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

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

 

Beware spoilers lurking in a novel with more shadows than were probably intended! 

Wow, did I not know what to make of this dark, medieval fantasy novel, The Starving Saints, the newest (published May 20, 2025) from Caitlin Starling. This author is firmly on my to-buy list--and, in fact, I purchased the hardcover almost as soon as it came out. Even as I did it, I realized it was a risk, as I seem to react to Starling's books as either a ravenous fan or a reader irrevocably repulsed. Her novels The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence (both reviewed previously on this blog) are favorites of mine. That said, the stories I tend not to like by her are still uniquely, unmistakably Starling works. I'd want to read them, even if I ultimately hated them. Her handling of certain subject matters horrifies me…and probably not the way she would have preferred in this case. I'd have to put this particular novel firmly on the list of those by her that I didn't like. The reasons are as complex as the story itself. So let's get to it. 

The basic story here is that Aymar Castle (set in a made up, medieval fantasy world) has been under siege for the past half a year. With food stores running low, hope dwindles, and desperation becomes the order of the day as there's seemingly no way out of this place. Then, out of nowhere (readers are never really told or made to understand how or definitively why), The Constant Lady and her three Saints (a twisted take on established religion that cruelly portrays bees--unequivocally summum bonum in the world of insects!--as villains) appear. The so-called divine offer sustenance and healing in exchange for adoration, but the price is far too high--at least for three main characters. Having a trio of points of view offered a 360-degree rendering of this dire situation. Whether or not these viewpoints are adequately well-drawn is, to my mind, a moot point. 

Phosyne was a nun who's become a sorceress of sorts (no idea what brought that about). At the king's command, she somehow--even she doesn't know how she did it--turned fouled, toxic water into potable drink for the survivors. He's now tasked her with conjuring food out of nothing and nowhere, a known impossibility. But kings in any universe are always petulantly and imperiously demanding miracles of their underlings. That said, Phosyne wasn't a character to champion. In the latter half of the book, she speaks her true goal, and it's not pretty. Phosyne accuses the Lady of "playing with her food", and the evil deity shrugs off any guilt about seasoning her meat, keeping it occupied, and providing fertile fields for it to gorge itself. Soon Phosyne would understand the gratification of "having everything available to" her hungry teeth. It's at that point that this dubious heroine realizes she is hungry. "But it's not the hunger of an empty stomach. It's the need to taste. To chew. To consume. She wants to indulge." So, that's her angle in all its potentially ugly facets. 

Ser Voyne is a knight, a war hero pledged to the Constant Lady as well as to her king, even if she doesn't exactly respect him. Voyne is trying to keep order over a place plunged into utter chaos. She has to decide whether following orders is wise when the leaders no longer know or are willing to do what's best for the people. As a character, Voyne is wishy-washy. When she finally answers the question about who to "worship" (because that's precisely how she loyally obeys), it's little more than transferring her disturbing adoration from one unworthy target to another. 

Treila is a noble pretending to be a serving girl who refuses to admit to herself that she'd lusted after the big, beautiful knight who'd murdered her father. Now she longs for revenge. Or does she long for something far darker? Imagine someone willing to do anything, no matter how depraved, to survive. In Treila's world, it's literally eat or be eaten. And she's fully capable of doing whatever needs to be done to help herself. Not exactly noble or worth rooting for from my perspective. 

All of these protagonists were weirdly complex and equally superficial. (Trust me, I think you'll understand that contradiction if you read the book.) One reviewer described the main characters' lack of development as "flip-flopping like a dying fish". True, we learned little more about them than what was necessary for the plot, a failure that struck me as sloppily convenient. That's just part of it though. None of these women were precisely good nor precisely evil--a complication that led to my lingering frustration over this book. If there's no one to root for, what's the purpose? Naturally, I couldn't champion the Lady or her saints--they were full-on evil. But the three heroines had agendas and motivations I didn't feel comfortable getting onboard with either. Starling's own definition of them as "complicated and sometimes terrible" was accurate. At least two of the protagonists were portrayed as selfish and abnormally self-serving while the knight seemed short-sighted and foolish with her blindly loyal veneration of unworthy beings. 

Starling is noted for her lesbian fiction, which is generally well crafted. But the three-way attraction between these women came off as forced and far-fetched. There was nothing sexy or authentic about it. Again, why? What purpose did it serve to force them to ally when few compelling, let alone strong, connections actually bound them? 

Unequivocally, The Starving Saints failed as the horror novel it was hailed as in everything I read about it. In an interview, the author said that she's a "big believer in limiting the narration of a story to what the characters perceive and comprehend, or don't. I keep my 'camera' very zoomed in." She asserts confidently that that enhances the horror. I found it did exactly the opposite. Not knowing what to be afraid of or to dread was my biggest disappointment with the story. Starling knows how to create atmosphere. She's effortlessly brilliant at it. However, as promising as this slow, plodding novel started out, the unnerving undertone quickly became mired in too many instances of dense fog. Should I have been horrified by the cannibalism (it was an unrestrained, gore-strewn, grotesque ick), the monsters (which ones were good or evil? who knows), the corrupt agendas of all, the shocking misuse of power by everyone who wielded it at various times as the story progressed? All hints at creepiness fizzled out because nothing came into focus clearly enough to scare the crap out of me--you know, my deepest longing when reading a horror novel. The author drowned readers with characters flagrantly telling, not really showing us, wild theories about all these hazy, shadowy things, but none were convincing enough to be presented as more than abstract methods of confusion. Ultimately, there was nothing scary, beyond that a writer would indulge in writing something like this without developing the plot and characters on a concrete foundation that helps ground readers from start of story to what I wanted to be a dazzling finish. (As to that, I didn't trust the hands left wielding all the power so it was the exact opposite of a happily ever after. But I guess those are no longer what readers are looking for.) In the end, it all came down to floundering for answers that were kept away--because the author herself didn't have any; hadn't even bothered crafting them. That stinks of laziness, not deliberate cleverness, to me. 

