Human Hibernation

The November issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC has a long article about a NASA project at the University of Pittsburgh, with the goal of making it possible for human beings to enter "a bearlike state of hibernation." Unfortunately, NG articles are behind a paywall, but here's an overview of the experiment on a different site:

Benefits of Sleeping in Space

The condition is "bearlike" in that subjects enter a period of torpor during which they can briefly awaken, unlike some rodents whose core body temperatures drop below freezing. The NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC article mentions a ground squirrel in a lab put into such a deep "sleep" it appeared dead, yet revived unharmed. The magazine contains a photo of a dormant squirrel obliviously held in a researcher's hands.

A BBC America wildlife series about mammals includes video of hibernating bats, in which a male is shown briefly emerging from dormancy to mate with a sleeping female, who doesn't wake up. What happened to consent? :)

NASA hopes hibernation-like torpor might make long voyages to Mars and beyond more feasible. In that condition, astronauts would use less energy, needing less food, water, and oxygen. Sleeping through much of the trip would minimize interpersonal friction, too. Unlike astronauts at low gravity and/or in confined quarters, as well as people forced to spend weeks or months in bed because of illness, hibernating animals don't lose bone density or muscle mass. They also avoid strokes and diabetes despite their accumulation of extra fat. If space travelers could go dormant that way, even if only part of the time, they could arrive at their destinations in better health.

At present, we're nowhere near the capability of voyaging to interplanetary or interstellar locations in the "cold sleep" familiar in science fiction. We don't have to wait for long-range interplanetary travel to reap benefits from human hibernation, though. Slowing body functions in cardiac, brain-injured, and stroke patients could stabilize them until treatment could be administered -- if techniques or drugs can be developed to induce that condition instantly without dangerous side effects.

The Wikipedia page on suspended animation touches upon effects of hypothermia in humans and experiments in induced hibernation:

Suspended Animation

If I had the metabolism of a bear, I would happily go to sleep the night of the first Sunday in Advent and stay that way until the return of Daylight Saving Time, waking only for the week from Christmas Eve through New Year's Eve. Missing the cold, dark months wouldn't bother me a bit.

Margaret L. Carter

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

Sell Me, Sell Me Lies

In the Middle Ages in Britain, if a baker sold underweight bread, he was punished, which is why we have the saying "a baker's dozen" which includes a 13th loaf. 

Nowadays, Data brokers seem to get away with selling inaccurate information about a property, a person, their contact information, and their associates. According to EFF, even "information" about your footwear preferences may be for sale.

As writers of fiction, we expect that readers know that they are paying for entertainment, not for strictly factual information. Not so with data brokers.

Who pays for garbage information? It is more serious than you might suppose.

For example, it is alleged that 90% of landlords use data brokers to make decisions about potential tenants, and this can have life-changing consequences for the tenant, and perhaps for the landlord.

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/PrivacyCon-2022-Kaplan-Mislove-Sapiezynski-Measuring-Biases-in-a-Data-Brokers-Coverage.pdf

There are all sorts of studies and statistics about the GIGO information that data brokers sell. (Garbage In, Garbage Out.) A 2022 study for the FTC found that 40% of data brokers' data was inaccurate. It got worse in 2023, when a report confirmed by NATO found that approximately half the data provided by brokers could be regarded as accurate.

Much of their information is incorrect, incomplete, based on "inferences". (The figure of speech is "alliteration", when multiple words begin with the same letter... unless a lot of words begin with "s" in which case, it is "sibilance".)

Inferences are what happens when algorithms are used to create information that may or may not be accurate. For example, if you look up "health benefits of cranberries", the algo might infer that you have a lot of UTIs. From that inference, they might arrive at other conclusions about the length of your urinary tract, the location of its opening. And more.

If you buy a lot of baby wet-wipes online, the algo might assume that you are a new parent, whereas you might simply like the superior butt-cleaning power of a wet wipe but not identify as a "Dude" wipe-user.

You might share internet service with several family members, and the data brokers might infer that all the associated phone numbers work for the head of household. This can be trying when a Democrat family member receives texts intended for a Republican family member.

Allegedly, all these lies are compounded because data brokers sell their lies to other data brokers, and so, lies breed like flies.

You can look yourself up, and find the names and ages of all manner of complete strangers who are alleged to be close personal friends. I'm guessing, but possibly your use of Facebook might have something to do with that. Apparently, a reporter looked herself up, and discovered that a good half of the information about her was untrue.

Maybe calling it a "good half" is irony -- if the difference between irony and sarcasm is that irony involves falsehoods or contradictions, and sarcasm is about something basically true but said in a hurtful way. Definitions change over time, and vary by country.

One problem for the automated collection of data is that several people have the same name. Apparently, there are at least three people named "Rowena Cherry". Two own or rent property in the Louisville KY area. One may live in California. One also owns property in Michigan.

