Traveling Abroad

In connection with their philosophy of IDIC -- Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations -- the Vulcans in the Star Trek universe sometimes proclaim, "I rejoice in our differences." Lovers of exploring strange new worlds and meeting intelligent ETs in fiction, however, don't have to leave Earth to discover real-life alien cultures, if only slightly, subtly alien. Spending last week in Germany to visit our daughter and her partner (who moved there last August), I encountered several unexpected differences from my familiar world in a country with a language and ethnicity closely related to my own. (An extraterrestrial linguist would probably consider English and German dialects of the same language. The parents of one of my grandfathers immigrated to the U.S. from Germany around 1880.)

Some highlights of our trip to Freiburg im Breisgau: The Mundenhof, sort of a zoo but more of a nature preserve. It started as a refuge for animals rescued from abusive or neglectful situations and still fills that role to some extent. The animals roam in large, open outdoor areas. The facility is divided into sections corresponding to the various continents. We managed to see most of them but not all, too exhausted to walk the full circuit. One cool feature was a peacock who wandered freely around the grounds and perched on top of a fence as if deliberately posing for a photo. Our daughter showed us around the Alstadt, the old city center, including a 900-year-old cathedral. Another day we went to the town where the historical Faust died. On Saturday, we took a train excursion to a touristy village in the mountainous Black Forest region. Lots of shops selling cuckoo clocks. After lunch at the lakeside, we took a short cruise on the lake in a small tour boat. Returning to the Alstadt late that afternoon, we found we couldn't get into the restaurant where we'd hoped to have dinner, this being the weekend with a (very loud) music festival going on. Fortunately, we did get to eat at a nice small-plates place. On our last full day, Sunday, my husband and I attended an English-speaking Anglican church, with a small and very welcoming congregation. They had a potluck lunch after the service.

Differences that struck me: As predicted, almost everybody we met spoke some English, many of them fluently. (What do you call a person who speaks only one language? An American.) On the frequent occasions when we got lost, there was usually a nearby kind stranger able to help. Ubiquitous public transportation: Buses, trams on tracks, and of course trains for intercity travel. Our daughter's German housemate said she wouldn't own a car at all if not needed for getting to work. Unlike what I'd read online, though, we couldn't pay cash to board the bus. One has to deal with ticket machines and credit cards everywhere. You're on your own. The bus drivers basically ignored us except once when telling me to sit down rather than block the aisle. Oddly, most often nobody even asks for a ticket on the bus or tram. (On the train, they always do.) Either they trust the public or screening every passenger for payment is more trouble than it's worth. And there's Uber in Europe! Tipping: Suggested percentage amounts are much lower than in the U.S., even in restaurants; apparently German servers get paid a living wage. Environmental awareness: We were told the government actively discourages people from driving personal cars unless absolutely necessary. (That policy didn't prevent rush hour traffic from being as congested as ours, though.) High gas prices and related taxes are considered a feature, not a bug. Glass and plastic bottles have deposits and can be returned for cash, a system that hasn't existed for a long time in the places where we've lived. Dual-flush commodes, unlike in the U.S., seem to be universal. And speaking of plumbing, most restrooms were not only high-tech but super clean. Climate: Because of the high latitude, darkness didn't arrive until after 9:30 at night, which I expected. But I didn't realize the high latitude combined with altitude -- in the mountainous Black Forest region -- meant Freiburg wouldn't necessarily have the summer heat typical of June at home. For the first few days, mornings were actually chilly. Luckily, we brought jackets. On the plus side, there was barely any humidity compared to the east coast of the U.S. Food and drink: I don't remember being offered a salad dressing choice at any restaurant. All salads had a standard yogurt dressing. Choice of "still" or sparkling water was always offered, with sparkling as the default, and it didn't come with ice unless specially requested.

I can hardly remember how my husband and I got around on our own in England back in 2002, aside from the advantage of speaking the local language, with limited electronic magic compared to nowadays. On this trip, if it hadn't been for internet access and our cell phone roaming plan (so we could call our daughter for instructions whenever we got lost again), we would have been so far up the creek we would have lost our paddles in the rapids.

Margaret L. Carter

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

You Didn't Write That

There's a new threat for authors, namely, the risk of being falsely accused of using AI to write your book.

The consequences could be disqualification from a contest, loss of a publishing contract, perhaps being deplatformed from Amazon or one of its competitors, loss of the trust of readers and reviewers, and--no doubt--more.

Moreover, the better the author, the more likely he or she is to be falsely flagged!

For school children and university students, there is the risk of accusation, punishment, bad grades and shaming if teachers happen to use a bad AI detector that is unreliable. Parents should be aware that false positives happen, and not all AI detection products are equal (or trustworthy).

There's probably no appeal or argument for a college or university applicant whose essay is run through a bad tool.

The Authors Guild ran a test of five of the "top" AI detection tools using ten vintage Authors Guild articles, all of which were written in 2020, before AI technology existed. Three products performed well. One was utterly unreliable.

As they write in Can AI Detectors Be Trusted?:

"AI detection tools are AI models trained to recognize statistical patterns associated with large language model [LLM] output, such as sentence rhythm, vocabulary distribution, and predictability of word choice. But polished, edited prose written by experienced human writers shares many of those same characteristics, because LLMs were trained on polished, edited prose written by experienced human writers. The more refined and controlled a writer's style, the more it may resemble the output these tools are designed to flag."

https://authorsguild.org/news/can-ai-detectors-be-trusted/

The Authors Guild article features a fascinating grid showing how each of the five tools performed on each of the ten articles.

Authors Guild will provide legal help members who have been falsely accused. This might be another of many very good reasons to consider joining.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 
SPACE SNARK™ 

https://www.spacesnark.com/ 

https://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday 

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} The Hazel Wood Series by Melissa Albert by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List}

The Hazel Wood Series by Melissa Albert

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware spoilers! 

I was looking for a Christmas tale, similar to "A Christmas Carol", one afternoon at the end of 2025. The audiobook for The Hazel Wood came up, though I have no idea why. As far as I could tell at any point while listening to it, there was nothing vaguely Christmas-y about it. In fact, this very sinister tale is far from feel-good, inspirational, or even hopeful. Instead, The Hazel Wood is a dark, truly noir fantasy series. Rebecca Soler narrated all of these stories. Her voice absolutely bleeds the bitchy, always-angry teenage girl persona that fits this series perfectly (she did a good job with all the other unique voices as well). 