Long years ago, I remember going on my first ever fantasy LARP quest before it became a big deal or was in any way well-done. No one on my team knew how to get started, what we should be doing, what was, frankly, going on. We spent a lot of time racing around, searching for clues that providing little more than added uncertainty, and looking at each other, expressing our confusion in these glances as well as in our increasingly frustrated words. That's what I felt like I was doing alongside fellow readers while reading The Starving Saint. Readers need, at the very least, veiled, skillful directions, just as LARPers (especially beginning ones) do. My LARP team members were all thinking, Do you know what's going on? What that's all about? Is it important? What is important? Who should we be rooting for? Is that the bad guy? What should be paying attention to? Where are all these unformed details going? Is there a purpose to this or anything? I never really found out the answers to any of these questions before closing The Starving Saints for the last time. I felt lost and unsatisfied for most of the disturbing events in this massacre of a story. 

If I had to guess at the purpose of The Starving Saints, I'd throw out the nebulous theory that the author was playing with the ramifications of absolute power corrupting absolutely. Even someone who starts out altruistic will eventually fall to the hypnotizing lure and potential of power. But, as no one in this story qualified as a bona fide hero, that lesson didn't really come across. A wanna-be hero doesn't have far to fall themselves. There's little difference between them and the villain. Seems to me a waste not to set the stakes higher. But these days, it seems no one wants a hero in their fiction, something I'll probably never understand. 

The setting itself was deliberately sketched to be obscure; on the whole, a bubble world set nowhere in particular to deflect attention from it. However, this isn't an insult. In this, I felt the lack of development fit the needs of the story. None of the characters in the castle realized the outside world no longer existed because the indeterminate antagonist(s) had enclosed it in a honeyed hive, where nothing could touch or steal its prize. In soft echo, I was harkened back to Poe's brilliant "The Masque of the Red Death" with this tale. To me, that was its saving grace. 

A lot of minor things bugged me while reading this: 1) How often Starling fell into modern slang so out of place in a medieval setting, 2) how randomly and inconsistently the author used contractions, and 3) the use of cliffhanger chapters without adequate picking up of the threads once that particular point of view was revisited.

In the author's defense, (she tells us in the acknowledgements in the back of the book) she wrote the initial draft of this book during the COVID lockdown. She wrote it in a messy, out of order way--an attempt to mirror and/or sort out her anxiety. I remember the book I wrote myself during the lockdown--what I, to this day, call my COVID book. While I ended up really liking it, it's hard for me to read it now without concluding it was written a bit too perfectly. During that time, I was so hollow and unable to feel anything that layering emotion into the story was a brutally exacting exercise of my skill with the writing craft. Everything the story needed, it has, and yet I was distanced by my own experiences during that suffocating time. I know I'm not the only author who suffered deeply and yet didn't want to lose my heroic feats at continuing my profession during such a dry period. My publisher and I decided my efforts were worth releasing to the world, and, in that way, something good did come out of a terrible circumstance. I never envied other authors and publishers the task in trying to decide what was worth saving from that time for them either. If nothing else, Starling created something unique with The Starving Saints that leaves an indelible impression. If you're like me, you'll have to read it because she wrote it and it could be one of the best books ever written, though, unfortunately, I didn't find it to be worthwhile, as several others of hers are. 

All this said, I'm still eagerly looking forward to Starling's brand new release, The Graceview Patient, (released October 14, 2025). 

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/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

This first edition cover (UK), frankly looks like something the author's kid might have created with crayons. We've come a long way, baby. 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

It's hard to imagine the classic horror novel, The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, is 128 years old. It was first published in 1896 and, oh, how it has stood the test of time! This story serves as our earliest depiction of "uplift", which is a science fiction motif where an advanced race intervenes in evolving an animal species to a higher level of intelligence. 

The Island of Dr. Moreau starts with a scientifically trained Englishman named Edward Prendick surviving a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean. After being rescued by a passing ship, he's cared for by a man named Montgomery. There, he meets who he assumes is Montgomery's manservant, M'ling, a grotesque bestial native. The ship is transporting a variety of animals to Montgomery's destination--the island of Dr. Moreau, his employer. Once they arrive, Prendick is forced off the ship by the captain, and Montgomery agrees that he can stay temporarily, though few ships pass the island. 

It isn't long before Prendick recalls who Dr. Moreau is--formerly a promising, respected physiologist who was forced out of the scientific community once his gruesome vivisection experiments were exposed. Moreau has all but disappeared in the 11 years since. 

Hearing the screams of the doctor's tortured patients on two early occasions, Prendick is driven by compassion out of the enclosed compound into the jungle. There, he begins to piece together the true horror of what's being done on this remote island. He discovers a colony of half-human/half-animal creatures living in the jungle. They're led by a creature called the "Sayer of the Law". They recite over and over their law, given to them by Moreau, their maker, which prohibits bestial behavior: 

Not to go on all-fours; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to eat Fish or Flesh; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not men?

Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not men? 

When I was a kid and watched the 1977 movie version of this book, the ritualistic chanting made quite an impression on me. It shocked and horrified me that Moreau made them obey his laws or he'd severely punish them by sending him to the House of Pain. To be so far removed from those he's, in one perspective, fathered, to feel so little regret or sorrow for their condition, was inconceivable to me, even at that young age. 

Moreau later admits that these "Beast Folk" weren't formerly men but animals he's operated and experimented on in hopes of transforming an animal completely into a human. With each new subject, he wants to believe he's getting closer to perfection, yet each time they revert to their animal form and behavior eventually. 

The balance in this fragile environment begins to erode with Prendick and his intact sense of morality (something Moreau lacks entirely and Montgomery has been losing steadily, at the cost of his own sanity, all these years) pushing it toward the edge. Seeing Prendick's rebellious behavior toward Moreau and Montgomery, the beasts soon begin retaliating for all their years of pain and suffering at the hands of the true monster in their midst. 

To put this story into the context of the time period it was published, note that in 1896, the possibly of humanity's degeneration was being discussed fervently in Europe. That's a whole 'nother subject that can be embarked upon at the reader's leisure and level of interest aside from this review. However, suffice it to say that several groups rose in opposition of animal vivisection on the basis of the topic, and The Island of Dr. Moreau is the author's reflection on the ethical, philosophical, and scientific concerns and controversies of that time period, most especially inspired by the trial of Oscar Wilde. Wells said in his preface to his collected works that The Island of Dr. Moreau embodies an ideal but otherwise "has no allegorical quality". Sure, whatever. 

Whatever the case, it's just plain a fantastic story of horror and, like Frankenstein, takes the concept of showing the monster being more the ideal of what man should be than the man himself, and, in that way, the man is the true monster. This is a story that I can't imagine anyone not finding compelling. Every part of it is perfectly developed. 

The Island of Dr. Moreau has inspired countless artistic endeavors, more than can be documented in this short review, but each of these is a testament to a story so compelling, even a century later, we're still influenced by the resonating message it proclaims. The countless films that have attempted to follow the book version are mainly all worthy of being watched at least, but it's the novel that, above all, shouldn't be missed. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells was published in 1895 and is another story by this prolific author that's brilliantly passed the test of time. This forerunner of time-traveling fiction is as amazing now as it was in its own time period. A previous short story by Wells (1888's "The Chronic Argonauts", published in his college newspaper) was the foundation for the novella. 

I resisted reading The Time Machine for a long time because, as I said in my previous review of Timeline by Michael Crichton, I'm not a fan of time-travel fiction, which tends to be convoluted and dependent on too many elements having to converge at exactly the right moment or it simply won't work. In the case of 99% of these types of stories, I find the odds simply too astronomical for me to believe it's possible. And yet in every one of these stories, it does work. Impossibly. And, for the most part, stupidly. So I resisted this pivotal example of one of (the only two, in my opinion) the finest pieces of time-travel fiction available for a long time. Once I finally caved in and read it, it was nothing like I expected with elements of time-travel, yes, but also of horror and adventure, with a post-apocalyptic slant. 

Set in Victorian England (a time period I adore), a gentleman, scientist, and inventor identified only as the Time Traveller journeys into the far future and meets a small, "intellectually degraded", humanoid group called Eloi who live on the surface of the planet along with savage and simian Morlocks, underground darkness dwellers who only emerge at night to capture the Eloi. 

In the  story, the protagonist travels through time for a bit of adventure and goes right back out into other time periods using his machine after returning to tell his friends the tale of the Eloi and Morlocks. There is no deeper reason for his endeavors in creating and using this machine, but many since The Time Machine's publication have attempted to provide answers and justifications and sequels to this very brief story. I must say that I did actually enjoy the 2002 film version with Guy Pearce that gives the Time Traveller a deeply emotional reason for why he (a university professor and inventor) developed a time machine, as well as a name--Dr. Alexander Hartdegen. Follow-ups to the original story do hold appeal, but be sure not to miss the novella that started it all. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Terror by Dan Simmons by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Terror by Dan Simmons

by Karen S. Wiesner 

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Two irresistible subjects for me are Antarctica and fictional horror creatures. The Terror came close enough to having both of them for me. This 2007 novel by Dan Simmons takes place in the Arctic, the most northern place on earth, while Antarctica is the most southern, but "ice everywhere you look" is a tidy description for both places. Simmons' fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin's lost expedition to find the Northwest Passage from 1845-1848 has everything a boring, dry history book might skim over or even leave out--and it has the goods aplenty.   

The story starts with two HMS ships, Erebus and Terror, trapped in the ice 28 miles north-northwest of King William Island. They've been there for more than a year, their provisions are dwindling, and there's no wildlife to be hunted. But something is hunting them. Called "the terror", this indestructible monster seems to have taken the form of a colossal polar bear with a hideously long neck. Additionally, one of the parties sent out earlier encountered "Esquimaux" (Eskimos) while out on the ice. They shoot the old man, supposedly an accident, and end up bringing the young woman back to the ships with them. When they discover her tongue has been bitten off, they begin calling her "Lady Silence". 