No wonder, then, that a married, childless individual might be confused by data brokers with a single mother of multiple children. Such misinformation could indeed cause a landlord to believe that a tenant applicant was not being truthful on their application.

Ditto, perhaps, for a banker trying to decide whether to accept or reject a loan or mortgage or credit card application.

Why would you buy a product that might have a probability of being only 60% accurate at best? I know these companies do so: Progressive Insurance, T-Mobil, Political parties....  I know this because, through the postal service, I receive an alarming quantity of solicitations addressed to complete strangers. 

This mail causes me to wonder if I am the victim of identity theft or home title theft. I write "Return to Sender" or "Not At This Address",  which is the proper thing to do, but the same senders don't stop, which worries me even more. It is also bad for the environment owing to all the destroyed trees, wasted paper, wasted dye, wasted energy.

Apparently, the USPS makes around $15 billion dollars a year from junk mail, and the average household received between 20 - 40 pounds of junk mail (marketing mail or bulk business mail) every year.

Conclusion: the selling of lies is too profitable to stop.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Subseries 3: The Tawny Man Trilogy (The Realm of the Elderlings) by Robin Hobb by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Subseries 3: The Tawny Man 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 will foster understanding about certain facts about this umbrella series that are required to make sense of things included in this particular review. 

In an attempt to spend less money on books that half the time I don't even enjoy, early in 2025, I figured out how to check out ebooks from the app my local library uses for this purpose. Utilizing Libby, I can check out ebooks and audiobooks. Unfortunately, the selection of material is limited. A lot of the books I like to read aren't available on it, but I was glad to see that most of Robin Hobb's titles are available. It's just a lot of waiting when I "place a hold" and patiently endure the, at times lengthy, delay in it becoming available for me to read. 

Robin Hobb is the author of The Realm of the Elderlings. Within this umbrella series, 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 two trilogies within this series, The Farseer and The LiveShip Traders 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 includes the following novels:

Fool's Errand, Book 1 (2001)

The Golden Fool, Book 2 (2002)

Fool's Fate, Book 3 (2003) 

Once again, we return to Fitz from the first Elderlings subseries, The Farseer Trilogy. He's now in his mid-thirties. It's been fifteen years since the events of Farseer. The events of all previous stories that I mentioned above reviewing before play into each of these stories in a wonderfully cohesive and illuminating way that I really enjoyed. I felt like I was pulling threads from different tapestries until they began to fit into one. The author is to be lauded in how she meshed her subseries seamlessly, at least for the most part. 

As a preface to this review, in this series there are two "magical" talents: With the Skill, a person can reach out to another's mind, no matter how far away, and read thoughts and influence thinking and behavior. An even older magic is the Wit, in which humans feel such a kinship with animals, they share thoughts and behaviors, sometimes becoming so bonded that they themselves become little more than beasts. The strength of the bond can also lead to performing powerful attacks. The Wit is looked upon with scorn and fear by most humans. 

In the first book of the trilogy, Fool's Errand, Fitz is living a quiet life in the middle of nowhere with his wolf Nighteyes, to whom he's Wit-bonded, and a foundling son he's adopted as his own named Hap. 

In The Tawny Man, few know Fitz as anyone but Tom Badgerlock. Most believe FitzChivalry of the royal line to be dead. The man who taught Fitz as an assassin, Chade, visits Tom. In previous stories, Fitz conceived with the queen as King Verity used his body for the purpose of providing an heir to the throne. Their son has shown signs of being both Witted and possessing the Skill. Prince Dutiful is untutored and there are few if any teachers of both abilities in the current climate. At Chade's request that Tom teach Dutiful, Tom protests that his knowledge of both of these powers is incomplete and erratic. Chade also tells Tom of the unrest among the Witted in the land. The rebels call themselves the Piebalds. (The story of Piebald origins is told in "The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince", a favorite of mine in this series.) 

Chade leaves after Tom refuses to train the prince, and later the Fool (who has remade himself in many ways, shapes and forms in his appearances in the series, becoming known in this trilogy as The Tawny Man, Lord Golden) visits him. In previous trilogies within the series, the question of the Fool's identity was revealed to be ever-changing. The Fool 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. I'd wondered in my review of the previous subseries The Liveship Traders Trilogy how/when this anomaly was revealed. Now I know it's in The Tawny Man Trilogy that the facts behind this situation come to life. The Fool is much more than any have previously suspected--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 that one is Fitz. The Fool reveals in this book that he doesn't believe he's fulfilled his destiny correctly--during the time he was Amber, he went awry and therefore warped all that came afterward. 

In Fool's Errand, Prince Dutiful is believed to have been kidnapped by Piebalds. In truth, Dutiful has been enslaved by a Witted Woman who died and forced her essence into an unwilling cat. Lord Golden and Tom, appearing as his servant, must rescue Prince Dutiful--possibly from himself. 