The Hazel Wood, Book 1, was published in 2019, the first offering by former managing editor at Barnes and Noble Melissa Albert. Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother Ella have always lived their lives on the road, running away from the "bad luck" that's constantly hounding them. Alice knows her grandmother Althea authored a cult-classic book of pitch-black fairytales, and she knows the old woman died at her estate, the Hazel Wood, a place she's never been to. The one time her mom caught her trying to read the elusive book, little Alice had had it yanked away from her. When Ella disappears, the only clue to where she's gone is the message she left Alice: "Stay away from the Hazel Wood." A classmate, Ellery Finch, is a die-hard fan of her grandmother's work. He also seems to have a bit of a crush on Alice. But what does she really know about him? Despite that she isn't sure she can trust him, Alice has no one else to help her track down her mom. Where she and Finch are led is insane, even unbelievable. Who was her grandmother? For that matter, who was her mom and who is she? 

The basic story of a teenager who doesn't fit in seemingly anywhere, then something happens to make him or her realize the world they know is nothing like they've always believed has been done before, and very often (in the 2000s, many such titles and series were released--The Caster Series and The Mortal Instrumentals are two very similar to The Hazel Wood…but there are others). 

  Both The Hazel Wood and The Night Country audiobooks came with the bonus novella set in the same world called "The Boy Who Didn't Come Home" (first published in paperback with 38 pages on January 7, 2020),  narrated by James Fouhey. In this, we're given Finch's side of the story following the events of Book 1, before Book 2 begins. The Night Country is the sequel, published in 2021, where Alice and Finch delve even deeper into her grandmother's dark legacy, and Alice has to confront that maybe there's no such thing as a happily-ever-after, let alone an unmagical life, for her. There was a beautiful, unexpected romance in this story. Additionally, the events moved toward a wrap-up that I found surprisingly perfect. I honestly had no clue how this sequence could tie up in a way that could be considered satisfactory, but the author did manage to pull off quite a compelling resolution. 

  These two books hinge on really knowing the 12 anti-fairytales that are included in Althea Proserpine's collection of Hinterland tales. Sure, Finch or Ella or other characters often retell portions from the collected work of Alice's grandmother's stories for her, but it's just not the same. Not having read all of these stories in advance was a huge hindrance to me in fully understanding Books 1 and 2. Apparently, I wasn't the only reader who felt that way. In 2023, we finally got them in Tales from the Hinterland, which includes all of Althea Proserpine's disturbing stories. Since all three are now available to us (thankfully I discovered the series long after all the offerings were released), I strongly urge reading this collection first before starting Book 1. Trust me, it'll all make much more sense that way. I also want to comment that it's difficult to write a story when you've locked yourself in with something else you wrote previously. Albert had to do it 12 times! Kudos!

If you're looking for the polar opposite of a fairytale, something unusual, unexpected, and unsettling, this series is definitely for you. Be advised that this isn't a Christmas story outside of the cold, wintery, chilling aspects, though there are plenty of Krampus-style demons running amok here if you find yourself in the mood to be menaced. 

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

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

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

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

Snake-Eater

In anticipation of Karen's upcoming review of SNAKE-EATER, by T. Kingfisher, I'm posting mine now (in advance, because I have limited internet access this week and plan a different topic for next week).

In Kingfisher's afterword to SNAKE-EATER, she summarizes the “platonic ideal” of her horror fiction as “a woman and her dog alone in a house full of creepy family secrets,” which perfectly describes her first horror novel, THE TWISTED ONES. While her others don’t necessarily include dogs, the protagonists do tend to be women returning home in emotionally fraught circumstances, for a certain value of home. In the case of SNAKE-EATER, Selena flees with her black Lab, Copper, from her overbearing long-time lover, Walter -- who dominates and criticizes her only "for her own good," of course -- to her aunt’s home in the tiny town of Quartz Creek, an arid western milieu totally different from anything Selena has known. For decades her only contact with her aunt has come through occasional postcards. Still, a vague invitation to visit sometime makes Quartz Creek Selena’s only possible refuge. The shock of learning her aunt died the year before devastates her, but she can’t consider returning to Walter. He would indulgently take her back, and her abortive escape would become one more time “Selena Had Done Something Foolish and Walter Saved Her.” Selena plans to stay in her aunt’s vacant home, “Jackrabbit Hole House,” for one night, then for a few days, then maybe for a few weeks, while she decides how to move forward.

Meanwhile, she meets engagingly quirky local characters -- another typical feature of Kingfisher novels -- including Jenny, mayor as well as postmistress, fire chief, and police chief; Grandma Billy, who keeps a flock of chickens and a guard peacock; and Catholic priest Father Aguirre, who’s surprisingly respectful toward the local desert gods/spirits (the distinction is fuzzy). Selena, as more than one person points out to her, apologizes too much. She’s paralyzingly afraid of doing the wrong thing and certain her new neighbors, who gift her with fresh produce and (in Grandma Billy’s case) a daily bounty of eggs, will perceive her as a “moocher.” She’s even reluctant to “impose” on the weekly community potluck dinner. At first I thought her need to memorize “scripts” for every social interaction depicts her as mildly autistic, but it soon becomes clear that she simply lacks any shred of self-esteem. Over a lifetime, her confidence has been systematically beaten down by a domineering mother and a gaslighting fiancé. Reluctantly getting used to life in Quartz Creek, she soon realizes she wants to stay. Granted, though, the local people’s matter-of-fact belief in supernatural entities strikes her as peculiar, and she suspects Grandma Billy of being downright crazy. Moreover, as we learn later in the story, Father Aguirre has his own secret.

Selena begins to accept the truth only when she witnesses such things as a timid squash spirit in the vegetable garden -- unless she’s losing her mind. But she has to acknowledge the reality of the spirit realm when she learns of her aunt’s relationship with Snake-Eater, the roadrunner god. As both the narrative and the author’s afterword emphasize, real-world roadrunners don’t resemble the cartoon bird. They’re more like two-foot-tall dinosaurs, which Selena discovers when she balks at filling her aunt’s former role and Snake-Eater won’t take “no” for an answer. Similarly to the heroine of THE TWISTED ONES, Selena (with the help of Grandma Billy and Father Aguirre) follows her dog through a portal into another realm, where she has to face the gods of the desert. Ultimately, she triumphs over Snake-Eater not through combat, physical or magical, but through open-mindedness, friendship, her bond with Copper, and her kindness to creatures such as the squash god in the garden and scorpions in the house. The denouement includes a delightful confrontation that sends the insufferable Walter packing.

