Vampire Retro-Review: They Thirst

When I first read THEY THIRST (1981), by Robert McCammon, I thought, “Oh, this is just a pastiche of ‘SALEM’S LOT on a wider scale, transplanted to California.” In each book, an ancient vampire leaves the Old World to seek new blood in an unsuspecting American community. Where Stephen King’s vampire lord takes over an isolated town in Maine, McCammon’s Prince Conrad Vulkan creates an undead army to overrun Los Angeles. Decades later, I have to acknowledge that the geographically vaster scope of McCammon’s novel creates a different tone from King’s. Just as King vividly portrays the ambiance of small-town Maine, McCammon immerses the reader in his Southern California setting. A cast of multi-ethnic heroes and villains joins in combat. The inner circle of vampire hunters includes a Hispanic priest and a Hungarian American whose family fled the old country after a vampire attack. Vulkan establishes his lair in a castle built by a fabulously rich film celebrity. The story climaxes with an earthquake, a storm, and a tidal wave. King’s master vampire just wants to turn ‘Salem’s Lot into a safe haven for his kind. Vulkan’s ambition seems to have no limit. He has a few intelligent henchmen to support his campaign, as opposed to the solitary nature of King’s Barlow, who, aside from his human assistant, commands a horde of nearly mindless spawn.

One big difference between the two novels is that we learn much more about Vulkan’s background than King reveals about his vampire. Also, McCammon gives us numerous scenes from the viewpoint of Vulkan and some of the other undead. Between this expansion of viewpoints and the sprawling Los Angeles setting, McCammon’s novel does have an epic feel in contrast to King’s intimate, almost claustrophobic story, even though the two books run to similar length (McCammon’s over 500 pages in the paperback original). If you want to read an old-fashioned vampire story of good versus evil in a contemporary milieu on a large scale, THEY THIRST is the book for you.

Margaret L. Carter

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

The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

Today, I am throwing metaphorical tomatoes at certain "tech titan" men. For arthritis sufferers, tomatoes are a fruit to be avoided. For some, tomatoes worsen arthritis, as do other deadly-nightshade-family fruits.

The "fruit of the poisonous tree" is a legal rule under U.S. law that says that any "evidence" that is discovered as the result of an illegal search or interrogation may not be used in court. So, if the police break into the home of a person of interest without a search warrant (perhaps the home of someone identified by a blurry-eyed Flock camera) and they find a stolen Rolex, they cannot use the Rolex to suggest a lifestyle of burglary.

AI is fruit of a similar kind. Some immoral pirates, well aware of the wrongness of their actions, scraped millions of stolen, copyrighted books--that the pirates know are stolen--from Libgen or Pirate Mirror Library.

Now, to be fair, back in the Oughts when I was actively fighting piracy, there were authors who looked on book piracy as a marketing technique, even some who went on social media and begged to have their books pirated.

I wonder if those authors are now claiming $3,000 a book in the Anthropic suit?

Others looked at it as five fingered discounts and a cost of doing business.

From copyright infringement of news, to music, to books, AI companies have come under fire for using the product to train their AI large language models. The infringement might amount to intellectual property theft of "unprecedented proportions."

Allegedly, the would-be titans of OpenAI knew what they were doing, and noted in writing that their products would pose an "existential threat" to publishers. And authors, one would assume.

If one can ask Chat to write a courtroom drama novel in the style of John Grisham involving a blackmailed judge, and subverted jury selection... with other choice cues, what does that do to John Grisham's fan base and legacy?

Authors Guild is working hard on this. If ever there was a time for authors to subscribe (if they can afford it) this might be that time.

Finally, a question, if immoral, short-cut-taking, author-career-killing pirates develop and train a product, why would anyone be surprised if the product is immoral, short-cut-taking, sand-box-escaping, and cavalier about human beings' rights?

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Review of The Halcyon Fairy Book by T. Kingfisher by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Review of The Halcyon Fairy Book by T. Kingfisher

by Karen S. Wiesner 

** THIS POST CONTAINS MY 300TH REVIEW FOR THE ALIEN ROMANCES BLOG! ** 

  Beware many, many spoilers! 

T. Kingfisher (the pen name of Ursula Vernon) is a versatile author, illustrator, and artist. The author did The Halcyon Fairy Book's artwork herself. On the copyright page, it says "Ursula Vernon's annotated fairy tales were originally posted to her blog between February 2012 and July 2013 with the exception of 'King of Love' which is original to this anthology. They have been lightly edited from their initial postings." Two of the stories she put on her blog couldn't be included in the book because they aren't yet in the public domain. From there, the author proceeds to tell us in the introduction about a certain writer who goes by two names that frequently can't sleep and so finds herself reading (and critiquing) fairy tales in the wee hours of the morn. I love how Kingfisher slightly twists the word "annotated", which normally means to add notes and comments to explain or criticize the text they're included with, to highlight the insane and strange behavior of characters in each story with her sarcastically witty and hilarious insights. Make no mistake, these fairy tales aren't the star of this particular show. No, Kingfisher's annotations are what make this anthology worth reading. 

It might interest you to learn that the first book of fairy tales to appear in English was "The Blue Fairy Book" by Andrew Lang in 1889 (gathered from such diverse sources as the Brothers Grimm, Arabian Nights, Norwegian folklore, and French tales). Fairy tales were (maybe rightly so, as you're about to discover, if you haven't already) considered harmful for young readers until that time. In 1894, "The Yellow Fairy Book" followed up on the first. Lang's retellings secured the value of fairy tales as treasured children's stories and sparked a dramatic shift in public perception. And now we come full circle: True to the last few decades of popular desire to twist everything wholesome into something disturbed, the varnish has been stripped off these old humdingers and we can once again enjoy(?) them as they were intended. 

Below are my reviews for all the stories in the first half of The Halcyon Fairy Book. Kingfisher also includes the entire anthology of Toad Words and Other Stories within the second half of this collection. Do a search by author or title on this blog to find my previously completed review of that. 

"The Blue Light": This retelling of the soldier and the tinderbox fairy tale has many different renderings, which Kingfisher imparts within her variation. In true Mystery Science Theater 3000 tradition, she injects amusing comments all throughout the text and leaves none of the other versions of this story anywhere to hide. I loved it. 

"The Master-maid": A prince is held captive by a giant who asks of him one impossible task each day. The Master-maid (whatever that is) is also a captive of the giant. Each day she tells the prince how to complete his task in her no-fail wisdom. They dream of marrying each other one day when they're free. When they do manage to escape together, the prince pouts and wants to go home to visit his rich, powerful daddy. The Master-maid warns him not to do this because it won't be long before he forgets all about her. And he does (though, in his defense, a troll is scheming to get him to forget). The Master-maid turns into an outright witch at that point, so incensed by losing her man that she decides to take her fury out on every other (rich) man that crosses her path. Her treachery turns against her eventually, but by then the prince has remembered her, and the two can get on with their happily ever after as planned. This story was long, tedious, and eye-rolling. I thought it would never end. I didn't really care after a certain point whether it ended happily. Kingfisher's razor-sharp wit was the saving point and winning element to this otherwise far-fetched, shocking, and unbelievable tale. 