In The Golden Fool, Book 2, Tom intends to return to court and train Prince Dutiful with the intention of forming a coterie of Skill users. The group will include Dutiful, Lord Golden and Chade, along with the disabled servant of Chade's named Thick. Fitz's daughter with Molly, Nettle, also possesses the Skill, and she reaches out to Tom against the will of the person she believes to be her father--Burrich (from the first trilogy), who's now married to Fitz's love Molly and they have a Skilled son together named Swift. Additionally, a Witted coterie is in the works as the scourge against this magic is being actively turned over. The kingdom wants to show that Wit is a talent instead of a distrusted curse to fear. 

In this story, the Fool reveals his deepest feelings to Tom, believing him to be his beloved. But Tom can't accept this, and a schism forms between them. There's also a thread about the princess of the Out Islands potentially marrying Prince Dutiful to establish an alliance between their people, thus reunited the Six Duchies. However, she requires that, to win her hand, he must bring her the head of the dragon IceFyre, who's trapped beneath the ice on the isle of Aslevjal. The Golden Fool has foretold that he'll die there trying to stop this fate from happening. 

The trilogy concludes with Fool's Fate. Tom makes an effort to steal away by ship with the coteries to go to the Out Islands and give the princess what she needs to accept Dutiful's troth. Tom wants to prevent the Fool's death at all cost, but fate isn't so easily thwarted. The Fool joins them despite their scheming, and together the Witted and Skilled coteries attempt to free IceFyre from its prison. However, another White Prophet would see the dragon killed in order to prevent the Fool's prophecy that dragons would return to the world from being fulfilled. Though the Fool is destined to die during all these events, Tom refuses to allow it and intends to do everything in his power to save them both. 

While I enjoyed it, I concluded this subseries feeling a bit unsure what the purpose of it was. More than anything else, The Tawny Man Trilogy seems to be little more than an extremely long bridge (very close to 5000 pages!)--from the previous subseries to the next. You get to see events that happened before play out in the present here and, yes, familiar characters move along toward future events. Mind you, this isn't so much as a complaint as a comment that left me a bit baffled. Tom is a complex character, and I didn't always understand him. Also, in a tiny way, the whole plotline about the Fool's androgynous nature as a prophet that's reinvented itself over the course of perhaps centuries struck me as a little far-fetched and convenient to the plot in this subseries. Finally, apparently unlike, say, the council of wizards in The Lord of the Rings, White Prophets in this series don't work together and in fact can actively work against each other to see their own ends fulfilled. Who or what's guiding all that is anybody's guess. I'm not sure how or even if that'll play out further in the next subseries. 

As an aside, the ebook version of Fool's Errand was over 1,300 pages. It took me 7 hours and 19 minutes to read it. I was surprised I enjoyed reading an ebook, though it was annoying to drag my iPad around everywhere so I could snatch a few minutes here and there to read. It's also frustrating because I have crappy internet and sometimes I couldn't get the app to load the book so I could read when I wanted to. You never have that problem with a paperback. But I also didn't spend $30-$75 on purchasing the three books either used or new. There are trade-offs when reading traditionally or electronically, I'm learning. 

In any case, I enjoyed this trilogy, though it was a good 3000 pages too long for me. I was eager to see the evolution of the characters as well as the world The Realm of the Elderlings is set expanded. For whatever reason, I didn't feel quite as exhausted reading this third subseries as I did those that came before. I believe the ebook medium had a lot to do with that. But I also didn't enjoy this subseries in the Realm of the Elderlings as much as the last one I read. While I do want to get started on the fourth subseries, The Rain Wilds Chronicles, which has four books instead of just three, and is set in the city of the ancient Elderlings, I do need another break before I turn to those paperbacks I own. I suspect that final subseries will at last include everything I've been looking forward to so eagerly since I found this amazing series. 

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/

Peace Is Relative

My husband and I are in the process of reading the Richard Bolitho series, by Alexander Kent, starring an officer in the British Navy from the late 18th century through the Napoleonic wars. It's reminiscent of both Horatio Hornblower and the "Master and Commander" series. Now that we've reached the War of 1812 in our reading (a side event in the Napoleonic era, from the British viewpoint), I'm reminded of the alleged "long peace" of the nineteenth century. It's defined as having lasted for the hundred years between the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the outbreak of World War I.

I keep wondering, though, why this era qualifies as one of "peace" even from the British perspective. Over that period, they participated in several armed conflicts, including the Opium Wars in China, the Crimean War, the Boer Wars, and two Anglo-Afghan wars. And if we consider other nations, we note the Franco-Prussian War as well as wars between France and Austria and between Austria and Prussia. In the Asian sphere, Japan went to war against Russia and China. Not having ever studied the military history of the period, I'm sure there are others I'm not aware of.