I do have one reservation about the novel, in agreement with a review I read: Its setting around or soon after 2050 seems irrelevant and unnecessary. Aside from passing allusions to near-future technology, little of which reaches Quartz Creek, we learn the approximate year only from the age of Father Aguirre’s truck. Why does the author include this pointless distraction? Her afterword doesn’t say.

Margaret L. Carter

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

FUBAR

"Believe all women" was always a bad slogan, even if taken in context. There are women who make a living from lying, such as actresses, comediennes, novelists... lawyers!

There is now a very kind name --AI Hallucinations-- for when real life lawyers use AI for their research and trust AI so much that they skip verification. Apparently, there are now hundreds of cases where lawyers in court cited legal precedents that never existed in real life.

One lawyer in New York submitted a brief containing six AI fabricated cases; two attorneys in the Sixth Circuit wrote up over twenty-four "hallucinated" case citations; in California, an attorney was fined $10,000 for using twenty-one fake cases (generated by AI) in support of an appeal.

As a result of severe rebukes and hefty fines, the legal community is now wary of using Chat without verification, and someone has set up a website listing all known AI Hallucinations.

Presumably, the tech wizards who trained their AI or ChatGPT on large libraries of fiction (or pirate sites) should not have included entire genres, such as legal thrillers. 

The week before last, I learned that my State put "a new computer system" in place that is generating notices in error relating to tax returns. In my case, I was sent a refund check that --if I had encashed it-- might have paid for three cups of overpriced coffee, and subsequently I received a notice claiming that I had underpaid my State taxes by $10,000. Same State, same return, same tax year.

Both notices cannot be true. In my opinion, neither is accurate.

I was told, don't take the $28 refund (but keep it safe). Prove with a jpg of the cancelled check that you paid your taxes. 

The watchword for use of AI should be, "Trust But Verify". One cannot "Believe all AI".

One assumes that AI can be highly beneficial in improving weather forecasting, although perhaps not so much regarding "climate", and in making medical research and diagnoses more efficient, and in myriad ways including warfare, traffic control, space exploration, and crime solving.

AI might be a tad worrisome when it comes to the privacy invasions and possibilites for error in age gating, in surveillance and facial recognition (false positives), and in deep fakes, and in encryption and decryption.

Dr. Matthew Guariglia is the Senior Policy for EFF (the Electronic Freedom Foundation). Last week he testified to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection.

I wonder if there is an acronym for that. EFF's biggest concerns are that AI-powered mass surveillance violated constitutional rights and protections in a big way, and that government secrecy prevents the public and lawmakers from knowing when AI makes mistakes.

As we see, AI does make mistakes.

EFF on privacy https://www.eff.org/issues/privacy

EFF on AI https://www.eff.org/issues/ai

Meanwhile, Apple automatically saves user IDs and passwords not only to the primary device but also to linked devices. One might not notice, but maybe it is not a good idea to have banking logins saved and shared, because if it goes to various synched devices, it probably gets stored on a server farm.

They may not be as safe as you think.

Not if Q-Day is as nightmarish as some think it will be.

Paloalto Networks explains: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/cyberpedia/what-is-q-day

In a nutshell, Q-Day is the day when a quantum computer becomes capable of breaking the encryption standards that underpin modern digital life. All passwords, banking, cloud storage, Bitcoins, everything.

All this, at the same time that credit card companies, banks, insurance companies, periodicals etc put pressure on clients and customers to agree to "go digital" and avoid the waste and insecurity of paper statements and tax forms in the mail.

One might want to preserve some hard copies, just in case Q-Day is upon us.

Hence, FUBAR.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

https://www.spacesnark.com/  

https://www.rowenacherry.com

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Review for Alex Hunter Series by Greig Beck by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List}

Review for Alex Hunter Series by Greig Beck

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

In 2011, I was looking for supernatural horror books to read that took place in Antarctica (a trio of categories that were and are favorites of mine). Beneath the Dark Ice by Greig Beck came up during my search. In this series, a superhuman takes on supermonsters in life-threatening settings. I absolutely devoured it and the next and the next. I followed it for the next several years as more and more books featuring Captain Alex Hunter aka The Arcadian were released. The first two books were published by St. Martin's Press in very affordable mass market paperbacks. After that, another company took over the series and eventually republished all the books in trade paperback and electronic formats. After Book 5, I found the books far too expensive (in part because they were all so large) to continue purchasing. I bought the prequel, Book #5.5 and #6 as ebooks, but even those were surprisingly expensive (that can happen when publishers don't seem to understand that intangible ebooks which don't take up physical space should be priced lower). I haven't been able to find any of Greig Beck's books on my library apps in any format, other than the first two which were originally published by a mainstream (aka, not small press) publisher. As Beck is an Australia author, I'm sure that's part of why I haven't been able to locate them through libraries. 

Below is a list of the publication order (along with reading order) for what's currently available in the series:

.5 Arcadian Genesis, a prequel (2012)

#1 Beneath the Dark Ice (2009)

#2 Dark Rising (2010)

#3 This Green Hell (2011)

#4 Black Mountain (2012)

#5 Gorgon (2014)

#5.5 Hammer of God (2015)

#6 Kraken Rising (2015)

#7 The Void (2018)

#8 From Hell (2019)

#9 The Dark Side (2021)

#10 The Well of Hell (2022)

#11 The Silurian Bridge (2024)

As I said, the gist of the Alex Hunter Series is that a soldier sustains an injury that should have killed him, yet it, impossibly, made him a super-soldier, unstoppable, a danger to monsters, loved ones, and himself instead. This is a little bit unrealistic, but not outside the realm of believability. Because of his all but inhuman abilities, he and his team are always the ones called in for highest-possible-risk, one-way missions that no one else could survive. They do, time and time again. While the exact situations, settings, and hellish monsters are vastly different, they're all thoroughly researched and unquestionably plausible. This author writes as though he knows about all these things firsthand. Every book in this series that I've read has this basic scenario, yet they're all so unique and flawlessly compelling. 