"The Crystal Casket": This story is based on an Italian version of Snow White that doesn't have dwarfs but eagles and, in my opinion, is barely worth reading. If the tale was going for "drastically different than what everyone knows and loves", okay, maybe it's a winner. But as a good, strong story, this never really made it out of the gate. Good thing I was reading for the annotations. 

"The Wonderful Sheep": A mind-bogglingly strange rendition of, again, Snow White, only it's the king who wants his daughter's heart and life (but most of all her tongue). The youngest princess and a bunch of her servants and pets monkey and dog fight about who's going to get the dubious honor or sacrificing their three items in question for her. Suddenly, one after the other, the servants and pets are committing suicide right in front of her. (To prove what a stupid story this is, Princess Miranda does not have the reaction most people would have after this occurrence--which would be equivalent to being sent to a looney bin as soon as it was equinely possible to get her there.) Instead, she discovers that none of them has the right kind of tongue for the job of convincing her father that it's hers. In the end, she writes down the whole tragic testimony on the bark headstone of the grave she digs, you know, in case her murderous dad comes look for her and wonders what happened. Senselessly, she heads off into the forest, where she meets the king of sheep--

        Yeah, and on that insane note, it occurs to me that the author's comments are really the only logical responses to be had within these pages. This terrible story with a rotten king who fluctuates between spoiling his youngest daughter shamelessly and then wanting to chop her head off the next (along with a thoroughly unworthy, superficial princess) isn't worth your time. Kingfisher's commentary and finishing the story on a definitely-not-happy end note were the best parts of it. 

"The Wonderful Birch": In this Russian version of Cinderella, a witch schemes to turn the wife of a desirable man into a sheep. She succeeds, but the daughter of the previously happy couple is determined to put things right--and this involves some magic that has her turned out so handsomely the prince himself can't resist her. The witch has a daughter of her own, a poor being that practically lives under the prince's table like little more than a dog, during an extended banquet. Repeatedly during this fest, the witch's daughter is injured. She's kicked so hard, bones break and she gets one of her eyes poked out by what one presumes must be a stiletto heel worn by a monstrous guest. (These partygoers seated at the VIP table must have some idea that the dogs have converged under them to eat the scraps, yet you can't help but wonder how heartless they must be. Who would kick a dog so hard, they break a bone, or poke out an eye in the process of punishing what they believe are canines just trying to get some sustenance below them?) Every time I think these insane fairy tales can't get worse or be more nonsensical, they can and they do. This one wasn't easy to read--and not just because so often cannibalism factors into these disturbing old fairy tales--though Kingfisher's annotations provided at least some comic relief from the full-on, escalating horror. 

"The Golden Apple Tree and the Nine Peahens": Someone's stealing the golden apples from the king's singular apple tree (a thing so unique, apparently it pollinates itself!). He sends his three sons, one at a time, to discover who the thief is. Only his youngest has any success in uncovering the truth. Not surprisingly, magic is afoot…and peahens. A bunch of them aren't what they seem and at least one of them can turn into a human girl so beautiful, the youngest prince (who is clearly not important enough to name) falls hopelessly in love with her, and her with him. This beauty claims more than once that the prince will never see her again if he doesn't do something that's required, but it's clear she and/or the laws of magic are very flexible about that because he's given numerous chances to get it right. In the meantime, a lot of people get murdered by him without so much as a trial. Brutal times, eh? This is one fairy tale I enjoyed a lot as a child, though, thanks to the retelling author's hilarious insights, I'm seeing so many freaky things I hadn't noticed before during my past readings.

          Unfortunately, this story didn't end where it should have. Instead, it took a turn for the why?. With a dragon riding a horse, the prince gaining brotherhood with a fish, a fox and a wolf, the tale descends into absolute ludicrousness. No part of the extension added anything useful or interesting to the previous wackiness. Kingfisher included a lot of spot-on commentary concerning the end of this piece. 

"The Deer Prince": A widower and a widow, with a daughter each, get married. The husband's daughter is pretty, the wife's ugly. The wife gets jealous, the husband is never home to notice his adorable kid being abused, and, as must always be the case in fairy tales, something outlandish happens that doesn't fit the situation at all. One night, there's a knock on the door and the wife orders her hideous daughter to answer it. There's a deer standing there. The daughter tries to beat it with a broom so it runs away. The next night, there's again a knock, and now the cute daughter answers it. Instead of driving the deer off, she talks to it. This stag wants her to hop on his back and come away with him, where they can "enjoy" (wink wink, nudge nudge) the forest together. Isn't there a cautionary saying about following a stranger who promises candy inside his love van? Nevertheless, she hops on and the stag bounds off to his magic-addled castle. He warns her not to go into three of the doors within the place before he disappears. Of course he knows as well as the reader does that she'll be snooping before a few days have passed. And she does. He clearly makes such a big deal about the doors, we realize in retrospect, because he's hoping she'll be a Nosy Nancy. It's the only way to break the enchantment that's been placed on the castle and over himself.

     Alas, happily-ever-after might have ensued if any of these old fairy-tale authors knew when to quit. Instead, the stupid once-a-stag prince asks his bride if she wants her stepmother and sister to visit them. (Not sure what happened to her not-so-dear-old-dad.) While it's very true that the story was disappointingly resolved without any conflict at all with Door #3 leading to wedded bliss, what came after the prince's total lack of forethought was even worse--though, thankfully, Kingfisher's enjoyable commentary explained merrily why she's not a fan of traditional fairy-tale endings. 

"Two Cinderellas": So named because Kingfisher decided to give us two, short, Cinderella-esque tales filled to bursting with reasons for her to take issue with events.

The first one is uproariously titled "Little Saddleslut"! The original author didn't bother pulling any punches. He got right into the action with this one: A mom is spinning flax with her three daughters and the two older tots decide to play a homicidal game. Whoever's spindle falls gets murdered and eaten by the others. Again with the cannibalism? Someone please tell me why all these "bedtime tales" always end up with someone getting eaten? The youngest daughter prudently begs off on partaking and uses magic to get revenge for her beloved mother. In the process, she loses a shoe, the king's son finds it, and wants to marry only the one who fits in it. He does, they have a kid, and Little Saddleslut stupidly leaves her bloodthirsty sisters alone with the princess. Little Saddlemoron might have been a better name for her! But, in the end, everything turns out fine…if you consider the evil sisters being hacked to pieces fine. Yeah, maybe it's a fitting ending for these bad daughters, and I guess I should just be grateful they weren't put in a stew and eaten by the whole kingdom.