In the twentieth century, the period from 1945 -- the end of World War II -- and the present is also referred to as a "long peace." Again, it's so designated because no global war has occurred since the "big one" at mid-century. We've fought proxy wars such as those in Korea and Vietnam, though, and it's unlikely the millions of people who've suffered in local conflicts over the past eight decades would call those years "peaceful."

However, by objective measures we're nevertheless living in the least violent period of history. Psychologist Steven Pinker (author of HOW THE MIND WORKS, THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT, THE STUFF OF THOUGHT, etc.) documents this proposition in exhaustive detail, with statistics, in THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE. Contrary to popular beliefs held in the past, preindustrial, tribal groups don't typically live in Edenic peace. Their per capita rate of death by violence tends to be far higher than in civilized societies. Two factors spawn the opposite belief: (1) the raw numbers of deaths involved; (2) our instant access to global news, making us acutely aware of those deaths.

Also, as C. S. Lewis points out, the death rate remains the same in every time and place -- 100 percent, one per person. If we catch ourselves thinking we live in uniquely terrible times, we might reflect on Lewis's remarks in an essay addressing anxieties about the threat of nuclear war:

"In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. 'How are we to live in an atomic age?' I am tempted to reply: 'Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.' . . . . In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together."

Margaret L. Carter

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

I'm In Love With My Car.... ?

I'm not in love with my car in the way that Queen was in love with a car. It's not about the speed, the gears, the grease guns and so forth for me. 

It's about the freedom, and to some extent, the privacy.

Well, I have an older car, and I like what I can hear in it. I can borrow free CDs  (or do I mean DVDs?) from the library and listen to audio books in the player in the dashboard.  I have free FM and AM radio and can listen to free local stations for rock music, new, even some weather alerts. The only price I "pay" is that I have to listen to advertisements, but I am not going "there" today.

Why on earth am I talking about terrestrial cars in an alien romance blog? Because I talk about copyright, and creativity, the arts, and the use of English, and English writing skills.

By the way, I saw something interesting on an E.F.F. mailing recently. That is, the Electronic Freedom Foundation. Allegedly, some police are using generative AI to write their reports. Apparently, lots can go wrong with that. You think?

The generative report is based on the sound track captured by body-worn camera audio. So it could be worse. Speak clearly, distinctly, loudly and avoid using words with multiple meanings, I assume. Avoid sarcasm. "Yes, sir, No, sir..." and hold the "three bags full, sir."

So, if you are stopped in your car, give some thought to what you can do in case the generative AI gets too creative. E.F.F. writer Matthew Guariglia has some guidelines, and suggestions about filing a request to discover whether AI was used to write the report about your encounter. There are bills in Utah and California to require police to retain the first drafts of their reports, to show which parts were written by the police officer, and which were written by AI.

Sources: 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/10/victory-california-requires-transparency-ai-police-reports?utm_source=effector

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/07/effs-guide-getting-records-about-axons-ai-generated-police-reports

I don't miss satellite subscription services such as On Star, and Sirius (and it drives me up the proverbial wall that they want to pronounce their name "serious"... why name yourself after the Dog Star, if you want to be taken seriously? Apart from the cleverness, of course.)

There is a similar word, "Epoch", that seems to be routinely enunciated at "epic". Try not to say either to a police offer wearing a body camera.

What set me off on this mental trek was an article that I cannot credit, by Nic Anderson, an author whom I cannot credit with a link, because if I do, this blog post will be squelched. 

His article is searchable, and describes how American automakers aspire to curate what you hear in your car. His first words are: "Imagine starting your car and realizing that what you hear --or can't hear--has already been decided for you." If you clip and paste that quote, the wonders of Google (and I mean that most sincerely) will take you to the source.

It sounds like a "brave new world", doesn't it? Why would automakers want to do that? Why wouldn't they want a driver to listen to FM radio, for example? Or to Apple CarPlay or the Android equivalent? 

It doesn't seem to be an ethically-driven move to protect the copyrights of musicians and songwriters. Could it be a move similar to Amazon making its own content for Prime TV?

Does GM have a garage band or two?

Is it about bending minds, or about subscription models, to make more money? Or, is it about customer retention? Or all of the above? 

Nic has some thoughts and a to do list for listeners.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

https://www.spacesnark.com/  

https://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Graceview Patient by Caitlin Starling by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Graceview Patient by Caitlin Starling

by Karen S. Wiesner 

   Beware spoilers! 

Caitlin Starling's previous new release, The Starving Saints, garnered a lukewarm, undeniably disappointed review from me (see

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2025/08/put-this-one-on-your-tbr-list-book.html) here on the Alien Romances Blog. As a result, I decided to hold off on purchasing the hardcover of The Graceview Patient, released October 14, 2025, despite that she's written some of my favorite novels (The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence--also reviewed on this blog and accessible with a search). While waiting for the paperback release, the audiobook version became available on one of my library apps so I borrowed it immediately. 