While Greig Beck is still an author I follow, I've gotten behind with this series. Additionally, because I continue to follow him, I discovered several years after I could no longer afford his books that he started a spinoff series with a character from the first (and 10th) Alex Hunter book: Matt Kerns, the linguist, archaeologist and wary explorer. There are four books available in the Matt Kerns Adventures, the first having been published in 2013 so maybe (but I'm not sure) this new series might take place during Alex Hunter #4 and #5. I also swear that Cate Granger first appeared in one of the Alex Hunter books, and now she has her own series (Cate Granger, currently three novels available, the first published in 2018). I'll have to reread the Alex Hunter books again to find out for sure so don't quote me. It's so frustrating when authors don't include connections between their series titles on their own website, if nowhere else. This kind of thing sells books! 

The ebooks have now come down in price considerably, so I do plan to someday purchase the ones I haven't read yet, and I'd also like to read the spinoffs. Pretty much every one of Beck's offerings sounds fantastic, right up my alley, and I've found him to be a very reliable author, so I go into every purchase certain I'll like what I get. You can find out more about them on his website https://greigbeck.com/. If you're looking for nail-biting horror with a supernatural twist, you'll find Alex Hunter Books all but impossible to pass up, let alone put down once you've started them. 

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

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

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

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

The Hazel Wood

Noticing Karen has scheduled a review of Melissa Albert's THE HAZEL WOOD for next week, I decided to post my review of it now (adapted from one first published in my May 2018 newsletter). Not having read hers yet, of course, I look forward to her reaction to the book.

In an interview around the time of the novel's publication, Albert reveals that it was inspired not only by the concept of a multiverse and motifs from classic fairy tales but also noir detective fiction:

Her Own Spin on the Traditional Fairy Tale

THE HAZEL WOOD is a mind-blowing entry in my favorite fantasy subgenre, portal fantasy. Seventeen-year-old Alice’s grandmother, Althea Proserpine, whom she has never met, wrote one collection of fairy tales that became a cult classic, then withdrew from the world to her estate, the Hazel Wood (named after a line in a poem by Yeats). Ella, Alice’s mother, never talks about Althea or the father of whom Alice knows nothing. Ella and Alice have kept constantly on the move, fleeing the bad luck that seems to plague them and everyone around them. Althea's book, TALES FROM THE HINTERLAND, is almost impossible to find; Alice got a brief glimpse of a copy before her mother took it from her. At the age of six, Alice was temporarily abducted by a stranger who claimed to come from the her grandmother. The article linked above refers to "the imperfect mother-daughter dynamic between Alice and Ella" the author has created. Albert herself asserts "families free of dysfunction don’t exist." After receiving word of Althea’s death, Ella marries a prosperous man with a teenage daughter. When the novel begins, Alice is attending an exclusive school. She doesn't get along with her stepsister and stepfather, but she has a part-time job and even a couple of sort-of friends (or at least friendly acquaintances).

With the surname Proserpine, alluding to the mythical goddess unwillingly swept away into the realm of Hades, Alice is clearly not destined for an ordinary, mundane existence. Albert acknowledges that Alice isn't meant to be instantly likable. The article describes her as "an intense and often angry young woman." In general, I avoid spending entire full-length books with unlikable protagonists. In Alice's case, however, even though she's prickly, abrasive, and prone to occasional outbursts of rage, I nevertheless sympathized with her plight and her quest.

After Alice begins to glimpse strange people who might have a connection to Althea and the fictional Hinterland, Ella and her husband and stepdaughter vanish. When father and daughter reappear within a few days, refusing to discuss what happened to them, he throws Alice out of the house. She resolves to track down her missing mother. To do that, she feels she must find her grandmother’s home, the Hazel Wood, but the only clues to its location are in an old magazine article about Althea. Alice has to turn for help to her classmate Ellery Finch, an obsessive fan of TALES FROM THE HINTERLAND, which he actually read multiple times before having his copy stolen. On their road trip, Alice and Ellery become friends or perhaps something more, while randomly encountering people who seem to step out of the pages of Althea’s fairy tales. Ellery tells Alice a bit about the stories, their tone and contents a blend of numinous and creepy. After discovering Ellery’s ulterior motive for coming with her, in shocking scene of betrayal and loss, Alice does find Hazel Wood. From there, as we'd expect, she makes her way into the Hinterland. She also learns the truth about her own past.

The magical place she discovers beyond the portal isn't a country of heroism and ultimate joy like (for instance) Narnia. The Hinterland is overshadowed by the alien, perilous aspects of the faerie world as portrayed in authentic folklore. The treatment of the familiar trope that time passes differently between that world and ours, here shown as not only disorienting but downright horrifying, particularly impressed me.

In addition to a sequel, NIGHT COUNTRY (which begins with Alice trying to lead a safe, nonmagical life in New York -- in vain, naturally), Melissa Albert later meta-fictionally published TALES FROM THE HINTERLAND itself. The stories are enthralling but dark and bloody, typically from female viewpoints, very seldom with anything like a happy ending. Examples: Sisters locked up by their stepmother must create a door of blood to escape. The moon's granddaughter seeks her mother (one of the few sort-of happy conclusions). Maidens become betrothed to monsters or mysterious entities (not gentle beast-princes under curses). Would-be mothers resort to desperate measures to have children, with horrible results. Young women attempt to make bargains with Death. They're all narrated in a hypnotically enchanting prose style.

Margaret L. Carter

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

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware major spoilers (you'll get pretty much the whole story here)! 

Of late on the Alien Romances Blog, I've been reviewing "reimagined and unconventional fairytales" written by T. Kingfisher. In my first take on Kingfisher's loose renderings of fairytales, I reviewed Nettle & Bone, which is basically a subversion of everything that's been done in a fairytale all rolled into one, along with Bryony and Roses ("Beauty and the Beast") and Thornhedge ("Sleeping Beauty"). After that, I reviewed The Seventh Bride ("Mr. Fox"/"The Robber Bridegroom", and other aberrations) by itself followed by A Sorceress Comes to Call ("The Goose Girl"). 