       Next up is "Conkiajgharuna, the Little Rag Girl" (the first, unpronounceable word actually means "little rag girl"). Wife dies, husband remarries a shrew (who has her own daughter) to tend his orphan daughter. Shrew hates her new husband's kid and proves to be a witch who curses the little girl* to take a loaf of bread, eat of it, share it with everyone she meets, but somehow has to bring it home whole every night. Couldn't Conk just buy or bake a new loaf to bring home? I guess somehow the witch would know the difference. A cow (also, apparently, a witch with magic powers) tries to help Conk by letting her siphon butter and honey from its horns. Cool! Only now the little ragamuffin gets fat, and the stepmother gets wise to Conk's sidestepping. Time to raise the stakes of impossible cruelty. Conk finds herself in the presence of an ogress who values quick thinkers. Again, the little girl goes home with a prize that night, and her stepmother is fit to burst at being thwarted. She figures maybe her own daughter could use some bovine and ogress time, too, but it doesn't go well for this girl and the stepwitch ends up trying to the kill the cow, who, as you might expect, isn't at all what it seems and instead does Conk another good turn at her end. From there, this turns into the Cinderella story with one twist. The stepwitch wants her own daughter to marry the king (not the prince), but her scheming runs afoul when Conk emerges from the place her bad mommy hid her in the throne room and announces the slipper belongs to her. She can prove it, too. I have to spoil this one for sheer stupidity: Yeah, Rag Girl becomes queen, happily-blah-blah-after, but the worst that happens isn't her stepmom being hacked to pieces or boiled into soup for the wedding feast. No, she just leaves with a "dry throat" of chagrin. Wow. I really couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.              

*If these old-world fairy tale writers are to be believed, all widowed men should be scared out of their braies about being preyed upon by witches (with daughters) looking to hook up with previously married men (who also have daughters) in order to abuse that man's only child. What the heck, man? 

"The Story of Log": A man and a woman want a child of their own so badly, they fashion one out of a log and dress it and rock it and…is anyone else thinking, "My very own log! Just what I always wanted. I will hug him and pet him and squeeze him and name him George"? Well, they called him Log. A few years later, the thing comes to life and goes on a killing spree with just his log arms-- No, no, no. Don't worry! Log is a kind and gentle log person who goes on to save the country from a vile sun, moon, and dawn thief. He's apparently not a log for brains, but he is a shapeshifter--he's able to change himself from a human into firewood on a whim. You wouldn't think that would be terribly useful in your day to day, but it actually is here. According to Kingfisher, you'll be forgiven for singing a rousing rendition of "The Log Song" by Ren & Stimpy while you're reading this whackadoodle of a story. 

"Tatterhood": Let me sum up the moral of this story: A queen who thinks being a good mother is either spoiling someone rotten or bossing him or her around isn't fit to be anything but the imperious queen she is. Let's leave it at that. If only the sadist storytelling had taken that good advice. But no, he had to go and write the whole, sorry tale that culminates in "an ugly hussy" named Tatterhood toting "a severed head under one arm, riding her war goat, beating the crap out of people with a wooden spoon" (as only Kingfisher could describe it). 

"The Seven Doves": Based on an Italian fairy tale of "bros turned into birds" and their poor sister who intends to save them from their (maybe well-deserved) fate, this one starts with seven boys born in seven years to one mother. This hockey team decides they can't bear another male child entering their household. They threaten their poor, fertile mother and leave home until such a time as she can produce a female sibling for them. (Yeah, you read that right.) Somehow these lugheads think she has a choice. I think it's clear this story isn't going anywhere good. Would you believe me if I told you cannibalism may be involved? Of course you would. It only makes sense at this point. 

"The King of Love": A man with three daughters (it's always three; why is it always three?) takes the youngest with him to pick wild herbs. She pulls up what seems to be a fine radish but is actually a door that reveals a green bird bathing in a pan of milk. Said bird dries himself and becomes a gorgeous specimen of human hunk. Wait a minute, what? The punishment for the crime of picking a radish-door is apparently that this daughter has to become the wife of this hunk. The dad is paid off but encouraged to drop in anytime. The other two sisters decide to figure out what in all that's holy is going on here with the radish-door, milky-bird-shapeshifting hunk their dad told them about. The sisters persuade their youngest sibling to do what the hunk has asked her to promise not to do--find out who he is. Ready to guess his name? (Hint: It's in the title!) Insert groan, or some other strange noise here. As Kingfisher says, "Some people call him Maurice." The hunk promptly disappears but not for long as the youngest keeps conjuring him back and eventually saves him from an ogress's curse. Somehow, this one has a happy ending--unless by some misfortune you've read the wrong version of it and the poor girl is forced to wear a pair of iron shoes until they wear out. Only then can she find her husband. Hey, don't say you weren't warned of what can happen when you try to read these fairy-tale doozies. 

~*~ 

I'm not sure what prompted the title of The Halcyon Fairy Book. What was the author going for? The word "halcyon" as an adjective means "denoting a time period that was idyllically happy and peaceful". None of these stories are happy let alone peaceful. I can only conclude Kingfisher was being sarcastically true to form, if the title has anything to do with that. Alternately, the noun version of the word refers to a tropical Asian or African kingfisher or a mythical bird said to breed (and charm the wind and waves into a state of calm) in a floating nest at sea during the winter solstice. Here's an image of a halcyon: 

 

Given the cover art and her pen name, maybe the bird itself--real or myth--was what the author was going for. Only a few of the stories actually included enchanted (or otherwise) birds. On that uncertain note, I'll say, ahh whatever. 

To conclude this review that I had a rollicking good time producing, if you like your fairy-tales roasted comedic style, you'll love every last one of T. Kingfisher's retellings of particularly bone-headed fairy tales that were so badly told that they had almost no right to be published in the first place. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of 156 titles and 16 series. 

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

Book-to-Film Problems

This post includes a bit of a spoiler about the Season Two premiere of OUTLANDER: BLOOD OF MY BLOOD.

"The book is always better than the movie." Well, not always. While I tend to agree in general, there are exceptions. Two prominent examples are THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER and ROSEMARY'S BABY, both satisfyingly faithful to their sources. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is almost perfect but departs from the novel in a subtle shift of emphasis. It foregrounds Dr. Lecter more than Clarice Starling, mainly in the final scene. Although the movie is excellent, in my opinion, it's not quite the same as the novel. The wonderful Stephen King film SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION includes some justified minor deviations from the novella, such as merging the two wardens into one character, and an important one that disappointed me, the plot change that makes Andy more complicit in the warden's crimes than the original does. No adaptation of DRACULA, alas, has ever achieved the goal of complete fidelity, although the BBC miniseries with Louis Jourdan comes very close.

PRINCE CASPIAN is the most disappointing of the three big-screen Narnia films, not only because it unwisely rearranges the order of some events and inserts a completely unnecessary attack on Miraz's castle (which has no impact on the overall plot), but worst of all, it unpardonably distorts the portrayal of Peter's character.

The notoriously bad adaptation of WATCHERS, one of my favorite of Dean Koontz's books, repulsed me so thoroughly I gave up on it early in the film. The adult male protagonist of the novel encounters a friendly dog lost in the woods. The animal, genetically engineered to have almost human intelligence, has escaped from a secret lab. The newly bonded human-canine pair comes to the rescue of a shy young woman with whom a romance develops. Meanwhile, the government tries to track down and recapture the dog while another escaped beast, malevolent rather than kind and heroic, also pursues the dog. The movie changes this absorbing plot into a banal "boy and his dog" story. When one FBI agent, who's a sympathetic, reasonable authority figure in the novel, appeared as a total jerk in the film, I turned it off in disgust.