In The Graceview Patient, we're set up with what sounds like an absolutely irresistible horror scenario that was described in promotion as "Misery meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Okay, well, more so the latter than the former definitely got me drooling. Margaret has a rare autoimmune condition that wrecks any chance of her living a normal life. Without a cure, she's barely making it day by day until she's offered a spot in an experimental medical trial that's fully paid for. She'll be forced to live at Graceview Memorial Hospital full-time and subjecting herself to a treatment that will all but kill her. The fact that she has no one to go through it with her (apparently she's alienated every single person she considered relative or friend) doesn't initially bother her too much. The man in charge of all this, Adam, is charming in a way that Margaret has no willpower to resist. As the trial progresses, she begins exploring the hospital and finds something that only becomes increasingly more sinister the longer her trial goes on.

I'm not gonna lie to you: The early chapters of this book were absolutely brutal--so boring, it was almost painful to force myself to continue. In part it may have been done in this seemingly innocuous way in order to throw the reader off. But I have to comment on two aspects of this: 1) The audiobook was recorded at such a low volume that, even with my speaker hooked up and at full volume, I could barely hear it, and 2) the audiobook narrator had a voice all but designed to put a listener to sleep. I realized later that the intention was to come off sounding like the patient who progressively becomes sicker and sicker. She captured that in spades. Despite that there was a reason the narrator read this book the way she did, it was still difficult to endure. If it hadn't been a Caitlin Starling book, I might not have continued with it all the way through. I am glad I did, though, but the narrator choice did skew my initial perceptions of the story. Do I believe that the ebook or paperback would have been any better? No. I'm almost certain I would have struggled even more with those formats than this one. This book was written like a dry textbook. Only when you were too far into the net to back out did it become exciting and suspenseful. At all times, though, it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. At no point did that cringing let up. 

One further complaint: All throughout the story, the author sprinkled in what could only be perceived as annoying "tell the story before I tell the story" injections, such as things like "maybe I should have been afraid or suspicious by that but I wasn't". If you don't believe you can set up a horror story well enough to be frightening when the time comes, this is the method you'd attempt to make it so. I register a full poo-poo on such a weak and unprofessional delivery system! I was taught early on as an author to never do that, and I agree with the advice wholeheartedly. 

All these issues aside, you have to read this full-on horror story! I can't imagine a single person alive not being anguished at the thought of being sick beyond cure, desperate to find any hope at all, and taking a risk however perilous that might lead to life--a risk that never would have been an option until that point. I can promise you that, once you've read The Graceview Patient, you'll never go near a medical facility without wondering what you're getting yourself in for, without being justifiably a little afraid. Do an internet search for "what bacteria/virus/infection is prominent in healthcare settings" and read some of the articles that come up. Do you know there's actually an acronym for contracting an infection that wasn't present at the time of admission while you're receiving medical treatment (HCAI)? Apparently, some believe that medical centers should be completely "restarted" every decade or so, as it's the only way to really avoid HCAI. I didn't delve too deeply into HCAI in large part because I really don't want to know. There's enough horror in life these days without adding to it with a million "what ifs". 

The Graceview Patient sneaks up on you. You'll probably start out bored (as I certainly was) and, before you know it, you're canceling your next doctor's appointment because…you know, you're really not as sick as you thought you were. It does a psychological number on you, maybe permanently. You'll never look at health, hospitals, or experimental trials the same way again, let alone what constitutes sentience, what should be allowed to live and thrive… While this recommendation comes with quite a few disclaimers, if you like horror--especially the real-life-this-could-actually-happen!!! kind--you won't want to miss this one. 

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/

Sinister Barrier

The category of psychic vampires -- creatures that live on energy rather than blood -- includes a fascinating variety of novels and stories, including the now almost forgotten (except by SF scholars) pulp-era novel SINISTER BARRIER (1939), by Eric Frank Russell. Although it seems to be out of print, Amazon.com has lots of inexpensive used copies for sale. The novel begins with an outbreak of mysterious deaths and suicides among scientists, who leave cryptic messages suggestive of madness. Gradually the truth comes to light: Throughout the existence of Homo sapiens, humanity has been ruled and preyed upon by "luminescent spheres, about three feet in diameter, their surfaces alive, glowing, blue, but totally devoid of observable features.” These entities, "neither animal, mineral nor vegetable" but pure energy, given the name "Vitons," feed on violent emotions as well as certain kinds of electromagnetic energy. They use extrasensory perception and telepathy in lieu of material senses and modes of communication. Investigation reveals a combination of drugs that allows ordinary people, not only those with paranormal perception, to see the Vitons. Exposed to the world, the Vitons strike back by provoking global disasters and warfare. Finally an electromagnetic wavelength capable of destroying them is discovered, and humanity annihilates its former masters.

