Thursday, October 30, 2025

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.

Saturday, October 25, 2025

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

Friday, October 24, 2025

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.

Thursday, October 23, 2025

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.

Saturday, October 18, 2025

Questionable Output

Apparently, Chat GPT is going to offer exceptionally explicit romantic content in the happy New Year. I would write the name of the romance genre, but my prudish host (what a laugh!) insists on substituting the word "Bible" for the word I want to use. Ellora's Cave was famous for it.... the literary genre, not for scripture. Amazon now sequesters and even de-platforms this type (heavy romance) of novel or novella.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd2qv58yl5o

Now, I wonder where Chat GTP got their source material? I wonder whether any respectable authors' association or guild or union will have the courage to sue. I doubt it.

Legal blogger Aaron K Nodolf of Michael Best wrote a fine blog about the difference between input and output.

https://insights.michaelbest.com/post/102lq6q/fair-use-may-shield-llm-training-using-copyrighted-materials-but-output-infringe#page=1

As one of the authors with a potential claim in the Anthropic class action suit, I don't agree with Aaron K. Nodolf's premise that the training materials were legally obtained, and therefore the use was "fair use". My contracts with publishers were always limited, and never gave them the rights to do what Mr. Nodolf assumes they had.

His more interesting assertion is 

"There are numerous authors, publishers, artists, and more who have had their materials used for such efforts, [legally obtained] and challenging the training coalesces these groups to fight these training efforts. One benefit, if these groups prevail, is that any output likely would not include their copyrighted material because the LLMs would not be trained on that material."

Does that mean that "output" such as Chat GPT may use for its "Bible-not" offerings will be based on written words that were not copyrighted?

Surely, with the launch only a few months away, how is that going to be possible?

Another random thought is that "Educational" and "Not Educational" were different categories for the online Anthropic case. Since I don't write Educational copyrighted works, I don't know anything about it, but, I wonder how Chat (or its rivals) developed the useful factual articles. Are the facts scraped from live authors' writings? What about the service whereby teachers, tutors and professors can scan works submitted by students to find out if the student's essay is plagiarized. Shakespeare is not going to mind, but what about Orson Scott Card? Or Ronald B Tobias (20 Master Plots And How To Build Them)?

Mr, Nodolf also suggests that copyright owners will have to sue individually over infringing output. I wonder if that is true or possible, except for in cases of unauthorized depictions of cartoon characters. It is expensive to register a copyright, and even more expensive to sue an alleged infringer, even since improvements in copyright law. 
 
I know that I rant a lot about what AI does to freedom of speech, freedom of thought, literacy and grammar, but if one cannot write "Bible" (not the word that I typed!) and uncontrollable Autocorrect changes "content in" to "contention", we writers are not safe. We cannot write what we want to write. We may be told that our productivity is improved when AI anticipates what we want to write, but, I should think that the proofreading time is tripled because of all the mistakes that AI introduces.

All the best,



Friday, October 17, 2025

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review Windhaven by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review

Windhaven by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

In an attempt to spend less money on books that so often 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. Using Libby for my library system, I can check out ebooks and audiobooks. Unfortunately, it's limited. A lot of the books I like to read aren't available on it. Incorporating audiobooks into my reading repertoire has been something I've been intending to do for years. I began by purchasing audio cds a few years ago, but that got expensive. The apps that offered free audiobooks are restricted. Unless you pay, your selection is little more than books in the public domain. The Libby app does have a decent amount of audiobooks available (though rarely immediately, requiring me to put holds and wait) that are more modern. I don't want to spend the money on audio cds nor audio services like Audible. So this was a valid solution. 

Windhaven was the second audiobook I checked out on the library app. It's actually a sci-fi "fix-up" novel written by Martin and Tuttle, who became friends in 1973. Initially, it was three novellas: "The Storms of Windhaven" (1975), "One-Wing" (published in two parts in 1980), and "The Fall", which was specifically written for the expanded novel. The authors did a "fix-up", providing a prologue and an epilogue, when all three parts came together in one volume.

In this novel, the inhabitants on the fictional, stormy water planet of Windhaven are descendants of human space travelers. Crash-landing on Windhaven centuries before the events in the book, they've spread out and settled on the islands around their water world. Gliding rigs were made from spaceship wreckage to allow the inhabitants of the various islands to communicate with the rest of the world's population. As seems to be the case with these things, flyers in this setting have become pretty snobby and consider themselves superior to landsmen, as evidenced by the fact that only flyer families are allowed access to the "wings". In other words, no landsperson--however talented at flying--would be legally allowed to fly "professionally". 