The main character is Captain Francis Crozier, second to Sir John Franklin, who quickly becomes commander of the expedition when their leader is lost. Crozier is initially a drunk (forced into sobriety by a lingering illness) with insecurities stemming from his Irish heritage and his societally unimpressive beginnings which surely led to him being rejected as a suitor by the Captain's own niece. Crozier may or may not have psychic abilities. Other characters of note are Commander James Fitzjames, third in command, an upper-class officer in the Royal Navy. Dr. Henry D. S. Goodsir, an anatomist, considered the least of the four doctors caring for the crews, was a phenomenal character. In his unflagging humility and compassion, he gained the respect of both crews. The antagonist is most certainly Caulker's Mate Cornelius Hickey, who compels a desperate band of rebels to attempt mutiny. 

Before and after the dwindling crew abandons both ships, they're beset with one catastrophe after another in the form of starvation, illnesses and an unending catalog of maladies. It's discovered by Goodsir that the tinned provisions are all tainted with lead from soldering and are often putrid--the result of His Majesty's Navy taking the lowest bid to stock the ships with foodstuffs. Any help from the indigenous tribes is quickly squandered by the cannibalistic mutineer and his despairingly hungry band of insurgents. As if that isn't enough, the "Chenoo" ice monster that pursues them wherever they go seems to have a personal grudge against them. Does the Lady Silence, herself a shaman, know something about that? 

This book is absolutely not for the faint of heart. The landscape is ruthless and bleak (so well written, you'll feel the icy wind at the back of your neck, making you shiver). The themes explored arise from hopelessness, desolation, trapped and depraved conditions, where human beings are pushed right to the edge of humanity as well as sanity. With players being picked off left and right from every direction, you'll soon lose track of who you're rooting for, in some cases, because the protagonist is ripped from the story by a sudden and shocking death. The ending is unexpected and equally horrifying but I was somehow gratified by how it came back around to the beginning. (Beware spoiler below!) 

 

Crozier and Lady Silence, now lovers with children, are the only survivors of the tragedy. Their family comes upon the HMS Terror, still afloat almost 200 hundred miles south of her original "prison". After touring it, he sets it on fire and watches it burn and finally sink, lost to the ice, as the man he once was is and will now always be. 

 

Another reason this massive tome isn't for the meek is its sheer length. The hardcover is nearly 800 pages, larger than even most history books! One other thing threw me a bit--the story opened in medias res ("into the middle of things”), so chronologically, we were put in the middle of the plot instead of the beginning in these opening pages. I normally wouldn't mind that, but I entered a historical-like account in present tense, and whenever I was thrust in medias res, I felt like I was floundering and ungrounded. Luckily, most of the book wasn't written that way, but that nearly kept me from continuing both times I read this book--the first time when it initially came out as a hardcover in 2007 as well in as my recent reading. 

Additionally, Simmons has a very Stephen King-esque style of writing, in that he includes details that you either didn't want to know or would have assumed anyway if he'd just had the good manners to leave them out. Some call such information flavor. I call it bad taste. (I really don't care what color pubic hair or areolas anyone has, nor what someone's body does involuntarily while he's sleeping. Though flatulence did drive one particular plot of King's, I don't know of any other story that actually "benefits" from sensory details like this.) 

In any case, despite a cast larger than most encyclopedias, the characters in this setting, immersed in such a tense plot, are well worth the endeavor of taking on this intense reading project. Nearly twenty years after its publication, it certainly stands the test of time. 

If you're not up for this in-depth read, though, you don't have to miss The Terror's incredible story. There's a TV series that at least starts on the basis of Simmons' novel. The first season, making up 10 episodes, covers the entire novel, and pretty faithfully at that. Season 2 (and the upcoming 3) is also based on another mysterious event with a supernatural twist. Jared Harris as Crozier, Ciarán Hinds as Franklin, Tobias Menzies as Fitzjames, and Paul Ready as Goodsir were standout actors. In whatever form you choose to take in this story, just don't miss it. 

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

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

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

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

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

Fungal Possession

I recently read THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS, by M. R. Carey. I'm not a great fan of zombie fiction or films in general, because typical zombies aren't so much characters as rampaging forces of natural destruction. This book is something else, though. The monsters responsible for the collapse of civilization are called "hungries," never zombies, although most of them fit the Z-word stereotype. Melanie and the other children in her "class" on a prison-like military base, however, are different. They're conscious and sapient. She doesn't remember any life outside the building where she's confined to a cell except when escorted to the shower or the classroom. She doesn't know she and her friends are hungries, since the staff follows strict protocols to avoid activating the instinct to attack and feed. Still less does she suspect the children are experimental subjects, kept alive solely in hope that studying them may reveal a cure for the pandemic that triggered the apocalypse. Nor does she know what happens to her friends who disappear.

Their condition is caused by a fungus that infests and takes over a human body, replacing the brain with a network of mycelium threads. The resultant fleshly automaton alternates between two states of being, passive immobility and ravenous attack mode. Children like Melanie, in contrast, have varying degrees of cognitive capacity as well as, apparently, emotion and free will. Most of the uninfected people on the base agree with the sergeant in charge that these alleged traces of humanity are just mimicry by the fungus-infected host. From observing Melanie's inner life, we know better. She's more than a "dead kid" animated by a parasite. In this next generation of hosts, the organism has established a form of symbiosis.