The Vitons have no individual personalities, at least none that human beings can perceive. One character in SINISTER BARRIER describes these predators as "so utterly and completely alien that I cannot see how it will ever be possible for us to find a common basis that will permit some sort of understanding.” The emergence of humanity from its ignorant status as prey into clear-sighted knowledge constitutes the theme of the story. Here understanding is not the key to interspecies cooperation, but rather the key to conquest and annihilation. Graham, Russell's protagonist, declares, "Ignorance may be bliss -- but knowledge is a weapon,” and later he proclaims the need to "counterbalance the Vitons' enormous advantage in having an ages-old understanding of human beings, and gain an equally good comprehension of them. Know thine enemy!"

The imagery of the novel dehumanizes both humanity and the superhuman predators. Graham and his fellow investigators discover that the Vitons, whether invaders from another planet, creatures co-evolved with Homo sapiens, or possibly "true Terrestrials, while we are the descendants of animals which they've imported from other worlds in cosmic cattle-boats,” deliberately breed human beings for the emotional energy upon which the predators feed. The book begins with a pair of metaphorical warnings: "Swift death awaits the first cow that leads a revolt against milking," and "there's a swat waiting for the first bee that blats about pilfered honey.”

Other subhuman imagery includes a reference to a mental patient as "mutilated trash tossed aside by super-vivisectionists"; a contrast between the Vitons as "Lords of Terra" and "we, the sheep of their fields," kept under "their mastery as cold-bloodedly as we maintain ours over the animal world -- by shooting the opposition"; the suggestion that the Vitons perform "super-surgery on their cosmic cattle" for the same motives that lead some people to "teach seals to juggle with balls, teach parrots to curse, monkeys to smoke cigarettes and ride bicycles" and medical students to "make stray cats disappear" and snatch "frogs that are later dissected"; and the characterization of a victim about to be drained as "a homoburger waiting the bite.” All terrestrial conflicts throughout history have been "grist for the Viton mill...unwitting feeders of other, unimaginable guts.” The human gene pool has been manipulated just as we shape crops such as potatoes; human beings are "emotional tubers...grown, stimulated, bred according to the ideas of those who do the surreptitious cultivating.”

This novel thus places the blame for the horrors of human history on an outside force. One character warns his hearers, "Humanity will never know peace, never build a heaven upon earth while its collective soul bears this hideous burden, its collective mind is corrupted from birth.” Oddly, this theme ultimately leads to optimism instead of despair. Once freed from the tyranny of the psychic vampires, Homo sapiens is restored to the condition of freedom and self-determination that our species should have enjoyed all along. The text implies that in the absence of the Vitons, most human conflicts will cease, and our species will indeed "build a heaven upon earth.” Only the elimination of the corrupting outside force is required to initiate a terrestrial golden age.

This tale of rampant paranoia and chilling cosmic horror is well worth a look for all fans of Golden Age SF.

Margaret L. Carter

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

No Time Left For You... Almost

No "petty pace" this (a reference to Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy.)

October 27th is a deadline, and if I hadn't been researching a different topic, I should not have been able to give you a heads up.

A deadline for what?

Why? To comment publicly as 351 other creators have done, in response for a RFI (request for information) about AI and copyright, on a government website.

Chris Castle of Music Tech Policy explains it all, with some possibly inspiring ideas of what one might say, here:

https://musictechpolicy.com/2025/10/01/property-rights-are-innovation-too-white-house-opens-ai-policy-rfi-and-artists-should-be-heard/

Chris points out that property rights are innovation, and that for once (but only for a short time), anyone at all can help to shape the future of copyright law and the reining in --or unleashing-- of AI.

As Chris says, "Too often, artists find out about these processes after the decisions are already made, This time, we don't have to be left out. The comment period is open now, and you don't need to be a lawyer or a lobbyist to participate -- you just need to care about the future of your work and your rights."

Copyrighting one's work is complicated and expensive enough without the insult and injury of piracy and scraping and so-called transformational use and exploitation of creative works.

The Government site is here:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/09/26/2025-18737/notice-of-request-for-information-regulatory-reform-on-artificial-intelligence#:~:text=Submit%20a%20public%20comment

The comment page is here (and it appears that one can type directly into the text box, or upload a file)

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/09/26/2025-18737/notice-of-request-for-information-regulatory-reform-on-artificial-intelligence#open-comment

By the way, "No Time Left For You" is a nod to The Guess Who and their lovely melodic song from the late 1960s.