In preparation for reading The Raven and the Reindeer, a 2016 LGBTQ fantasy release, I re-read the 1844 original Danish tale "The Snow Queen" published in New Fairy Tales, First Volume by Hans Christian Andersen. You can find it online free in many different places. Unlike most of these fairytales, this one is presented in seven long, mostly boring chapters in which a lot of crap that doesn't matter in the least is included and the stuff that's really important is unforgivably skated over (more about that later). Some inventive adaptations of the original that most people will know include C. S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and Disney's Frozen. 

So the basic story in "The Snow Queen" is that the devil makes a magic mirror that reflects only the worst aspects of everyone and everything. When it shatters, pieces of it fall and get stuck in people's eyes and hearts, forcing them to become cold and bitter. Gerda and Kai (both names are spelled differently from one variation to the next) are children who grow up next door to each other. Gerda is in love with Kai, he kisses her, but then splinters of the mirror get in his eye and heart, changing him. The Snow Queen comes to town and takes Kai away with her. Gerda is determined to rescue him and goes through a whole lot to do that, though mainly we're forced to endure a lot of boring prose that does nothing to further the tale. All the aspects of "magic" and the supernatural that are the point of this whole story are offered up as short, simple facts, a presumption of acceptance is thrown down like a gauntlet, and readers dare not question the plausibility of anything. Boiled down, the series of events Gerda goes through are:

1)    Gerda is enchanted by a witch who puts her to work in her garden for an endless amount of time until she's able to wake up…you know, somehow.

2)    A crow Gerda can talk to tells her he might have seen Kai in a palace--but it's not him, so it was a big waste of time even going there.

3)    Gerda is kidnapped by a band of robbers, but the robber girl and her reindeer decide to help Gerda instead.

4)    Traveling north, they meet two women. The second tells the reindeer that Gerda has special power that can save Kai--her sweet and innocent child's heart. If she can't figure it out from there, well, that's her problem!

5)    They get to the Snow Queen's palace and enter easily. This is where Kai has been put to work on a Mirror of Reason puzzle that enchants him to stay where he is forever. Gerda rushes to him and kisses him, the spell is broken, and her tears melt the splinters in his heart and eye.

6)    Happily ever after. I said, happily ever after, sir! Just accept it, okay? How, what, when, where, why? you splutter. It just is. I don't know what happened to the crow or the robber girl or the reindeer. Gerda and Kai get away--the Snow Queen apparently was getting her hair done or something, and they're free to leave, go home, and Grandma reads a passage from the Bible about changing and becoming as little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I'm confused. What just happened? Does any of this make the slightest bit of sense? The bigger question, to me, is, how did this story become such a popular one? I mentioned two popular retellings, but there are dozens in existence. Unfathomably. In Kingfisher's acknowledgements, she wonders about that as well. Maybe because it was done so incompletely and poorly?

So, here's my big gripe: Nearly all old fairytales present a story that's almost always rife with unbelievable magic or events that are in no way explained, justifiable, or even particularly detailed. More like's it's presented as if readers are expected to go along with it, like, "Oh, it's magic/unbelievable/crazy. So that happened. Okay, I believe it. Onward!" Except you can't quite believe it because there's no basis for justification. You either move forward, accept that it's all silly and just keep reading because period…or you don't. It's as if the authors didn't feel the need to get their audience to accept the plausibility of their tales. You'd think they would or could have at least tried to provide some kind of elucidation. So often, they didn't bother. Don't ask me why not, or why the publishers didn't make it a requirement then. I can't even imagine. 

I realize most of you already know what the literary concept of "suspension of disbelief" is, but I'll reiterate the gist of it here just to make sure everyone's on the same page, since that's the foundation of this review. In essence, a valid explanation is introduced early in the story that gives the readers what they need to accept something fantastically implausible. If a reader isn't given this justification, it's almost impossible for them to immerse themselves in the story at any point. It's too unbelievable. I'd add that readers who aren't given something convincing enough in this regard either chuck the book over the side of the boat or they spend the rest of the narration in the booing section, shouting snide comments like, "And how exactly did they do that?" every few seconds. 

The original fairytale "The Snow Queen" is one of the worst I've ever seen when it comes to the author not giving even the slightest hint of something that would allow suspension of disbelief. Readers are moved from one situation to the next and, if the writer had done the slightest bit of work (hey, that's part of the craft!), maybe those situation could have been exciting and worthwhile. Instead, we're just left to muddle our way through a thicket of dense forest in the dark with no idea what's important and what's not. We're relieved when it's over, sure, but not for the reason I suspect the author intended. 

T. Kingfisher's rendition, The Raven and the Reindeer, went through every single chapter of Anderson's pitiful, poorly constructed story and gave us worthy justifications that allowed for suspension of disbelief from start to finish. As I read "The Snow Queen", the same question kept come back from one scenario to the next: "How in the world did that work?" I never found out. The author had a really good idea for a story, but he didn't bother to write anything but this skeleton that was bloated with unsightly and painful boils. Mainly, he got sidetracked by silliness that does not story construction make. 

So now I'll tell you how Kingfisher told this tale: Gerta is in love with Kay, and though they're friends, he doesn't seem to know what to make of their relationship, though he does kiss her once--something that confuses her, as well it should. They grew up as neighbors. He's a strange boy who likes puzzles, but she doesn't mind his oddities, though she's put off by them sometimes, internalizing them. She has a nightmare one night, in which Kay is kidnapped by a frost queen in a sled. The next morning, she sees something is definitely going on because the boy she's known all her life has become cold and cruel. Not long later, Kay goes missing and Gerta realizes, after talking to her very knowledgeable grandmother, that it was the Snow Queen who took him. Gerta is determined to get him back. She thinks she may be in love with him, but she isn't sure about that. She sets off and doesn't really know where to go or how to get there, which is probably why she fumbles through so many bad episodes along the way. Boiled down, the series of events Gerta follows after this point are:

1)    Gerta is enchanted by a witch who isn't evil or particularly powerful, just lonely. She puts her under an enchantment. Every day Gerta works in her garden. Seven months pass. A memory of Kay jars Gerta so she wakes up to realize something bad is happening to her. She talks to the flowers in the garden, who tell her Kay can't be dead because, being one with the whole earth, they would know if his body joined theirs. Gerta confronts the witch, who repents and gives her the basic supplies she needs to survive her journey.