A fungal network also breeds "zombies" and causes societal collapse in the post-apocalyptic TV series THE LAST OF US (which I haven't seen):

Fungi Superhighways

One of my favorite horror novels from T. Kingfisher, WHAT MOVES THE DEAD, retells "The Fall of the House of Usher" in science-fiction terms as a story of biological possession. A fungus lurking in the tarn has long since crept into the walls of the Usher mansion. From infiltrating the bodies of the hares that inhabit the nearby countryside, it has progressed to invading Madeline Usher. As a single super-organism with a hive mind, the fungus becomes more than sentient -- borderline sapient. It not only spreads through Madeline's body -- ultimately keeping her quasi-alive after she has technically died -- but takes root in her brain to learn from her. As the author's afterword notes, imagine how much the human characters could have learned from the parasite (and vice versa) if only they could have explained to it why most people dislike seeing dead things walk around.

The fungus in the walls of the gloomy mansion in Silvia Moreno-Garcia's MEXICAN GOTHIC doesn't kill its human hosts. Rather, its symbiotic infestation confers healing and potential immortality. The protagonist, though, in trying to rescue a relative from her terrible marriage to a member of the family, discovers the less than desirable side of this seductive trap.

Fungal possession in horror fiction is based on a real phenomenon, the notorious "zombie ant" parasitism.

Zombie Ants

In tropical forests, a fungus invades the bodies of hapless carpenter ants and takes over their brains. It compels the ant to perform the unnatural behavior of climbing to a height and hooking itself to a leaf, where it soon dies. The fruiting body of the mature parasite bursts out of the insect's corpse and broadcasts spores.

Unlike traditional demon possession, this kind of "invasion of the body snatchers" can't be cured by exorcism. The climax of THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS discovers a way to coexist with it, but at a heavy price. On the other hand, suppose a similar organism existed in true symbiosis with human hosts, bestowing not only healing and prolonged life but enhanced intelligence or some kind of hive-mind telepathy?

Margaret L. Carter

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

What's Horror For?

As I mentioned last week, one of the speakers at this year's ICFA proposed that horror articulates feelings and experiences for which we often can't find the words. It gives concrete embodiment to metaphors for our fears.

In IT, which I still consider one of Stephen King's best novels (even though an older one), he creates a monster that incarnates fear. It appears to people in the form of whatever they're most afraid of. I always get irked when commenters reduce the eldrich cosmic entity in IT to a "monster clown." Pennywise is only one of It's many faces. As the narrator reflects at one point, It prefers to feed on the emotions of children because their fears are more concrete, raw, and primal than those of adults. Grown-ups are afraid of dull, mundane threats such as heart disease, old age, and financial ruin. In the nightmares of children, deeper horrors show up unmasked.

King's nonfiction work DANSE MACABRE suggests that ultimately the work of all horror is to portray our fear of death in shapes we can deal with. In horror fiction, the monster can frequently be destroyed. A boy character in King's vampire novel 'SALEM'S LOT declares, "Death is when the monsters get you."

At ICFA, our panel on changing concepts of monsters in popular culture discussed the phenomenon that classic folklore and literary/film monsters often serve as metaphors. Werewolves and other shapeshifters may represent the beast within, the animalistic or savage side of human nature, as the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde does. Lycanthropy can also suggest the trauma of puberty, an uncontrollable transformation of one's body accompanied by strange new impulses. Body horror in general (for example, a pair of anthologies I recently read that focus on pregnancy and childbirth), too, portrays the experience of one's physical self in an out-of-control state. Characters such as the Phantom of the Opera and Quasimodo illustrate revulsion toward deformity and disability. Vampires serve as metaphors for disease, foreign invaders, forbidden sexuality, transgressing the barrier between life and death, forced transformation, toxic power dynamics, and allegedly threatening Others of countless types. Both vampires and zombies embody the horror of a loved one changing into an unrecognizable Other. Ghosts may awaken guilt about how we treated the dead during their lifetimes and what revenge they may take on the living.

Conversely, nowadays the horror of monsters often comes from the image of an inhuman or no-longer-human creature as the persecuted outsider. In stories of this kind, ordinary humans can become the real monsters while the Other represents the oppressed and abused victim. Frankenstein's creation, of course, is a classic example of body horror and a monstrous violation of the line between life and death as well as a victim of persecution.

Margaret L. Carter

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

ICFA 46

The 46th annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts was held in its usual Orlando hotel last week. Guests of honor were Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of MEXICAN GOTHIC and other horror fiction as well as an editor of the sadly now defunct Innsmouth Free Press online magazine, and guest scholar Sarah Juliet Lauro, a zombie specialist. The con focused on the theme of "Night Terrors" (not in the technical meaning of a specific sleep disorder, which one attendee who's a medical doctor as well as a horror film scholar brought up, but in the broader sense).

My plane took off an hour late because of an unspecified maintenance-related delay but miraculously landed only 30 minutes late. Orlando had bright sun all week. However, Thursday was unusually cool for this time of year and Friday downright chilly. Saturday warmed up nicely.

The two luncheons and the Saturday night banquet served abundant and delicious food, as usual. Happily, each meal's dessert included plenty of chocolate. (Sometimes banquet menus miss the point on that requirement.) They're always buffets, so there's something to please everybody and lots of it.