The main character is Maris, a young peasant girl, daughter of a fisherman, who wants more than anything else to be a flyer. When she grows up and is given access to wings through her stepfather, politics force her to give them up to her stepbrother Coll, who wants to be a singer, not a flyer. The politics of the world are set to change by these two siblings. The story details how they manage this, but the world doesn't necessarily become ideal even with changes. 

Originally, two more books were planned, but the authors moved on and they didn't happen. I'm personally glad about that. I felt like these went on long enough. I learned about the term "fix-up novel" in the course of reading Windhaven and also learned the sad and disappointing lesson that a technically near-perfect story doesn't actually make it good. Windhaven is almost flawlessly written. It has everything it needs and nothing more. However, though it included everything I might want in a novel and there was nothing at first glance wrong with it, it also didn't really inspire me. I didn't hate the characters but also can't say I loved or even cared about them all that much. Their internal and external conflicts were well constructed, though not particularly compelling or unique. Overall, I wanted to know so many richer, vibrant details about the setting that could have made the book truly riveting, and much, much more about the original humans that came to the planet. To me, that would have been a more captivating tale instead of this one. I think Windhaven is more for readers who might find an "Amelia Earhart pioneer" tribute story mashed up with a science fiction landscape engrossing. 

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

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

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


Thursday, October 16, 2025

I Am Legend

I don't need to summarize the plot of Richard Matheson's I AM LEGEND (1954), since Karen did it so thoroughly last week. If your only acquaintance with this classic, the prototypical treatment of vampirism as disease, comes from the blockbuster movie, be sure to read the book and get the story the way the author intended. Aside from the influence of the novel on Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, Matheson’s seminal work has been filmed twice before, as THE LAST MAN ON EARTH with Vincent Price and THE OMEGA MAN with Charlton Heston. THE LAST MAN ON EARTH comes closest of all to the original book, since Matheson worked on the screenplay, but because he was displeased with changes that were made (including the ending) he appears in the credits only under a pseudonym. The Will Smith movie also changes the ending, along with many other alterations that deviate from Matheson’s story. In this film, Robert Neville becomes a “legend” by giving his blood to create a cure for the disease, essentially the opposite of why he attains “legend” status at the end of the book.

Unlike the Robert Neville of that movie, a black scientist in an urban setting, Neville in the book is a white, middle-class man barricaded in his house in the ruins of the suburb where he lived before losing his family to the vampire plague. He isn’t a scientist (one change in the movie that may be for the better, since movie Neville’s research into the disease is more believable in view of his role in creating it in the first place). He teaches himself enough bacteriology to identify the disease organism in the blood of the vampires he destroys. The suspected cause of the pandemic is fallout from nuclear weapons tests, so that Matheson’s novel reflects the dominant anxieties of its time (just as the Will Smith movie reflects the dominant anxieties of ours, with zombie-like hordes engendered by biological engineering gone wild). Dust storms spread the vampire bacterium, apparently mutated by radiation from an organism transmitted solely by biting into one whose dormant spores can be carried through the air. Neville figures out the bacteria must be anaerobic; when they come into contact with air, they instantaneously consume their host. That hypothesis explains why stakes kill vampires. The effects of sunlight and garlic are also scientifically justified. Vampires’ reactions to crosses and mirrors, on the other hand, are psychosomatic. Brain-damaged revenants crawling out of their graves expect to suffer the vulnerabilities of vampires as understood in popular culture, so they cower from holy symbols and can’t see their own reflections. Some superstitions are nothing but that, such as the inability to cross running water. The vampires besieging Neville’s house every night mock his experimental attempt to protect himself with running water. Although vampires can’t really change shape, some jump off high places under the delusion of turning into bats. Neville has run into vampire dogs, but they’re just dogs.

To me, the most fascinating dimension of the novel is its detailed rationalization of vampirism in terms of infectious disease, something sadly missing from the film (which retains hardly any vampiric content at all -- the revenants are more like Romero zombies). Emotionally, the strongest sequence consists of Neville’s nightly ordeal as he watches the vampires, some of them his former neighbors, gathered on his lawn, taunting him, waiting for him to break down and surrender. His bitter monologues as he pores over Stoker’s DRACULA and a collection of medical textbooks vividly convey his deterioration from a civilized man into a ruthless survivor. Eventually, as Karen mentioned, he stumbles upon a woman who claims to be another survivor. It turns out she belongs to a group of people whose bodies have achieved symbiosis with a further mutated strain of the disease. Neither dying nor turning feral, they are building a new society. Neville, for them, is the “plague” stalking in the night to kill them one by one. In the final scene, he realizes that as the last “normal” man on Earth, he has become a “legend” for the new race of humanity -- who are now the normal ones and he the monster.