Macbeth's soliloquy: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” as shared by The Poetry Foundation.(from Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

An Author's Legacy by Karen S. Wiesner

 

An Author's Legacy

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

While writing the final review for a subseries in Robin Hobb's The Realm of the Elderlings (to be posted on Alien Romances Blog in the future), I came across an interesting thing on Hobb's website blog posted August 21, 2025 concerning WorldCon Seattle 2025. The author commented on SFF Addicts Podcast's (rude) question posed to author (and Hobb's good friend) George R.R. Martin about what would become of his work upon his death. Hobb herself gave her answer to such a question about her own legacy as: "Upon my death or me being admitted to memory care, my very loyal daughters will torch any and all papers on my desk and filing cabinets. All files saved to the cloud will be deleted and accounts closed. Hard drives will be removed from computers and destroyed or wiped. When I go, all my imaginary friends will go along with me. As they should."

 

My opinion, which mirrors both Hobb's and Martin's, is that if I can't get the actual author's version of any sequel to their series, I don't want it. Nor will I waste my time reading anything else as a substitute. If either author passes detailed notes on to another, trusted author to finish their legacy, then, yes, of course, I'd read them. Otherwise, no. Just no.

 

Not surprisingly, readers had mixed reactions to Hobb's and Martin's answers. Many said of Hobb's that, if her daughters really were loyal, they would save it all (implying the only right thing to do is to give it to the world). I don't believe that's the case at all. The only loyal thing Hobb's daughters will be able to do is to follow their mother's orders. Maybe, but just maybe, they can retain their own copies for themselves (destroying them before their own deaths), but only if their mother expressly allows it.

 

This is a task no author can safely forgo while they yet live. Only now can we have our say about our writing legacy. When authors are no longer anything more than names on a family tree to those who come after us, our wishes will no longer matter. It's better to take unwanted possibilities off the table while all this is still within our control.

 

Authors, I beseech you, make your wishes known to those who come after you--write it all down, preferably in explicit and complete detail, then talk to your family and to the ones who'll control your writing legacy once you're gone.

 

Don't assume your family would know what you want or that what they want is the same as what you want. I had a recent discussion with my husband about some aspects of all this and found out that he believed the exact opposite as I do--he thinks all written works should immediately pass into the public domain upon an author's death. I was horrified. That was the opposite of what I wanted. I want a trusted next of kin to hold onto my very considerable legacy (with 156 books, several writing columns, countless articles, etc.) as long as it's possible, not just thoughtlessly give it all away.

 

Needless to say, it's a very good thing we had this discussion and also very good that I've written down my wishes exactly for what I do want for the future of my written work. Having those deep, maybe uncomfortable discussions as well as establishing firmly for those that follow what you want to see happen with your own work isn't merely an option. It's critical. You're never too young or old to undertake this. Tomorrow isn't certain; the next hour isn't certain. Do it now! You can't finish what you don't start, and you can do it a little over time. Just do it. What happens when you're gone should be your decision. Just remember, once it's over, it's forever out of your hands.

 

For me, the thought of anyone other than a first-generation family member (who knows and fully understands what I intended) writing anything for my series, characters, or settings would make me turn over in my grave. And, yes, I've already done this myself. Okay, full-disclosure, I've committed to file and paper thousands of pages of information, master copies of my published work, instructions, etc. and this to the largest, commercially available binder as well as onto mega-large flash drives. All of this contains my wishes for the body of written work that is my legacy. These have been prepared for those who will handle said body of work when I'm gone. Additionally, I've spoken at length to the two I've chosen for this task. All this has been a massive project I've worked on for the last couple years.

 

As my publisher and I are wrapping up the editing of my last projects before I retire from fiction and nonfiction reference writing, I'm completing the last of my legacy instructions and storing master files, etc. as we finish them. I've already also begun to undertake children's book illustration and various other art projects, authoring and designing Christian devotionals, as well as composing my own songs, which will be the exciting second chapter of my career. Honestly, I wouldn’t feel comforting going into any of that without first doing the critical work of setting down my writing legacy wishes. This next phase of my life promises to be filled with wondrous new endeavors to keep my mind and body active in my "Golden Years". I know I'll rest easier, knowing I've done all the work of leaving behind my written legacy as I see fit. Be sure to check out my website and the blog there to remain in the loop of all I'm doing: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/.

 

 

In the meantime, another sentimental milestone in my writing career has been marked. The publication of my final adult fiction novel, Bad Blood, Book 11, the epic conclusion of my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series, has recently been released. This paranormal fantasy series was one of my favorites to write. Find out more here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/bloodmoon-cove-spirits-series.html

https://writers-exchange.com/bad-blood/

"BAD BLOOD weaves together people and episodes from previous novels in the series to create a satisfying culmination for the Bloodmoon Cove story cycle. Sympathetic protagonists and secondary characters face dire threats in a conflict whose outcome will change the town and the tribe forever, whether for better or worse. The overarching series theme of the past elders’ disastrous rupture of a portal between this world and the spirit realm at last reaches its resolution. The climactic battle is entirely worth the wait. Especially effective is the way the author blends mundane, wholly realistic problems and tensions with mythic motifs. This is a can’t-miss experience, as readers will rejoice in witnessing some characters attain well-deserved happiness." ~author Margaret L. Carter