And I won't even get into the travesty of the movie version of Robert Heinlein's STARSHIP TROOPERS, except to mention that it follows the general outline of the book's plot while twisting it to convey the exact opposite of Heinlein's message.

The launch of the second season of OUTLANDER: BLOOD OF MY BLOOD brought this topic to mind for me. The storyline the writers have set up has an inherent problem that seems insoluble. As you may know, this prequel series deals with the parents of Jamie and Claire when the respective heroine and hero of the main series are a small child and a not yet born infant, respectively. There's no original source to follow; Gabaldon hasn't yet written her planned previous-generation book about the star-crossed lovers who will become the parents of Jamie. The problem lies with Claire's parents. The Outlander TV series, like Gabaldon's books, firmly states that this couple died in a car crash in Claire's early childhood. At this point, they've traveled through the standing stones to Scotland in 1715. Either they will get back to the twentieth century (Claire's father did so in the season premiere, but of course we don't know whether he'll stay there) or they'll settle down in the eighteenth century. They can't return to their own time and take up their former life, because that outcome would completely change Claire's timeline as it was already narrated in the main series. If they remain in the past, though, in the twentieth century we'd be left with a crashed car and no corpses. So how could Claire's uncle (who raises her) know for sure her parents are dead? The only explanation I can imagine is that, rather than upset her with a confusing story about her parents vanishing from the face of the earth, he allows her to grow up believing they died. In short, the creators of the TV program have written themselves into what strikes me as an inescapable trap.

Moral: If you want to adapt a novel or a book series into film, stick as close as practical to the source material! If you don't really like the original in the first place, why try to make a movie of it? (Granted, the latter doesn't apply to the Outlander prequel since, as mentioned, a print source doesn't exist yet.)

Margaret L. Carter

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

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} From Below by Darcy Coates by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

From Below by Darcy Coates

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware spoilers! 

From Below is an aquatic horror novel by Australian author Darcy Coates, published in 2022. I'm fond of all fictional tales, regardless of how far-fetched, concerning the Loch Ness monster and kraken and other supernatural deep-ocean creatures, submarines, diving, underwater caves, and spelunking in general. What's not to love? I've ravenously consumed stories similar to this and consistently wanted to find more like it. I didn't actually realize that there was a full-on, named genre around the theme of "aquatic horror" until I read this one, though, and I eagerly went searching for more like it. 

From Below has got a plot that's been done often before, in which a ship has mysteriously sunk and disappeared, almost always taking countless human lives with it. Decades later, someone gets the idea of finding it and trying to puzzle out what happened. From Below is no different. In this particular take on the same-old, same-old, it's the SS Arcadia that disappeared sixty years before. It was touted as an unsinkable ship (seriously, shipbuilders really need to stop calling their creations unsinkable). The wreckage is discovered by submarines more than three-hundred miles from its intended route. A documentary filmmaker, Cove Waimarie, puts together a team of divers. A historian provides insight into the sunken ship. The goal is to film what's found and maybe, in the process, uncover the mystery behind the ship's unexplained disappearance. In addition to Cove as leader, the diving team members include those who'll operate the camera, a diving expert, and a biologist. Naturally, everyone involved has dirty little secrets they'd rather not have anyone else unearth, but good luck with that. Merging with each subsequent deep-dive, descent to the wreckage of the ship, the story of the original 1928 crew is woven. The tension is heightened in the intermingling as the unearthly horrors are unveiled and come out to play in their murderous manner in the claustrophobic environment. The time clock of limited air during dives and what will happen if divers surface too quickly really added to the escalating (sorry for the pun) suspense. 

So I've read a handful of Darcy Coates books now. By all rights, I should adore them. She consistently doles out supernatural tales that lean toward a horror edge, which is my favorite type of fiction. She's also an undisputedly competent author. I have no complaints about her writing skills. All that said, I've just never read anything by her that screams "unique take" on a frequently done story. Instead, all the offerings I've read by her are everything you'd expect from a book of that type, but not in a way (that I feel) is particularly compelling. In all honestly, I'm not sure if From Below is actually any better than other aquatic horror stories either. I just know I enjoyed it a lot, perhaps in large part because I'm a fanatic fan of deep-diving, underwater horror in my fiction. See my previous reviews for Caitlin Starling's The Luminous Dead and "Caver, Continue" and Michael Crichton's Sphere, all of which feature some of the most unique aquatic horror fiction telling I've encountered thus far.

The subject matter in From Below is what convinced me to try it. It came up as an audiobook on one of my library apps, so I borrowed it and listened to it compulsively for a week or so. Interestingly, the narrator of the audiobook was Abby Craden, who's a versatile voice artist in a variety of mediums. The strange/cool part was that at the time I was just randomly replaying one of my favorite videogames, Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning Fatesworn Edition. Abby Craden is the voice of Alyn Shir in that game. I didn't know this at first, but, while listening to the audiobook of From Below, I kept feeling like I knew that voice somehow. That's when I checked it out and discovered the connection. Craden does a fantastic job reading From Below. I even turned the speed down from 1.75 (which is what I almost always listen to audiobooks at because otherwise it's too long and drawn out; I usually have no trouble understanding fast-talking and following the story this way) to 1.50 to better savor it. 

However, the one problem I had with the audiobook version of this story is that I was overwhelmed with too many characters to keep track of and I wanted to get them sorted out to better enjoy the complexity. For that reason, I decided to purchase a mass-market paperback copy of the book (which was dirt-cheap) so I could "re-read" it and catch all the things I missed out on with the audiobook reading. 

While it could certainly be true that I just love this genre so much that I'd like any story in it, I thought Coates provided a well-rounded take on a frequently done plot. All the characters were fully-fleshed out, and the entities that overtook the SS Arcadia were convincing. The melding of past and present filled the book with nail-biting tension. Are there other and better variations on this theme? Sure, probably. But this one ticked all the boxes for me. I'm certain you'll see more reviews by me in this genre in the future. In the meantime, I recommend From Below as a good one in a sea of cleverly reimagined aquatic horror tales. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of 156 titles and 16 series. 

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

The Good and Bad of AI

In Cory Doctorow's current LOCUS column, he distinguishes being "anti-AI" from being anti the bad things some entities do with it, and he considers the "politics" of AI:

Technopolitics

I don't think I've ever come across a succinct definition of AI. "Artificial intelligence" could include anything from spellcheck and autocorrect up to chatbots that can pass the Turing test and everything in between. Asking whether that's good or bad feels similar to asking whether electricity or nuclear power is totally good or bad. When most people discuss the potential harm of AI, they seem to be referring to technology on the high end of the scale. Sometimes the term seems used mainly for scare effect: "It's taking over, and we're doomed!" Doctorow summarizes its status thus:

"AI isn’t exceptional, it’s normal. It’s not exceptionally dangerous. It’s not exceptionally evil. It’s also not exceptionally useful or exceptionally good. AI represents a significant advance to computer science -- a moderate variation to existing machine learning techniques that generated a much larger improvement in those techniques."