In addition to Theodore Sturgeon’s SOME OF YOUR BLOOD (which I discussed on September 18), I consider I AM LEGEND one of the four classic pre-1970 twentieth-century vampire novels. The other two are DOCTORS WEAR SCARLET (1960), by Simon Raven, and PROGENY OF THE ADDER (1965), by Leslie H. Whitten. I commented on these works and many others in “A Gravedigger’s Dozen of Outstanding Vampire Tales,” an overview (updated to the late 1990s) of what I see as the best vampire novels of all time. The “gravedigger’s dozen” allusion means thirteen, of course, but I cheat on the number:

Vampire Reading List

Margaret L. Carter

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

Friday, October 10, 2025

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: I Am Legend by Richard Matheson by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson was published in 1954, a post-apocalyptic horror novel that set the stage for zombie and vampire literature that's flooded in ever since. As with many of these types of stories, the concept of a worldwide apocalypse spreads through disease. In this tale, the vampires that populated what was left of the world more closely resembled zombies, despite what the protagonist called them. 

Robert Neville is the last man on Earth. A terrible plague has either killed mankind or transformed them into vampires...and all they want is Robert's blood. Robert's wife, Virginia, and daughter, Kathy, died from the plague. Kathy's body had been thrown in a fire pit. He hadn't allowed that to be done to his wife--he'd tried to bury her, but she came back, and then he had to kill her as he had the others. 

For the past eight months, since the plague infected the population--a plague he himself is immune to--Robert has been surviving the only way he can while systematically trying to get rid as many of the vampires as he can during daylight. By day, he also tries to repair the damage done to his property during the night attacks. He lives by his watch because, as soon as the sun sets, he must be behind locked doors and boarded windows. The vampires are drawn to him every single night, howling, snarling and trying to break through the barriers he's erected to keep them out. They want his blood; they want to make him as they are. He understands little about them beyond that they stay inside by day, avoid garlic, can be killed by a stake through the heart, fear crosses, and dread mirrors. The creatures are white-fanged and powerful, frequently attacking each other because there's no union among them--their need for blood is their only motivation. 

Robert isn't sure how much longer he can do what he's been doing--little by little trying to reduce their unholy numbers. He has no time to slow down and think, because his struggle is never-ending, but eventually he's driven to test the blood of a vampire and finally isolates a germ--the cause of vampirism. Sunlight kills the germ. It's too late to cure those who have already been infected, but, if there are others like him, how can he cure them? 

Robert finds a dog that seems as whole and intact as he is; later, a young woman, Ruth, who's survived all of this as well. Having believed that his investigation into how to destroy the vampires is worthless and that he has no reason for staying alive, the possibility of a life other than his own, a companion, renews his determination to keep fighting. He's clung to the idea all this time that a human being not infected will come, that he isn't the last person on Earth. But Ruth has a secret that could change everything, all he's known since the plague started, as well as his own views about survival.  

Richard Matheson is a master at creating stories like these, where the descriptions of the chilling settings, scenarios, and characters are so robust and realistic, you become convinced you're huddled in a fortress of a house smothered by shrieking, starving and subsequently ravenous creatures who not only want you dead, but want to eat you for dinner--though, in this case, it'll probably be a last meal. Every ounce of torment and torture this lone character feels day after day, endless night after night, is detailed as if you're sitting right next to the character, experiencing the suffocating burden laid on these weary shoulders. The flicker of hope at the potential of no longer being alone is utterly heart-rending. Even if Robert is a man who's grown rusty and bitter, forced into isolation, the reader can't help but be shattered by every blow he takes as if we're also receiving it. 

Simply put, no one can really top this masterpiece that set countless standards in supernatural, creature horror, end-of-the-world fiction. Fittingly, the Horror Writers Association bestowed on I Am Legend the Vampire Novel of the Century Award in 2012. 

As for the author's inspiration in writing it, Matheson credits Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man, where an immune person survived a plague that destroyed the world. Three films loosely based on I Am Legend were made (some under different titles), but the one I like best is the one that actually took the same name as the book and starred Will Smith (released in 2007), though of course none of the adaptations really follow the book version closely, which is kind of a shame. 