2)    A raven named Mousebones that Gerda can talk to joins her on the road. He's loyal and very helpful in his way, when he wants to be, but he's also sharp-tongued. Fun!

3)    Gerta is kidnapped by a band of robbers who want to eat her, but the robber girl with them, Janna, is also a prisoner of sorts. She and her reindeer (who Gerta can also talk to) decide to help Gerta instead. In fact, the reindeer is so old and lonely for a herd that he offers up his skin so Gerta can walk the reindeer road, which is the only way Gerta can get into the Snow Queen's realm. (In essence, the reindeer willingly gives up his skin so Gerta can wear it and become a reindeer.) When Janna kisses Gerta, she becomes very confused about her feelings for Kay.

4)    Traveling north, they meet an old storyteller who tells them to find Livli, a Lutheran and one who understands reindeer and cold in ways few others can.

5)    They find a tunnel into the Snow Queen's palace and, thanks to the very friendly and adorable otters that pull her sled, they're able to find Kay. The otters don't feel much loyalty to the monster they're forced to serve. Kay's been put to work on a puzzle all this time, and he's anything but friendly toward Gerta. He believes she's wasted her time trying to find him. Gerda has been wondering herself why she went to all this trouble. But she's reminded that he has ice splinters in his heart and eye, causing him to be cold and cruel to her and her new friends.

6)    The Snow Queen shows up, and she blasts Gerta with her icy powers. Gerta is, for all intents and purposes, dead--but remember how Gerta could talk to the flowers because they're connected with all things of the earth? Well, now semi-dead, Gerta is also of the earth and "Mother Nature" can talk to her directly. She tells Mother Nature that she's been under the Snow Queen's enchantment all this time, forestalling spring, and causing animals and other things of nature to go hungry, etc. This enrages Mother Nature, and she's coaxed into fighting back against this evil being. Gerta asks if she can be sent back to the world of the living, to Kay, sure, and her animal friends, but mostly to Janna, whom she's fallen in love with and intends to spend the rest of her life with just as soon as Kay is delivered home to his family. The friendly, flying otters are happy to assist now that they're also free. 

Even on the basis of this summary, I think you can imagine that this was a very well-constructed, tense, worthwhile story that has a more fitting and appropriate happily ever after than whatever the heck that was in the original tale. 

The Raven and the Reindeer takes the rattling bones of Anderson's bad, bad, bad story and makes it something unexpected, fully human, and intriguing. It's almost like a literal retelling in which all the important areas of the original that were foolishly left out are finally explained and logically played out. Gerta isn't someone who really understands herself or the world around her (like, at all), so she falls into a lot of traps, like believing she must be destined to end up with Kay as her soulmate, assuming everyone is honest and above-board, and taking so long to realize that her innate abilities are the very ones she needs to succeed in her quest. The character building here was fairly complex, unlike the original. To round all this out, we're treated to Kingfisher's trademark, animated, loveable creatures. In my opinion, they're what really made this particular story something special. 

The author herself (under her real name Ursula Vernon) designed the very cool and stunning cover art. 

I'm still hoping to get hold of Hemlock & Silver ("Snow White") soon to complete the circle of review of T. Kingfisher's fairytale retellings. 

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

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

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

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

Brain-Computer Interface News

A 41-year-old Colorado man has become a cyborg by way of electrodes implanted in his brain:

Brain-Computer Interface in Higher Levels of Brain

A spinal-cord injury nine years ago left him with paralyzed legs and limited control of his arms. With a brain-computer interface installed in his cortex, he's potentially regaining the use of his hands. He can already move a cursor with his mind and can feel his own fingers, which he couldn't do before the surgery. "There are three ports installed on top of his head that can connect and communicate with outside computers." Unlike similar devices that work with the motor area of the brain, this one in the "higher-functioning areas of the brain in the cortex" offers the possibility of "more natural and complete sensory and motor control." So far, the system is experimental, not available outside the lab. Eventually, researchers hope for "uses not only in motor control, but in cognitive control, possibly leading to therapies for mood disorders or dementia."

Here's a longer article that goes into more detail, such as how visualization enables the subject to produce effects on a computer screen. It also highlights how this research surpasses earlier projects in restoring sensory feedback, allowing the subject to feel objects as well as move them.

Paralyzed Man Gets Brain-Computer Implant

In the far-distant future, could a similar but much more advanced interface confer abilities such as those of Anne McCaffrey's brainships? That series focuses on people born with such severe defects they require extreme technological support to survive. At birth, they're immediately put into life-support "shells" whose electronic interfaces give them sensory and motor abilities beyond natural human capacity. As adults, most shell persons become the "brains" of starships, with an entire ship effectively functioning as the person's body (though some serve as the control centers of space stations instead). Or imagine a more down-to-Earth application, e.g., fully functional robot bodies for severely disabled people.

Margaret L. Carter

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

Other People's Golden Advice

My hands are still afflicted with carpal tunnel syndrome, so this weekend I will share links to some golden advice from other people.

Authors Guild has contract advice.

https://authorsguild.org/news/authors-guild-releases-new-ai-model-clauses-and-issues-updates/

Angela Hoy of Writers Weekly has publishing advice.
https://writersweekly.com/editors-desk/authors-the-traditional-book-publishing-industry-is-dying?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=writersweekly-com-112119_67

SFWA-sponsored Writer Beware has valuable advice about scams and dirty deeds targeting writers.
https://writerbeware.blog/

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Miss Spitfire (Reaching Helen Keller) by Sarah Miller by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Miss Spitfire (Reaching Helen Keller) by Sarah Miller

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

This post is a little late for National Teacher Day, celebrated annually on the Tuesday of the first full week of May, but better late than never! While it's touted as a historical children's story, anyone who loves Helen Keller and inspirational stories is sure to enjoy this one.  

My first experience with Sarah Miller was a novel called Caroline, a novelized take of the Laura Ingalls Wilder tales from the point of view of Laura's patient, gentle, long-suffering mother. I enjoyed very much seeing familiar, beloved scenes written from the viewpoint of another character--one who's so different from impulsive, headstrong Laura. This is one of Miller's great loves--fictionalized retakes of stories we know told in a unique point of view. Other accounts Miller's done are of Lizzie Borden, Lorena Hickok (friend of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt); Mary Surratt, the first woman to be executed for her alleged involvement in Lincoln's assassination; along with an alternate view of Alcott's beloved Little Women from the perspective of Margaret March.