At the guest author lunch, Silvia Moreno-Garcia proposed that horror fiction articulates experiences we can't find words for in mundane contexts. She also discussed the concepts of "hostile architecture" and the horror of the "unplace." Sarah Juliet Lauro's guest scholar lunch talk elaborated on the connections among zombies, slavery, and capitalism.

Some other items I particularly enjoyed: A panel on horror in comics. A paper on Dark Lords, their motivations, typical traits, etc. A session on fairy tales and folklore, including a presentation on diseases that helped to shape the folkloric images of vampires, werewolves, and zombies. The annual iteration of "Fifty Shades of Nay," about issues of consent in speculative fiction.

I read three flash fiction pieces at a "Worlds and Words" short-reading session for multiple authors. People seemed to enjoy all of the stories, especially my own favorite, "Interview with a Reluctant Vampire." (All my experiments in flash fiction are available as free reads on my website, whose URL is below; click on "Complete Works" in the sidebar and scroll most of the way down.) I also participated in a panel called "Reimagining the Night," on the development of monsters in popular culture, especially contemporary fiction and film. It was organized by the Lord Ruthven Assembly, our vampire and revenant division. A lively, fun discussion with good attendance.

The annual LRA business meeting took place on Friday, followed by a screening of THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, Hammer Studio's adaptation of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla." The film adheres fairly closely to the original story, aside from pointlessly switching the names of Le Fanu's heroine (Laura) and her friend who's killed early in the movie. The LRA awards for work produced in 2024 were announced at the Saturday banquet: Fiction, WHAT FEASTS AT NIGHT, by T. Kingfisher (my top choice among the many novels considered); nonfiction, THE PALGRAVE HANDBOOK OF THE VAMPIRE, edited by Simon Bacon; other media, a tie between ABIGAIL and the latest adaptation of NOSFERATU.

My Sunday return flight launched on schedule and arrived home on time.

Margaret L. Carter

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

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Lock Every Door by Riley Sager by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

 

Lock Every Door was published in 2019, written by Riley Sager (pen name of author Todd Ritter). This is the second Sager novel I've read (I reviewed Home Before Dark on July 26, 2024). This Gothic suspense horror drew many comparisons to Rosemary's Baby, maybe because Sager dedicated the book to Ira Levin. I can see the reason for the comparison in the story parallels. 

In this novel, Jules Larsen is without family or job, and her boyfriend kicks her when she's down by cheating. Needing money and a place to stay fast, she interviews for a luxurious apartment sitter position at an exclusive New York City building called the Bartholomew, which has both rich and famous tenants and a checkered history filled with intriguing deaths and disappearances. 

In exchange for apartment sitting for three months, Jules will be given $1200 (which I found to be a pretty pathetic sum, considering the limitations placed on her during this time, but I suppose the point is that most of these sitters have no other place to live and need money badly). The only catch is three weird rules that she has to follow while living there: No visitors, no nights spent away from the apartment, and no disturbing the other residents. From the first, Jules can't seem to help herself from playing amateur sleuth. The disappearances of previous sitters is uncanny, considering all were broke, homeless, and without family. 

I enjoyed the Rosemary's Baby overtones that opened this story, along with the creepiness of the building with gargoyle statues guarding it, and the believability of this desperate character taking a job that doesn't seem quite smart. However, I strongly felt that the mystery investigation aspect smothered the very long, middle portion of the story. I found myself bored as more and more suspicious disappearances were discovered, and Jules tracked down every lead. I think at least a hundred pages could have easily been cropped out of the middle without significantly changing much of anything in the overall story. I guess ultimately I wanted much more horror, much less Scooby Doo. I did appreciate the social commentary aspect of how easy it is for penniless, orphaned young adults to fall through the cracks with hardly anyone--least of all law enforcement--even noticing. 

This well-written story did provide a rich tapestry when it came to setting and character development. I will say that I guessed the culprit or culprits almost right away, and I actually had a strong inkling why it was done as well--the second, short "flash forward" scene that the author included told me basically everything I needed to know. Admittedly, I'm a mystery writer myself so maybe it's harder to fool me than the other reviewers who all claimed this story had a lot of twists, turns, and surprises that I didn't find evident myself. However, oddly enough, I did think the red herrings were particularly well done and compelling. There's talk of this novel in development as a TV series by Paramount. All in all, this one is worth a read, and I do plan to pick up more of Sager's books in the future. 

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

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

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

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

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

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Ice Limit and Beyond the Ice Limit by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child by Karen S. Wiesner

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Ice Limit and Beyond the Ice Limit by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

by Karen S. Wiesner  

   

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Before collaborating authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child conceived of the character Gideon Crew in 2011, there was a single-title, standalone book called The Ice Limit, published in 2000. In this book, a massive meteorite, maybe the largest ever discovered, is found near an island on Cape Horn, part of West Antarctic claimed by Chile. A billionaire, Palmer Lloyd, wants it for his rare and exotic archaeological artifact museum. To that end, he hires Effective Engineering Solutions, Inc., a not quite legal, "problem solving" firm headed by Eli Glinn, who eventually hires Gideon Crew first a freelancer and then full-time in the Gideon Crew Series. EES is tasked with recovering and transporting the meteorite, traveling undercover in what appears to be a rusty freighter to steal it from Chile. Eventually, it's discovered that this meteorite is in the range of 25,000 tons (more than double the weight that it was initially anticipated) and that it must have come from outside the solar system. And it may not be at all what they originally thought it was. 