He lists many "useful things" AI can do. On the negative side, though, it "exists in the white-hot center of the most dangerous investment bubble in the history of markets." Therefore, financial realities lead the masters of the AI universe to commit manifold "unforgiveable sins," which Doctorow lists at some length. He declares, "To make this AI, the people involved had to inflict all these harms upon us."

Can the good and bad be separated?

Is the "fruit of the poisonous tree. . . forever poisonous"?

Can a model's operation be separated from the manner of its creation?

Which uses of data training are ethical and which are immoral?

Doctorow maintains, "There’s hardly any technology -- any built infrastructure -- that is free from sin."

Also, that the current "technopolitics" of AI "are neither inevitable nor immutable."

Author David Gerrold, creator of "The Trouble with Tribbles," frequently writes on his Facebook page about the uses and abuses of artificial intelligence (though you may have to scroll down a while to find those posts). For instance, earlier this week he discusses the potential bursting of the AI investment bubble:

David Gerrold Facebook

Aside from spellcheck, my only frequent use of AI consists of reading the summaries Google now displays at the top of every search result page. They're useful for quick answers to simple questions. For anything more complex, especially if accuracy is vital, I go to the actual website links further down. I've often wished for a magical device that would take my detailed outlines and write the first drafts of books in my own style. While I like outlining and don't mind editing or proofreading, first-draft writing is a slow, laborious process for me. Well, I understand there's now an app for that, but since publishers don't accept AI-assisted submissions, I'm never likely to try it.

Margaret L. Carter

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

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Silent Tongues and The Church Beneath the Roots by Felix Blackwell by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Silent Tongues and The Church Beneath the Roots

by Felix Blackwell

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Beware spoilers! 

I'm always on the lookout for interesting audiobooks to listen to when I'm doing other things. I stumbled upon Stolen Tongues by Felix Blackwell in my library app. It was released in 2017. A newly engaged couple, Felix and Faye, head up the remote, windswept cliffs of Pale Peak to her parents' cabin and, naturally, in a horror novel, instead of romance, they encounter a menacing, supernatural being and creepy voices. Before long, a winter storm inadvertently cooperates with bad medicine and refuses to allow them to leave. It quickly becomes clear to Felix that the creature stalking them is familiar to Faye, a sleepwalker who begins whispering back to the shadows. The dark entity is trying to communicate with her. She claims she doesn't remember it, but her subconscious mind has blocked out the truth in more ways than one. "The Hollow One" is searching desperately for Faye's answer to the question, What makes five? 

This 320-page self-published novel was originally, as the author tells it, a contest-winning story on Reddit's NoSleep community of horror lovers. How the subject matter dealt with Native American culture, folklore, and the corresponding mythology was the most interesting part to me, though I found it a bit odd that the author named the book's main character after himself, almost as if he was making it an autobiography. Incidentally, the author is not of Native American descent, if anyone's wondering. 

The main characters in Stolen Tongues were drawn well enough. The most compelling of them was a guy with the last name of Lopez (more about him later) from the nearby Cold Valley Indian Reservation. Apparently the book has been optioned for a movie, which I believe would make the most of the material. The audiobook version I listened to was, unfortunately for me, narrated by J.S. Arquin, author (A.C. Arquin), voice actor, and audiobook narrator among wearing other hats. I admit, I had trouble with his halting way of speaking, though I think other listeners wouldn't have minded it. He reminded me of Mordin Solus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordin_Solus from the Mass Effect franchise. This character within the videogames is a favorite of mine, known for his fast-talking, halting manner and irresistibly unique dialogue. Frequently, the main character in the game has the option of cutting Mordin off because, once he gets going, he becomes almost unlistenable. While this was so creative and fun in that world, to have to listen to it over the course of 300+ pages got to be a bit much for me. 

That said, Stolen Tongues did hold my interest just enough to get through it. My favorite line was, "I suppose that if you speak long enough into the void, someone is bound to start listening." I will note, however, that the posing of the question "What makes five?" fairly early in the story was the kiss of death for me, as a writer. I guessed the entire plot just based on three little words, so everything that came afterward lacked suspense and true impact. 

 

When I went searching for more in this world, I found that the author had written a prequel that included Lopez (or his dad)* from Stolen Tongues and set long before the events of the previous story. The Church Beneath the Roots, released in 2024, is nearly 350 pages and is touted as "Silent Tongues, Book 2", though it's more accurately dubbed Part .5. 

*Note that I'm going to 'fess up here and tell you that I don't generally listen carefully while reading audiobooks unless they're really, really good (and if they're really, really good, I tend to run out and buy the version of the book that has actual words in it even before I finish the audiobook of it). Audiobooks are background noise to me. They fill space during a time I'm doing something else more important. If I continue listening all the way to the end, I consider it a win despite that I miss a lot. I'm okay with missing things if it's not a book that grabs hold of me and demands rapt attention. That said, this is becoming a growing annoyance of mine concerning audiobooks--there are too many shortcomings. In particular, the inability to look at the words, to flip back and find sections easily to review and verify I'm absorbing details and plot angles correctly. 

Between these two books, the author provided presumably authentic Native American names for his tribal members. Shortsightedly, though, he chose to name two of his characters with designations too similar. Onwé (verified spelling) is pronounced "On-way" and Twé (no idea how to spell it) is pronounced "Tee-way". I believe the author explained something about either of those names in Silent Tongues--though it went by too fast, and I'll never find that section of the audiobook now to verify it. Anyway, in The Church Beneath the Roots, I believe Onwé was the father of Twé, who was a character in Silent Tongues. Or vice versa. I've lost all track of this and, because it's an audiobook, the only option to correct the problem would be to 1) try to track down a book version of it with words in it, 2) to listen to both audiobooks all over again (and that ain't happenin'!) , or 3) just be confused. 

Conclusion: So I chose to be confused and never find out the truth of which was the son and which was the dad. I should probably consider not using audiobooks for my reading because this is becoming a serious problem for me. In any case, for the remainder of this review, I'll use both names because I don't really know anymore whether it was Onwé and Twé in either book. I accept the blame for this situation because I wasn't listening as closely as I should have been, but a chunk of the problem is actually the medium. 

Seeing his people abandon the Old Way by flocking to the local church, Onwé (or Twé) finds himself struggling, especially when a plane crash brings an unexpected stranger to the rez with horror stories to tell. Decades ago, Onwé's (or Twé's) childhood friend vanished. An ancient creature lurks in the night, terrorizing the tribe. Nearby caves bring terrifying whispers. Onwé (or Twé) finds himself lured there with the promise of having everyone he's lost returned to him. The origin of "The Hollow One" is explored in this horror tale. 

As I did its predecessor, I listened to the audiobook, this one narrated ably by Gary Tiedemann. What I enjoyed most was how the author pulled together the tragic reality of history with different indigenous tribes, forced to dwell together in a mishmash on a reservation, where freedom of religion is allowed only if the lawmakers get to choose the faith, into a tale of horrifying folklore. It's not easy to reconcile the unfairness of life on a day to day basis but, add an ancient evil into the mix, and you've really got something provoking and entertaining. 