When I saw the author's first release in July 10, 2007 was a fictionalized version of Helen Keller from the point of view of her teacher Anne Sullivan, I knew I had to read it. I listened to the audiobook of Miss Spitfire (Reaching Helen Keller), which was wonderfully narrated by Terry Donnell, who's also voice-acted many of historical fantasy author Juliet Marillier's books. Her authentic Irish accent brings this account to life in a way few others could have done justice to. 

From the youngest age, I loved the story of Helen Keller, who was a spitfire in her own right. I didn't know too much about her teacher, though naturally one develops great respect for anyone willing to put up with the kind of bratty ill-treatment Helen dished out. Anne Sullivan went above and beyond. But she was a hard woman who'd had enough of bad behavior in her childhood (she was 20 when she became Helen's teacher) to refuse to tolerate it, so there were times it wasn't easy to listen to what came off to me as semi-abusive. That said, it was equally hard oftentimes to feel sorry for Helen because she was such a wild animal at first. Even when you understand she lived in a world she couldn't understand with her senses, the way most of us do, it's difficult to imagine the unwavering, compassionate determination of someone like Anne Sullivan after Helen inflicted such injuries and cruelty on her teacher. 

Anne herself was a spitfire, an orphan who lost everything, that was put in situations that could easily have broken her. She suffered from partial blindness herself (which became total a year before she died). With no other means to support herself, Anne is tasked with teaching a six-year-old girl how to communicate. Like Anne, Helen hadn't been born blind and deaf (she contracted a severe illness at 19 months old while Anne's partial blindness was the result of an infection when she was five). Both were highly intelligent. At first, Anne's not entirely sure how to go about such a monumental undertaking. At that time, there was little to guide her path when it came to proven methods of teaching the blind and deaf. Because she shares some of the same struggles, Anne can easily imagine what it must be like for this child to grow up feeling like an alien with little place of comfort nor understanding of the wider world she's forced to live in without explanation. In order for Anne to bridge connections between Helen and her world, Anne has to use manual alphabet and tactile methods combined with frustrating initial failures and incremental achievements. 

The author based this story on letters Anne wrote, excerpted at the beginning of each chapter. Full warning: This is not an upbeat, gentle tale. It starts out almost overwhelmingly tragic, filled with doubts and painful struggles. However, the thing that wins out above all is the inspirational message. Small, seemingly inconsequential triumphs can lead to success. Anne and Helen's story also makes you see the bigger picture when it comes to conceding defeat too early. Don't give up. The rewards we can reap from patient, dogged determination can domino through generations, far beyond what anyone might hope for or even dream. Helen Keller is and always will be known as a pillar of strength and perseverance--but let's not forget her tenacious teacher, Anne Sullivan, who never conceded defeat when she could so easily have done so and still gotten well-deserved credit for the effort she expended. Don't miss seeing both sides of this timeless, uplifting narrative that speaks boldly of human resilience and resourcefulness. 

 “Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.” ~Lady Bird Johnson 

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” ~W.B. Yeats 

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” ~Henry Adams 

 “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” ~Helen Keller 

“There is always satisfaction in the reflection that, if there were no trials, there would be no victories.” ~Anne Sullivan 

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/

Who Wants to Live Forever?

That's roughly the title of an article I came across in the newspaper over the weekend:

Want to Live Forever?

Disappontingly, the article doesn't offer the secret to immortality. It suggests three main ways of extending one's lifespan, two of them rather mundane: Vitamin B12 as an aid to physical and mental health in aging; maintaining optimal sleep rhythms; becoming a Greenland shark. Found to live two centuries or more, Greenland sharks have "evolved resilience to molecular and tissue damage over time."

Here's the Wikipedia page on the longest-lived known species in various categories:

List of Longest-Living Organisms

Even not counting colonies, clones, microbes, or creatures such as the "immortal jellyfish" (reverting to a larval stage and cycling through repeated growth phases), it's worth noting that almost all the extraordinarily long-lived species -- those that exceed the normal human lifespan -- aren't mammals. Some trees are 4000 years old or more. The glass sponge can reach 10,000 years. Another type of sponge is known to live to 1550 years, while tubeworms may reach 1000. One particular Greenland shark may be over 500 years old, the longest living vertebrate. Giant tortoises' lifespans have been estimated at approximately or, in at least one case, beyond 200 years. Bowhead whales may reach two centuries, making them the longest-lived mammals. Some birds live to over 100. Virtually all the other animals on the list capable of outliving us aren't warmblooded. Moreover, many of them dwell in cold environments, particularly aquatic. Is there something about cold water that promotes longevity?

Judging from the known record-holders among humans, our maximum lifespan peaks around 120. Therefore, Robert Heinlein's fascinating life-extension project, as described in METHUSELAH'S CHILDREN and related works such as TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE and TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET, simply wouldn't work the way it's portrayed. If the genetically determined limit on our lifespan is set at 120, no amount of concentrated inbreeding among individuals with genes for longevity would produce descendants surviving for multiple centuries. The breeding project couldn't create new genes. A mutation would be needed; in the introduction to TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE, it's explicitly stated that Lazarus Long, born near the beginning of the multigenerational project and practically immortal (although even he, like everybody else, requires artificial life-extension treatments to go on surviving indefinitely), owes his phenomenal age and perpetual youth to a mutation. In much later generations, after he has spread his genes throughout the network of "Howard Families," it would be plausible for all their offspring to live for centuries without aging beyond maturity. But not at the time of METHUSELAH'S CHILDREN.

Anyway, as the theme song to the TV series HIGHLANDER puts it, who wants to live forever? One society in Jonathan Swift's GULLVER'S TRAVELS includes a subset of immortal people. They do grow old, however, and they have an unhappy lot in other ways. Senility inevitably creeps up on them. Well before that, at a certain point in their lives they are declared legally dead, their possessions transferred to their heirs. Classical mythology features a similar cautionary tale, about a goddess who petitions endless life for her lover but forgets to include endless youth. Even if immortals remained in the prime of perpetual health, would they really want to outlive their mortal loved ones? Boredom with deathless existence appears frequently in vampire stories, leading to suicide by daylight (in the case of those vulnerable to the sun). TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE starts with Lazarus Long trying to kill himself out of boredom. Endless extension of earthly life as we know it doesn't sound too appealing. Linear survival in "chronos" -- ordinary clock time -- wouldn't be the same as eternal life in "kairos," a richer, multidimensional mode of life.