The cast of characters involved in this harrowing endeavor were some of the most interesting I've encountered in a technothriller where plot tends to be so prominent, external conflict all but overshadows those populating the world the action takes place, so that deep internal conflicts may be neglected entirely. That was not the case here, although there were simply too many characters to name in this short review. Suffice it to say that nearly all of them played decently-developed roles in the events within this book. 

As long as this story was (464 pages in the hardcover), reading it was so compulsive, it didn't feel anywhere near its size. I binge-read it not long after it was first published, unable to put it down over the course of a matter of days. That said, I was devastated when I reached the end because it felt like the story was far from finished. The cliffhanger it ended on was frustrating because, at the time this book was published, there was no sequel in sight. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who felt disgruntled. While I didn't realize it at the time I read The Ice Limit, the authors posted a number of fictional newspaper and magazine articles as kind of an epilogue to the story to provide more closure. Naturally, these did nothing for me, since I didn't know they existed, but for years I felt locked into the disappointment of how the book ended. The authors moved on to other books, other series, but somehow they circled back arou

nd to this story--this time within a series they'd begun featuring Gideon Crew, who'd been hired by the EES Corporation in The Ice Limit. Beyond the Ice Limit became Book 4 in that series, published in 2016. Some websites include The Ice Limit as the prequel to that series, though Gideon Crew wasn't really in the original book.

 

In the sequel, the seed of an alien lifeform that had started sprouting thanks to the endeavors of the retrieval crew at the end of The Ice Limit has become a massive structure that's destroying the Earth. Gideon Crew (a master thief and nuclear physicist) is hired to take down this unnatural enemy before that happens. He's promised that this will be the last project before EES is permanently closed, however I see a new book, The Pharaoh Key, was published for that series in 2018 so promise obviously broken. 

While I enjoyed this story immensely, my attempts to read the other Gideon Crew novels didn't go far, maybe in part because I attempted to read them out of order. Whatever the reason, I didn't feel a draw toward the stories or the characters in the one other book in that series I tried to read, though Gideon Crew is much better fleshed out than a lot of action thriller protagonists are. I may attempt to read that series again in the future. In any case, Beyond the Ice Limit is just as exciting and page-turning as its predecessor. I couldn't put it down within the couple days it took to devour it anymore this time than I'd been able to last time. 

Something I love to see as a reader and an author is how the authors have created a shared world connecting many of their novels that cross between their series or standalone novels. For The Ice Limit, at least a few characters moved into the Gideon Crew Series with the sequel Beyond the Ice Limit. Bill Smithback, Jr., a reporter also did that in the Pendergast and Nora Kelly series'. Additionally, in the third Pendergast book, The Cabinet of Curiosities, Palmer Lloyd's museum proposal is mentioned. In Dance of Death and the sequel The Book of the Dead, Eli Glinn appears as a supporting character. 

The Ice Limit and Beyond the Ice Limit are good, old-fashioned horror fests with all the hair-raising developments and excitement you want in a top-notch thriller. I must add that, within a Pendergast novel, Dance of Death, the sixth in that series, a reference is made to a third book for The Ice Limit with what they call there Ice Limit III: Return to Cape Horn. Here's to hoping another sequel is on the way eventually! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Relic and Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Relic and Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

by Karen S. Wiesner

  

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

Relic (which is the original title the authors prefer, not the 1997 movie title of "The" Relic which actually did make it to several versions of the book) was written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child and was published in 1995 as the debut collaboration by two authors who write separate masterpieces on their own. The authors' website includes information about how they met--via the museum Preston worked and Child, an editor at St. Martin's Press, was so fascinated by that he commissioned a book about its history. They've included very interesting histories and stories behind all of their works on their website https://www.prestonchild.com/ which is definitely worth a look. The sequel, Reliquary, was published in 1997. Classified as horror technothrillers, a genre creation that's predominately credited to Michael Crichton, reviews actually likened the premiere book to a story where a dinosaur-like creature gets loose in a museum. Simply defined, it is that, and very enjoyably so. 

In Relic, an expedition in the Amazon Basin searching for a lost tribe goes horribly wrong (as they so often do), and years later the relics discovered on that journey, along with the journal of the leader, eventually find their way to their intended destination--the fictional American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The setting of the first two books of what later became The Pendergast Series is very nearly the star of this show. As someone who was actually involved in the inner workings of a museum similar to the one portrayed in the books, Preston's early connection lent credulity, insight, and wonder to these two stories. Readers are treated to the labyrinthine corridors and showcases that fill the stories with tantalizing displays that can alternately seem informative in the daytime and horrifying in the night, along with long forgotten treasures from other, lesser explored worlds in secured vaults. 

Additionally, inner workings of the politics and personnel within this structure are intriguing. Naturally, once the bizarre killings begin, centered in the museum, readers can't be sure of what's actually happening, given that there are plenty of real-life bad guys in this setting without having to resort to otherworldly monsters. But, lucky for all us horror fans, there actually is an ancient beast plucked from a shrouded world roaming the maze of hallways, secret rooms, and the long-deserted basement and sub-basement connected below the museum. 

The museum has been planning to unveil the ill-gotten findings from the expedition that causes all the tragedy in both Relic and Reliquary in a massively funded exhibition. The murders threaten to shut it down before launch, which would be financially catastrophic for the museum. As a lover of all types of these, the museum itself was one of the things I loved most about these two books. There's a whole world there that could be explored indefinitely. Inject horror into the equation, and I'm utterly beguiled. 