If you're looking for diverting tales of supernatural myth, this pair of surprisingly well-written, self-published books should satisfy, but I highly recommend reading the ebook or paperback versions instead of audiobooks to avoid any confusion caused by the characters' names. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of 156 titles and 16 series. 

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

The Economy of Sesame Street

It has occurred to me that in all the decades I've been watching SESAME STREET, I've never seen anybody pay for anything at Hooper's Store. In fact, nobody on the show seems to use money at all. (I recall only one exception, to be mentioned below.) When kids and monsters order food, treats, or other items, Chris and Alan, like their predecessors over the years, appear to just give them stuff. My head-canon rationalizes the situation that customers or their parents run tabs, since it's a locally owned business where the storekeepers know everybody.

As for Grover's experiences of serving restaurant meals to the grumpy little blue man, we have to assume a bill is presented after the meal, a transaction that happens out of the audience's view. The one clear exception to the apparently cashless economy I've noticed occurs in an episode when some Muppet characters go shopping with Chris at the supermarket. There we do witness him, as the adult, checking out groceries and paying for them.

Money and its constraints come up at least once in the Neighborhood of Make Believe segment of MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD. The residents of Make Believe want to build a swimming pool, for which they've saved up barely enough money. Then a water pipe breaks, requiring an expensive repair, and they have to decide how to use their limited funds.

The newish PBS series CARL THE COLLECTOR addresses the problem of budgeting in an episode when the twin rabbit girls decide to start a hamster-sitting business. They go crazy at the pet shop, buying all sorts of fun, frivolous products, then realize they have no money for necessities such as hamster food and basic equipment. They have to return the stuff they bought for a refund and start over, shopping for things hamsters really need. I recommend CARL THE COLLECTOR, by the way, for its presentation of neurodivergent characters and its portrayal of kids learning how to solve relationship problems.

Not surprisingly, the long-running series ARTHUR -- whose main characters were supposed to be in third grade until the end of the final season but acted more like ten- or eleven-year-olds -- included several episodes in which the kids had to decide how to save, budget, and spend money.

Should SESAME STREET incorporate occasional lessons about money, since that's a topic growing children need to understand sooner rather than later in today's society? Or, given the abbreviated half-hour format, does the series already have its plate full enough with numbers, letters, technology, the Foodie Truck (my favorite feature), solving problems both physical and social, navigating relationships, handling emotions, and appreciating differences?

Margaret L. Carter

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

A Most Unusual Premise, Indeed

I found something seemingly flattering in my spam folder a few days ago, but obviously too good to be true. I thought that I should share. 

One hears about this sort of email, and any chatbot can be most helpful. The biggest red flag that AI suggests is that editors do not use Yahoo email addresses.

editor.cschulz@yahoo.com

Hello Rowena,

I hope you’re having a great week.

My name is Claire Schulz, Executive Editor at BenBella Books. I recently came across Knight’s Fork, and I was particularly intrigued by the unusual conflict at its center: a Saurian Knight bound by a vow of chastity, caught between his father’s legacy and a determined Queen Consort who asks him to father her child without knowing his true identity.

The combination of forbidden obligation, concealed lineage, political tension, and personal conviction gives the story a distinctive speculative-fiction premise that caught my attention.

I’d be interested in learning more about your current and forthcoming work, as well as whether you’re currently represented by a literary agent. If so, I’d be happy to continue through your representative.

Subject to reviewing additional material, I believe there may be an opportunity worth exploring within BenBella’s fiction publishing program.

If you’d be open to a brief conversation, I’d be delighted to share more about what prompted my interest.

Warm regards,

Claire Schulz
Executive Editor
BenBella Books.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Faith of Beasts (The Captive's War, Book 2) by James S. A. Corey by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Faith of Beasts (The Captive's War, Book 2)

by James S. A. Corey

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware spoilers! 

The authors James S. A. Corey--made up of writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck--of The Expanse (you can read my in-depth review by typing the series name in the search box) have started a new trilogy called The Captive's War. The first installment was The Mercy of Gods published in August 2024 along with "Livesuit", the first novella for the series, released October 2024. Read that particular review here: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2025/01/put-this-one-on-your-tbr-list-book.html. 

The newest novel is The Faith of Beasts, Book 2, published in April 2026. In this science fiction space opera, the Carryx are a hival empire that's been conquering worlds for centuries. Borg-like (actually, on second thought, it reminds me more of the Reapers in the Mass Effect franchise; find out more about that race of evil aliens at this link: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/search?q=Mass+effect), they destroy or enslave, ever in search of those they can use to continue their totalitarian dominion in the universe. Once the alien enemies conquer slaves, they force them to learn how to survive the best they can in a hostile environment. At the end of the last book, an attempt to break free is made and fails utterly. Their captors again subjugate those that survive, requiring they prove their worth or be destroyed. 

My review of this newest installment is little different than my review of the first. That initial offering felt long and tedious to me, with a lot of characters I didn't find particularly interesting. Not much has changed here. At the end of Part 3 within The Faith of Beasts, I thought something exciting was about to happen, hinted at in the closing sentence there. Alas, no, not really. The story passed into Part 4, and I was still searching for a compelling reason to continue for more of a reason than that it was the only audiobook I was interested in on my library app. When I was more than halfway through listening to this book, I read the back cover blurb and thought, Huh, is that what it's about? As I said, Book 2 didn't seem all that much different than the second half of Book 1. 

I do find it interesting the parallels that can be extracted from this scenario in terms of real-life war and occupation--the instinct for survival, the considerations for rebellion, the adjustments that need to be made to relearn life and day-to-day functioning when you're compelled into a situation and amongst beings you don't understand. The protagonist, Dafyd, is a futuristic Daniel figure (as described by the authors) who's carried off by the enemy, along with a bunch of other humans, and put in charge of making them all somehow useful to their captors. Beyond that, though, true enjoyment wavered for the majority of my listening to the audiobook. 

While a part of me wonders if finishing out this trilogy is worthwhile, I'm two books in at this point. Might as well finish it out. Also, I loved the authors' previous series, The Expanse, so much, I'm willing to endure whatever comes my way to reach the end of this comparably much shorter (and very inferior, IMHO) series. 

At the time of this writing, there isn't much being reported about when the third book will be released. Risingshadow.net (a dedicated platform for speculative fiction) mentions 2026 as the year for a next publication in this series, which may actually be for the second novella. As The Expanse did in that particular universe, this trilogy of novels is also supported by standalone novellas that expand on the various aspects of the Carryx Empire, existing technology employed within the galaxy, and a broader view of the interstellar conflict that surrounds the characters. "Livesuit" was released just after Book 1, and, following the release of Book 2, Amazon began touting an upcoming second novella on the way, as yet untitled. Additionally, nothing new has been announced concerning the television series in development based on this trilogy by Expanding Universe, a multi-platform content company headed by the authors themselves (among others). 