Margaret L. Carter

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

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware spoilers! 

Of late on the Alien Romances Blog, I've been reviewing "reimagined and unconventional fairytales" written by T. Kingfisher. I came up with this list of her selections, arranged below on the basis of their publication dates: 

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

Bryony and Roses ("Beauty and the Beast")

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

Thornhedge ("Sleeping Beauty")

A Sorceress Comes to Call ("Goose Girl")

Hemlock & Silver ("Snow White") 

In my first take on Kingfisher's loose renderings of fairytales, I reviewed Nettle & Bone, which is basically a subversion of everything that's been done in a fairytale all rolled into one, along with Bryony and Roses and Thornhedge. After that, I reviewed The Seventh Bride by itself. 

In preparation for reading A Sorceress Comes to Call, a 2024 fantasy release focused on "a dark retelling" (which is what it's been described as in reviews and summaries), I refreshed myself on the 1815 German tale "The Goose Girl" published in Grimm's Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm. You can find it online free in many different places. 

The crux of that story is that a mother trusts a maid who works for them to ensure her princess daughter gets delivered safely to the prince she'll be marrying. The mother (not apparently a witch?) makes some supernatural preparations to that end--namely, ensuring their magical horse Falada goes along and by giving her daughter a handkerchief that's been enchanted. En route (and long story short), the princess loses her charm (literally, it falls out of her bosom and gets washed down the stream; bye-bye enchantment--it floats out of the story from that point on, out of sight and out of mind) while the maid declares mutiny and forces the princess to swap roles (and clothes) with her so she can pose as the princess. Meanwhile, the real one becomes her maid. This schemer extracts an oath from the princess to prevent her from telling the truth to the royal family she'll be marrying into. The maid anticipates becoming rich and pampered for the rest of her days. It's a brilliant plan, really, until they get to the castle of the bridegroom. The real princess is sent to care for the geese, the horse is promptly beheaded, and the maid is whisked away to prepare for her happily-ever-after. 

Alas, the destiny of royalty can't be hidden or squelched under rags and menial labor…you know, or something. When the princess lets down her golden hair, the boy Conrad she works with is possessed with the desire to snatch a few of the valuable tresses, so she voices an enchantment to make his hat blow away so she has time to brush out and plait her hair each day. Thank goodness for her princess hair, or this tale would have gone seriously wrong! And let's not get into how, if she's like her mom and can conjure enchantments, why not produce one that sets this all aright? 

Anyway, this happens between "The Goose Girl" and Conrad many times. Eventually, he gets sick of weird things happening around her, goes to the king (apparently any Tom, Dick and Harry can approach the king himself for any reason) and says he won't herd geese with her anymore. The king convinces him to continue one more day, and that morning the king watches in stealth. Finding things just as Conrad told him they were with this strange girl, the king summons her and orders her to tell him her story. She says she can't because of the oath the maid dragged out of her. He suggests she go tell the stove then. (Yes, you read that right.) She climbs in, lays her troubles bare to the cast iron, and he hears everything. 

At that point, the king decides to trick the maid into choosing the manner of her own punishment. Hey presto! All gets swapped back to the way they're fated to be. We've all long forgotten the magical elements her mother sent her on her way bearing. So, what was the point of them? Who knows? In any case, I'm sure the prince must not have been swindled into believing the maid was authentic at any point because he sure doesn't seem to mind the new bride that gets traded in while the one he thought he was going to marry ends up dragged naked through the kingdom in a barrel filled with spikes. Summary: I can safely say that T. Kingfisher's version wasn't much darker than the original. 

Okay, so now that you know the basis of "The Goose Girl" story (if for some odd reason you didn't already know it), I'll tell you that A Sorceress Comes to Call is almost nothing like it. To even call it a loose rendition is a stretch. For the life of me, I couldn't twist or finagle Kingfisher's story to fit much of anything within the fairytale it was supposedly based on beyond that, in A Sorceress Comes to Call, there's a magical horse named Falada who eventually becomes headless and there were geese (after a fashion) in the retelling. 

None of this is actually a judgment on Kingfisher's story, nor was there any real sadness in there not being much by way of parallels between these two. I would, however, like to hear it directly from the author why or how the original story inspired her tale. 'Cause I just don't get it. Almost always, Kingfisher includes some illumination about her inspiration for the story in the note she puts at the end of nearly all her books. With this one, she didn't bother to mention it, and this is the one I'm most wanting an explanation for. Sigh. Getting past that (I will eventually), I will say that A Sorceress Comes to Call was just as unique and unexpected as its predecessor. 

Fourteen-year-old Cordelia isn't a princess and her mother is not only a living nightmare but also a dreadful sorceress with a horse-shaped familiar. When their finances run to ground, Evangeline decides to snag a rich squire for herself. In order to do so, she first has to win him with her natural charm, as any magical enchantment enhancements would be broken during the church wedding ceremony (which uses wine, salt, and water) to ensure nothing unholy takes place. What Evangeline hasn't counted on is the Squire's sister Hester, a woman who chose to be a spinster (long story you'll discover in the course of reading this). Hester befriends Cordelia and realizes her mother is far removed from the innocent, sweet woman of misfortune she appears to be--only on the surface. From that point on, Hester becomes determined to save her brother along with this poor, abused daughter of an evil witch. But how to do that? 

I would have liked to know more specifics about Evangeline's origins, though the story does give a basic presumption about what happened to the most powerful sorceresses in that time period and area. Outside of that, the story told was very satisfying, filled with thoroughly engaging characters. Again, Kingfisher's lively prose made for a humorous, suspenseful journey toward solving a most beguiling conundrum about what to do when a sorceress comes to call. 

I'm hoping to get hold of Kingfisher's newest (at the time of this writing in November 2025), Hemlock & Silver, soon for review to complete the circle of fairytale-spun retellings. Don't miss this one. It may not be anything like the origin story, which you might want to peruse before or after, but it's definitely worth a read on its own, considerable merits. 

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

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

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

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