The murders in the museum are investigated by NYPD Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta until the FBI gets involved. Initially, Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast takes over, having an interest to the similar pattern of these murders to others he's seen before, elsewhere. Before long, he's replaced by another agent, Coffey, who's a complete and utter idiot. He makes a series of bad choices that very nearly leads to disaster for the entire city. If not for a select few, all would be lost. These heroes save the day, though not permanently, as the story continues into a sequel in which they discover that the horror and murders associated with the museum aren't over after all. 

In terms of plot, action, and suspense, these two books have an absolute playground of all. Like Dan Brown books, the external conflicts in the works of not only the collaborating authors but their individually written titles as well are filled with seemingly unending mystery and thrills--a dark side to natural science and history. You read these books for the nonstop twists and turns, and you're never disappointed by what you're given in that vein. In Brown's stories in particular, I feel that the action is relentless and exhausting, and I've been known to fall asleep in the middle of them--solely because the author doesn't provide enough, if any, downtime. In Preston and Child's books, it isn't quite that extreme, but the plot-heavy stories tend to run in that direction more often than not. Characters and readers alike desperately need downtimes in order to catch their breath so they can continue engaging in fast-paced stories like these. That's where I'm convinced these authors fall just a little bit short (Brown mostly, not as much with the others mentioned).

Additionally, deep characterization in books of these types is generally poor. In Relic and Reliquary, most of the characters are only mildly compelling. Almost entirely because they showed up the most, the ones that made at least vague impressions are D'Agosta; Special Agent Pendergast; Margo Green, a graduate student at the museum, and Dr. Frock, her advisor and a department head there; along with Bill Smithback, Jr., a journalist who's been hired by the museum to writing a book about the upcoming exhibition. Smithback and Pendergast make appearances in a variety of the collaborative authors' works, not always in the same series. For instance, Smithback returns in the Nora Kelly (a renowned archaeologist Smithback eventually marries) Series, as well as more than a few of the Pendergast Series books. His tragic history is chronicled on the following website, https://prestonchild.fandom.com/wiki/Bill_Smithback, for those who are curious about him, but be aware that his character was cut from the movie version of Relic, which is kind of inconceivable to me, if for no other reason but that he was a great comic relief (and the favorite of the authors themselves). To give you an example, during one tense moment where the museum beast is wreaking havoc in another area of the exhibition, Smithback has free access to the tantalizingly fine spread the museum has laid out for those who show up for their new exhibit. He gorges himself without inhibition. Okay, so it's in poor taste (excuse the pun), given the extenuating circumstances, but it was also just the comic relief needed in this situation. Of all the characters included in these two books, Smithback was the one who received most of the fleshing out, and I enjoyed several of his other appearances in the two authors' other works as well. 

On the subject of characterization, in my point of view, whipsaw thrillers that are more focused on plot tend to have the characters necessary manufactured on the fly within the story. They fill the roles they're intended to occupy for the moment, then they disappear altogether or, rarely, make minor returns to the story in random other scenes. Relic and Reliquary are very nearly smothered under the weight of so many point of view characters that enter the story only to die or pass almost unceremoniously out of the book in the same scene. It's very hard to choose who was actually the main character in either of these books--I suppose D'Agosta, Margo, or Smithback come the closest but I wouldn't say that definitively. For each, we learn a few things that were probably listed on a characterization worksheet about them, little or nothing personal that doesn’t pertain to the immediate story, and any internal conflict is almost always directly related to the external conflict. As two examples of that: 

In Relic, D'Agosta relates something about his own son in direct correspondence with the horrific murder of two children at the beginning. We learn precious little beyond that of the police detective's personal life.

Also in Relic, Margo Green's father supposedly just died. At no point in either books are we privy to feelings of loss or grief in this character about that fact (and that was what it felt like--a mere factoid). Little more is said except Margo's single thought about really, really not wanting to go home to take over the family business legacy her father's death leaves to her. 

I guess the best that can be said in books of these types is that characters are meant to serve a purpose. No more. No less. And that's the end of that. But I admittedly prefer much deeper characterization than providing a convenient face to hang the external conflicts in the story on. 

Another character I feel I have to mention because he got a whole book series devoted to him from these two authors is Pendergast. Back in 2016, a potential TV adaptation featuring Pendergast was being tossed around but it was announced early in 2017 that it'd been canceled. I will note here that his character was combined with that of D'Agosta's in the movie version and was completely written out of the story. Further irony is that he spawned a series of more than twenty books, and yet the authors initially found him to be "a pompous windbag, pontificating to Margo about 'compartmentalization of labor' and 'extended similes'." I actually liked him in Relic and Reliquary, but when I tried to follow him into his own series with The Cabinet of Curiosities (published in 2001), where he became more of what readers could expect of him as the main character of the series, I found it much harder to get into the stories. I did read several of them and intend to try again reading all of them. Let's see how far I get this time and whether I'll feel compelled to write reviews of them. 

Other than the superficial characterization you can expect in these two books (and many of their others), there's a lot to love in Relic and Reliquary, especially if you're looking for edge-of-your-seat beastie scares set in a wonderfully creepy environment. I also recommend the movie. 

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

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

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

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

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

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