A few weeks after I listened to the audiobook of The Faith of Beasts, my place in line for the ebook version came up on my library app and I checked it out. I wondered if reading the book might give me a significantly different experience than I had with the audiobook. It's true that I find I miss so much with audiobooks. By reading the text yourself, if you have a question, you can just turn back a few pages and seek out an answer. With an audiobook, it would require listening to whole sections again to locate what you missed, which can quickly turn into a hassle. Unfortunately, after a half dozen chapters in the ebook, I found I wasn't enjoying it any more than I had listening to the story being read to me, so I abandoned the endeavor. I don't know if I just don't care for this particular series by these talented authors, or I'm just not in the mood for it at this point in time. Either could be the case. 

Well, my conclusion is that, if you're a fan of the authors and particularly liked Book 1 in this series and/or the first standalone novella for it, there's no reason not to pick up this installment. I'm still hoping maybe, once more offerings are available, the series will eventually culminate into something exciting.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of 156 titles and 16 series. 

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

 

Vampire Retro-Review: The Ruby Tear

THE RUBY TEAR (1997), by “Rebecca Brand,” was actually written under a pen name by Suzy McKee Charnas, author of THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY, one of the best vampire novels of the late twentieth century. Readers familiar with it as well as her other works under her own name, most prominently the post-apocalyptic, feminist Motherlines series, will find THE RUBY TEAR surprisingly different. Here she creates a unique variation on the vampire romance subgenre, already well established by then. THE RUBY TEAR stars a much more traditional vampire than Weyland, the top-of-the-food-chain, naturally evolved predator in her more famous novel.

A cursed jewel and a family feud rooted in medieval Eastern Europe complicate an unusual vampire-human love triangle. In a flashback, Baron Ivo von Cragga, on the verge of death in battle, prays for the restoration of the Ruby Tear, his family’s chief treasure, as well as punishment for the enemy who stole it. Transformed into a vampire by the vengeful goddess of his war-torn homeland, Ivo devotes his centuries-long existence to the quest for the Tear, now possessed by Nicolas Griffin, journalist and playwright. Jess, an actress, Nic's former lover, baffled by his avoidance of her since the near-lethal accident in which they were both injured, agrees to star in a play written by him in which she will wear the ill-fated jewel. The relic draws Ivo to her so that she becomes the vampire's target as he pursues his revenge against Nic, last surviving descendant of his enemy.

Aside from his origin (cursed rather than bitten), Ivo has most of the traits of the familiar supernatural vampire. Ivo is generally a “good guy vampire,” although prepared to behave ruthlessly in devotion to his quest. The few love scenes between him and Jess are sensual yet spiced with a tinge of self-aware irony. Charnas's familiarity with New York and the world of the theater lends realistic detail to the story. She injects notes of humor amid the suspense and manages to make both the lonely, magnetic vampire and his human rival complex, sympathetic characters. The climax of their conflict and the resolution of Jess's attraction to both men are surprising as well as satisfying. It’s unusual to read a romance in which we can’t tell from the beginning which hero the heroine will choose. The denouement includes an unexpected twist that underscores the futility of devoting a lifetime (mortal or immortal) to ancient enmities.

Margaret L. Carter

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

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales by Orrin Grey by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales by Orrin Grey

by Karen S. Wiesner

  

Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales by Orrin Grey was published in 2018. This collection of 14 very weird stories is unlike almost anything I've ever read before. By the way, Guignol is a French hand puppet. In fiction, the word has come to be associated with a sensational, gruesome tale. 

It would be difficult to describe this anthology of stories individually because they're so short and strange, so, although I liked more than a few of them (very odd for me when it comes to a short story collection!), I can't really go in-depth about any one of them without giving away too much. 

In the general sense, these tales are all what I would consider very small vignettes. What you'll get is a slice of a life: Nothing came before that isn't told rather than shown, and, in some cases, there's little by way of follow-up or indication where it might go from there. It is nothing more, nothing less than what you see in the here and now--that's all you get. For that reason, there is very little depth to them. You'll never get to know the characters, settings, or situations any more than what's included in these few words. It's like you get a glimpse of something and then you're thrust out; you walk away because there's nothing else you can do. Whether a memory of what you've witnessed lingers on after that point is moot. I suspect the author would enjoy at least part of that description of his work very much. Honestly, none of this is an insult. It's more of a heads up of what to expect and an invitation, no RSVP necessary. You really do have to experience this set of stories yourself to get the full impact.

Contained within Guignol & Other Sardonic Tales were more than a few stories that harkened back to H. P. Lovecraft (complete with the tell-you-the-outcome-before-the-event format). I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure offering "A Circle That Ever Returnth In". "Haruspicate or Scry" was another standout. In that particular account, there's a hilarious reference to college students picking apart a story by a professor, praising his imagery and drawing parallels, to which the teacher responds (like he's impatiently embarrassed by the attention), "I was just writing about a damn pear." I've said similar things myself dozens of times while debating allegory in fiction with those who seem to enjoy reading into everything--just never with Orrin's simple but evocative hilarity.

If you like horror, fantasy, and the strange in your stories, this anthology is definitely one to gobble up in a single sitting. The author has several other fiction collections to choose from as well, so you don't have to stop at just one. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of 156 titles and 16 series. 

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

Wolf Worm

Nobody will be surprised that I agree with Karen in loving T. Kingfisher's WOLF WORM.

As she describes, it's Gothic historical fiction with body horror. A “wolf worm” is the larva of a parasitic insect. Botflies, screwflies –- squeamish readers beware. The protagonist, Sonia Wilson, resembles many of Kingfisher’s heroines in being cast adrift from familiar surroundings, but rather than going home like the others (for a certain value of “home”) she’s beginning a new job in a strange place. Since the death of her father, a distinguished botanist whose work she illustrated, she has taught at a girls’ school. Now she has been accepted as an illustrator for a reclusive entomologist, a chance to use her artistic gifts for more than teaching. In North Carolina in 1899, a young woman involved in science can’t expect any more prominent role.

This novel embodies the classic Gothic tropes of an orphan heroine confronted with a large, half-deserted house, its forbidding master, mysterious deaths, and grim secrets. No JANE EYRE romance plot here, though. The housekeeper, one of only three servants who remain, immediately cautions Sonia that her employer won’t marry her. Not only does she have no interest in snagging a husband, she quickly finds out no sensible woman would choose Dr. Halder for that role. He’s a misanthrope with scorn for his professional peers and little or no tolerance for anything less than perfection in the work of an assistant.

Arriving with more knowledge of plants than insects, Sonia nevertheless manages to produce satisfactory illustrations most of the time. The studio of the previous illustrator, whom Halder refuses to discuss, provides her with textbooks plus helpfully labeled illustrations that fill gaps in her professional background. Meanwhile, she has been warned about “the Devil” in the woods and has heard stories of “blood thieves” allegedly identified as a man and woman who’d been executed vigilante style followed by a stake through the heart. Surely, Sonia thinks, the mangled bodies had actually been victims of wild animals or, possibly, the resurgent Ku Klux Klan. Or had they? What really happened to Halder’s missing wife and her lover? What about the padlocked outbuilding she happens to see him visiting by night?