Readers would be remiss not to give this influential story a first or subsequent read or a watch, if you'd prefer a more visual medium that can appropriately be enjoyed in the dark. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

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

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

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

Thursday, October 09, 2025

The Comforts of Horror

An essay that resonates deeply with me, although many people might consider it shockingly counter-intuitive:

Horror Can Be Comforting

Horror fiction and film allow us to "enjoy being scared. . . . at a safe distance," knowing it isn't real and we can close the book or magazine or turn off the movie anytime. The author, Rami Ungar, divides horror fans into Adrenaline Junkies (thrill seekers), White Knucklers (who "see horror as a challenge to get through"), and Dark Copers (for whom horror is therapeutic). For Dark Copers, "horror serves as an escape from the current problems of the world" and "provides both reassurance and a restoration from life’s difficulties, reminding them that their own life isn’t as bad as it could be and helping with feelings of anxiety and depression."

C. S. Lewis, discussing fiction as "escape," notes that even the most depressing, mundane "slice of life" story can serve that function. Reading about imaginary people's problems, we can escape our own for a while. As Ungar says, for the Dark Coper a horror story provides that kind of refuge.

In Stephen King's nonfiction survey of the field, DANSE MACABRE, he maintains that at its core the purpose of horror is facing our fear of death in the safe space of stories. Mark, a boy character in 'SALEM'S LOT, believes "death is when the monsters get you."

My favorite literary comfort food, traditional supernatural horror (such as many of King's works), often has a numinous quality. It evokes a sense of wonder, even though mingled with fear, by positing phenomena beyond the merely material realm. It explores the possibility of life after death, although maybe a kind of existence most of us wouldn't want. Even H. P. Lovecraft's cosmic horror, based on the premise that the universe is totally indifferent to terrestrial organisms, with "monsters" that take less notice of us than we do of individual ants, expands the mind. Horrifying though it is, it's still cosmic.

On a more human scale, most supernatural horror involves conflict between good and evil. With knowledge, luck, and faith, the good guys can defeat the evil entities. G. K. Chesterton replied to adults who worried about fairy tales scaring children, as paraphrased by Terry Pratchett, “The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children that dragons can be killed.”

A list of "cozy horror" books, a phrase that sounds like an oxymoron:

Cozy Horror

I'm puzzled as to how this blogger defines "cozy." Maybe it's equated with "domestic horror" or "family horror"? The three books on the list that I've read, HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE, THE VAMPIRES OF EL NORTE, and THE BEWITCHING, don't impress me as one bit cozy, but deeply disturbing. Rami Ungar defines this subgenre as fiction that "aims to give readers a slight thrill while also keeping them at a far distance from the horror of the story, so they don’t become too terrified," for instance by setting it in a remote time or place. In case you're looking for scary novels with an actual "cozy" feel, however, the first that pops to mind for me is one of Barbara Michaels's early ghost stories, AMMIE, COME HOME.

Years ago, when one of our sons spent a few days in a rehab facility, he asked me to bring him some particular books. The staff wouldn't let him have them because they were horror. I was baffled; those novels served as "comfort reads" for me. In his situation at that time, one would especially need reassurance that dragons can be killed!

Margaret L. Carter

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

Saturday, October 04, 2025

Anthropic

I've just spent a very shocking hour looking at names and book titles that are part of the Anthropic suit.

All the authors on this blog are part of the Bartz v Anthropic suit. Almost everyone I knew (and many I didn't) from Dorchester Publishing.

You can look up by author name, or by title, or by publisher, or by ISBN, or by copyright registration.

https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/results

File a claim here: https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/

Read more here: 

https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/documents?_gl=1*vjh6yt*_gcl_au*NzgwMzk4NzY4LjE3NTk2MzM5Mzg.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 
EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   



Friday, October 03, 2025

Summer and Autumn Sampler by Karen Wiesner

 

Summer and Autumn Sampler

by Karen Wiesner 

Happy Fall! In honor of another summer gone past and the beautiful Fall leaves, I'm posting some of the newest, nature artwork I've been doing with initial pencil sketches followed by my colored pencil versions of them. 

Note, all of these are copyrighted by the artist (Karen Wiesner), illegal to download and distribute, and not available for reproduction or use for any purposes. 

Calla Lily Sketch @by Karen Wiesner

Calla Lily Rendered in Colored Pencils @by Karen Wiesner

 

Rosebud Sketch @by Karen Wiesner

  

Rosebud Rendered in Colored Pencils @by Karen Wiesner 

  

Fall Leaves Sketch @by Karen Wiesner

  

Autumn Sampler Rendered in Colored Pencil @by Karen Wiesner

  

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/. 

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/