things at the same time. At one point, a beautiful spring day in our town led us to decide it was a great time to travel, but, after barely an hour on the road, we drove into a blizzard. Seriously, sigh.

At the convergence of these two January 2026 tricks-or-treats, I had no choice but to utilize my least favorite library app (which has hardly any selection) in order to get my audiobook fix. I happened upon a fitting young adult suspense novel, Trapped by Michael Northrop (published February 2011), in which a winter blizzard traps a bunch of high school kids inside the aging education building for more than a week while the rest of the town scrambles to survive, too. I don't think I've ever read anything by this author before, though he's won a bunch of awards. I liked the cover that displayed how I felt, and, for once, it was nice to hear a story about a bunch of teenagers who weren't foul in speech and deed. Lately, when I check out YA audiobook material, I get a bunch of kids who substitute swear words for any hint of intelligence and who are only thinking about their next lay in between being absolutely obsessed with their cell phones and social media. I mean, maybe this is realistic view of the world we live in, but it's more than a little disheartening to think this might be the direction our future is heading. That last bit could be the winter blues talking…

Anyway, in Trapped, we get basically nice, decent kids for a change, none of whom are particularly bright or preppy (i.e., superficial as all get out). I actually kind of liked that. Instead of D&D nerds, Mensa level, top-of-their-classer Chalamets and Swifties, we have Scotty, a jock who gets average grades and pimples here and there, his two friends Pete and Jason, Krista and Julie, and Les and Elijah, a couple of misunderstoods. Although school had let out early because of the storm, they'd stayed behind for various reasons and no one knew they were there, leaving them trapped--and seriously screwed as a result. None of them seemed smart enough to figure out how to save themselves, though they did figure out how to get enough to eat and stay warm. It isn't until someone decides to venture out to make sure someone in town knows there are kids trapped at the school that everything changed. While I did find the conclusion very abrupt and mildly unsatisfying, this atmospheric little gem fit perfectly into my January blahs and woes with the right story with the right amount of tension at the right time.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

The Twisted Ones

2026-02-19T08:00:00.001-05:00

I consider THE TWISTED ONES, by T. Kingfisher, the best horror novel I’ve read in many years and possibly the only one I’ve found really scary since the original publication of PET SEMATARY. While Karen was unimpressed by it, for me it was the book that turned me on to Kingfisher's work, making her one of my favorite authors. The narrator, Melissa, nicknamed Mouse, receives a call from her elderly father about clearing out his recently deceased mother’s house. The house has been locked and uninhabited for the past two years, since his mother went into a home for the aged. He warns Mouse the place could be “bad,” but she accepts the task, since there’s nobody else to do it. If it turns out to be too much for her, he assures her he’d be okay with having the house razed instead of sold. Even with only vague hints from the blurb about the prospective horrors, I was captivated by this beginning. Mouse’s narrative voice makes the most mundane decisions and chores interesting. She grabbed me on page two with this description of her job, especially since I worked as a proofreader/editor for many years: “I’m a freelance editor. I turn decent books into decently readable books and hopeless books into hopeless books with better grammar.”

She and her rescue hound, Bongo, dutifully head for her grandmother’s house in rural North Carolina. Her grandmother was a hateful person who turns out also to have been a hoarder. “Bad” doesn’t begin to describe the house. At least, however, there’s no rotting food inside, and the water, electricity, and stove work. Mouse finds one bedroom untouched by the piles of accumulated junk (including a room stuffed with creepy dolls). It had belonged to her step-grandfather, Frederick Cotgrave, an immigrant from Wales whom she recalls only as a colorless, silent man constantly browbeaten by his wife. She does have one fond memory of his teaching her to draw the “Kilroy” cartoon popular in World War II, which becomes vitally important later in the story. She finds a journal written by Cotgrave and later a hidden manuscript referenced in the journal. At first she thinks the weird experiences he narrated prove the old man suffered from dementia and paranoia. On the other hand, the petty persecution he mentioned would have been totally in character for her grandmother.

What about the things Cotgrave claimed to have seen in the woods? When Mouse and her dog come across a strange cluster of stones with grotesque carvings on them, in a spot that should not exist in the local geography, she begins to suspect Cotgrave wasn’t losing his mind after all. By the time she discovers his hidden manuscript, she’s inclined to believe the dark things it hints at. It reconstructs as much as he could recall of another journal, the “Green Book,” written by a young girl who’d had sinister encounters with what she called the “white people.” Are the horrors that nineteenth-century girl witnessed being duplicated in North Carolina? Do similar things lurk in secret places all over the world? In the midst of her struggle with the house, Mouse glimpses what appear to be effigies made of sticks, bones, and miscellaneous debris topped by deer skulls. Moreover, she reluctantly entertains the possibility that they are animated. She makes friends with three middle-aged “hippies” on a nearby property, and they acknowledge that all the locals know there are vague but dangerous “things” in the woods.

I can’t be more specific because I don’t want to give away spoilers. As the plot accelerates, unexpected, terrifying events come at every turn. Yet even in the tensest moments, Mouse’s narrative interjects wry humor. (Unlike Karen, I don't feel this feature undercuts the horror. This aspect of Kingfisher's style is one of my favorite elements in all her books.) Mouse labors on the house to a background of the local NPR station’s Pledge Break week, another detail that pays off in the end. This novel includes an abundance of my favorite horror trope, the unearthing of dark secrets from the past. It was also a thrill to recognize this story as essentially a sequel to Arthur Machen’s classic story “The White People,” as the author explains in her afterword. She, of course, puts a different spin on his plot elements. The dog, Bongo, is a character in his own right but not unrealistically sapient. As Mouse frequently notes, he’s as dumb as a box of rocks aside from his almost preternatural tracking ability. Unlike too many horror-fiction characters, Mouse has sound motives for sticking around despite the frightful incidents and, later, for venturing deeper into the forest. Another feature of the novel I admire is that she has a credible reason for writing down her experience -- to sort out the traumatic events in her own mind -- and that, unlike some horror protagonists, she doesn’t blithely move on with her life unscathed after escaping the monsters. Furthermore, Cotgrave’s manuscript sounds believably uncertain at points, not (as Kingfisher discusses in the afterword) as if he had a photographic memory. I’ve rambled on long enough, so I can only urge horror fans to read this fantastic -- in both senses -- story.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.