Naturally, I was thrilled at the revelation of actual vampirism, although of an unusual type and scientifically explained. It's my favorite type of vampire, a member of a naturally evolved, humanoid but not quite human species. And I figured out, long before Sonia did, who the previous artist was. Like Kingfisher’s other female horror protagonists, she forms bonds of friendship amid the ominous surroundings, in this case with a local Native American woman and the mixed-race couple who maintain the house and grounds. Sonia eventually discovers who and what constitute the true evil and defeats it with the support of her new friends. The insect lore in WOLF WORM highlights Kingfisher’s perennial interest in the curiosities of the natural world, as displayed by characters’ in-depth knowledge of fungi, poisons, plants, vultures, roadrunners, etc. in previous books. Also, Sonia’s analysis of her environment in terms of the technical challenges of watercolor painting adds dimension to her character. As in the conclusion of THE TWISTED ONES, at the end of WOLF WORM Sonia hasn’t moved on from the horrors she’s seen but realistically struggles with memories and nightmares that will linger past the end of the story.

As for the novel's feminist dimension, the ending delivers a delightful "take that" to the legacy of the arrogant Dr. Halder.

Margaret L. Carter

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

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Review of Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher Paired With Karen Wiesner's Botanical Artwork by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Review of Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher

Paired With Karen Wiesner's Botanical Artwork

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware: May contain unintended spoilers! 

T. Kingfisher (the pen name of Ursula Vernon) is a versatile author, illustrator, and artist. Her novel Wolf Worm, published in March 2026, is exactly the kind of gothic fiction I love--you know, without the needy, pretty--according to her own assessment--damsel in distress who gets sucked into a life-threatening situation that seems supernatural on the surface (but, like every episode of Scooby Doo, isn't). Oh, and she makes everything worse with her stupidly romantic nature and need to be rescued by a big, strong man. 

A little background about this tangent I'm going off on: A few months ago, I was looking for a new audiobook to get interested in and stumbled across the 1966-1972 Dark Shadows book series, credited to Marilyn Ross (one pseudonym of W. E. D. Ross, an actor, playwright, and author of more than three-hundred novels!). The thirty-three books in this series were gothic romances (that dealt with an actual vampire and other monsters), but not what I consider particularly good ones. In any case, the first volume, Dark Shadows, was flat-out painful to listen to. This obviously male author didn't understand the first thing about women, and it showed. I can't tell you how many times we were given a physical description of the female lead somewhere along these slightly exaggerated lines: "Victoria brushed aside her thick, luscious locks of perfectly-coiffed hair surrounding her hauntingly beautiful, heart-shaped face." Give me a break. Every man in the vicinity was attracted to this goddess, but she had eyes only for the psycho-villain-or-dashing-hero? widower of the piece. Nothing could convince her to save herself. Alas, this was just the tip of the iceberg on the type the gothic fiction I despise. 

In subtle contrast, the basic formula of a really good gothic romance is a strong, smart woman (who's probably passably attractive but the reader isn't beat over the head with descriptions of her world-stopping, leave-no-male-unaffected beauty) who finds herself in unfortunate circumstances. She's forced to go to an isolated property where something sinister is going on and usually has been for decades. While she might ultimately fall in love with the main suspect, the romance is secondary to the creepy setting and mysterious events that have usually been unsolved and that she has to investigate and resolve before dire harm comes to her. This is a worthy heroine who saves not only herself but the others around her as well as the day. 

That's exactly what T. Kingfisher has brilliantly given us in Wolf Worm, set in 1899. Sonia Wilson is a thirtysomething botanical illustrator. Kingfisher is herself an extremely talented artist, and, given my own love of rendering plants in art form, I just soaked up everything creative she offered in this tale. The easy knowledge of the author made her main character so authentic and compelling. Sonia's father was a renowned scientist, something she aspires to, but, after he died, she was left to make her own living in whatever way she could, as most orphaned "spinsters" were forced to in that time period. Eventually, she's offered the job of illustrating Dr. Halder's insect collection on his reclusive manor property in the woods of North Carolina. Other characters are the lovable housekeeper, Rose, and her significant other, Jackson, who also works on the estate. The preacher also inserts himself into Sonia's life after her arrival. A local healer called "Ma" something also helps Sonia when oddball things begin to happen. 

Woodland animals are acting very strangely, doing impossible things that normal animals just can't do, the household chicken coop is being robbed every night, and Dr. Halder is sneaking around in the forest after dark. There are local whispers of "blood thieves" compounded by the unsolved mystery of Halder's wife's fate. She'd cheated on him, and Halder supposedly dispatched the homewrecker--justifiably, according to some members of the local population, who "don't brook with no infidelity". The real horror in this story is Dr. Halder's life's work--parasitic maggots that burrow into human flesh. I'm not a person who likes even thinking about things like this. My whole body revolts and feels like it's been invaded by horrible things that I can't even see. Long, hot, rubbed-raw showers ensue and endless hours are wasted on feeling like I'm going insane with the itching dread. (Let's face it, it's scientific fact that we do have things crawling all over us that we'd prefer not to consider let alone believe are there.) Ugh! Don't think about it. Do not start thinking about it. Whatever you do, donotthinkaboutthisplease! 

Yeah, so Kingfisher forces us to not only think about it but to watch the horror happening in Wolf Worm in slow motion. 

I have to admit, more than once, I had to go back to the audiobook I was listening to of Wolf Worm and make sure it was, in fact, T. Kingfisher, not Caitlin Starling, who'd written this. Everything about this book reminded me of Starling's work, especially The Death of Jane Lawrence (highly recommended--do a search for my review of it on this blog). Starling loves body horror fiction with strong heroines that are also slightly vulnerable, a lot broken, and far too willing to go where no sane woman might. I loved the atmosphere, the creepiness, the compelling secondary characters that really rounded out this story and made it something I couldn't stop listening to in the course of just a couple days. 

I will also add that I really would have preferred to read the book version of Wolf Worm (hard copy, though ebook would have been okay, too), but, as I'd asked to be notified of the release of any version of this book on my library app, I was glad to practically be the first in line when it became available. I liked the way the narrator made the voices fit the locale the story is set in. I do want to read a copy of the book at some point, though, because I've definitely noticed that I miss a lot with an audiobook versus reading the book myself. I'd also like to own the hard cover of Wolf Worm. It's absolutely worthy to join my collection of other T. Kingfisher print editions. 

In summary, run, don't walk, to get a copy of this book as soon as possible. If this is your kind of gothic fiction, you won't regret it. 

And, just because, here's a couple of my own fledgling botanical illustrations, both with and without color, which I'm certain are nowhere near as wonderful as anything Sonia and/or Kingfisher would produce. Looking at them again puts me in mind of the coming spring and summer growing season and the plants I'm hoping to photograph, sketch, and/or color this year. 

  Rosebud in Vase Sketch @ Karen Wiesner 

  Leaf & Twig Texture in Colored Pencil @ Karen Wiesner

  Scarlet Poppies and Summer Berries in Colored Pencil @ Karen Wiesner 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of 156 titles and 16 series. 

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