https://writers-exchange.com/category/genres/holiday/halloween/

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

Overpowered Protagonists

Recently reading WINTER LOST, the latest Mercy Thompson contemporary fantasy by Patricia Briggs, I thought about a problem authors often have in maintaining readers' interest with long-running series (aside from genres such as detective fiction, in which each installment can be relatively self-contained): The threats faced by the protagonist need to escalate over time. I once came across a piece of writing advice about the craft of series plotting -- I can't remember the commentator or what author he was referring to -- that mentioned this problem in connection with a hero who rose to the height of saving the solar system and, in the following book, saved his boss's job. One trouble with increasingly dire threats and more powerful antagonists, of course, is that the hero or heroine has to get progressively stronger to defeat them.

Consider the Anita Blake series, by Laurell K. Hamilton. In the first book, she's a necromancer who raises dead people temporarily so they can answer questions such as who murdered them or where they hid the will. She has a fraught, semi-antagonistic relationship with the local master vampire. Over the course of many novels, she grows in power while becoming ever more deeply entangled in supernatural politics and hostilities. I can't say what she's doing now, because I gave up on her a while back. Not only because of her multispecies harem, a reason numerous former fans stopped reading the series. I actually LIKE steamy paranormal romance, up to a point; I've written a fair bit of it myself. Yet I eventually found Anita's complicated sex life tedious, something I once wouldn't have thought possible. The other, more substantive reason I and many others got tired of her, however, was her constant acquisition of new powers. She seemed well on the way to becoming superhuman, like a Dungeons and Dragons character leveling up after every adventure. And I like D and D, too, but I found Anita becoming less and less believable.

Patricia Briggs handles her protagonist's response to escalating threats differently. Mercy is a coyote shapeshifter raised by werewolves, now married to the alpha of a werewolf pack. She doesn't transform into a ferocious beast capable of destroying almost any foe. She changes into a thirty-five-pound coyote. In that form, she has the animal's agility, speed, and keen senses, but no superpowers. She sort of possesses an ancient artifact, a magical walking stick, that comes to her hand when needed (usually). As a daughter of Coyote, the Native American trickster deity, she sometimes gets help from her father, but it can't be relied on consistently; after all, he's a trickster. After marrying the alpha werewolf, she gets the benefit of a psychic bond with him and, though him, access to the pack bonds. In short, although a paranormal creature, she isn't superhuman, just different. Yet, in an alternate present-day world that contains werewolves, other shapeshifters, vampires, fae, ghosts, and even minor deities, she does confront and manage to cope with increasingly dire dangers over the course of the series. In WINTER LOST, she faces the possiblity of Ragnarok, the end of the world. She doesn't avert it singlehandedly, though. The author gives her powerful allies -- balanced by formidable enemies. She relies on her intelligence, flexibility, and capacity to draw on friendships forged over time, not on inflated powers. Thus, she never becomes unsympathetic or unbelievable as a character.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer averts the overpowered protagonist trap in similar ways. She saves the world, or at least Sunnydale, so often she has to ponder the plural of "apocalypse." But her Slayer abilities don't change much over the seven seasons of the TV show. Rather, she gradually learns more about the background of her Slayer lineage and becomes wiser both in the use of her gifts and in dealing with the many nonhuman characters and entities, friend and foe, she encounters. Like Mercy Thompson, Buffy vanquishes evil with the help of many allies, including Giles, her Watcher; two re-souled vampires, Angel and later Spike; her best friends, Willow and Xander; and two other Slayers accidentally "called" in succession even though there's supposed to be only one at a time. If anybody in the series becomes overpowered, it's Willow with the expansion of her witchcraft in the concluding seasons, but she's a sidekick, not the protagonist. Moreover, she turns evil for a while toward the end, an antagonist who must be redeemed rather than an ally. Her final grand surge of magic that transforms all "potentials" into active Slayers provides Buffy with the support she needs to defeat the Big Bad of the last season.

The idea of multiple apocalypses reminds me of a scene from the beginning of Spider Robinson's CALLAHAN'S KEY. Callahan's Bar has been destroyed (it gets rebuilt later, naturally), and the narrator/protagonist, Jake, lives in straitened circumstances as his wife suffers through a difficult pregnancy. At a con where I was fortunate to be able to see Robinson in person, he read that scene, in which Jake's closest friends from Callahan's pay him an unexpected visit. They inform him, "We need you to save the universe." Jake replies in an exasperated outburst, "Again?!" That line got a huge laugh from the audience. Jake, of course, does save the universe, but like Buffy, not alone -- with his Callahan's Bar found family.

Margaret L. Carter

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