Do Spoilers Really Spoil?

The latest issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER includes an article exploring whether advance exposure to spoilers actually makes the experience of reading a book or viewing a movie (the author mainly discusses films) worse, neutral, or better:

Savoring Uncertainty

The author, Stuart Vyse, starts by analyzing the difference between stories that provide a "clear resolution" and those that end with ambiguities unresolved. He notes, "Given the chaos of everyday life, it’s understandable that people are drawn to stories that make sense and provide closure." He links this tendency to a wish to believe we live in a just universe, offering the TV series LAW AND ORDER as a typical example. There I think he's absolutely right. The traditional detective novel is the most moral of genres. It promises that problems will be solved, questions answered, justice served, and criminals punished. In rare cases when the criminal escapes the grasp of the law, it's because the detective has determined his or her crime was justified. Vyse contrasts the traditional formula with the "noir" subgenre, in which ambiguity reigns, morality comes in shades of gray, and justice is far from guaranteed.

He then discusses the connection, if any, between enjoyment of ambiguity and tolerance of spoilers. He also goes into the definition of a spoiler, which can vary according to the individual experiencing it -- e.g., someone who's naive about the particular genre, such as a small child -- and to what extent the information constitutes "common knowledge." We'd all probably agree that the prohibition on spoilers has run out for mentioning that Romeo and Juliet die at the end of the play, for example. For a century or more, certainly since the first movie adaptations came out, everybody has known Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde inhabit the same body. The phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has become proverbial. When the novella was first published, however, that secret came as a shocking revelation near the end. Upon the original publication of DRACULA, readers who ignored reviews could have picked up the novel without suspecting the Count's true nature. Nowadays, even elementary-school kids know "Dracula" equals "vampire."

Vyse cites research on whether spoilers decrease appreciation for a work, increase it, or have no effect. Results of various studies yield different answers. I've noticed tolerance for spoilers ranges from the zero-tolerance of fans such as one of our children, who avoids even book cover blurbs if possible, to my own attitude, sympathetic to a comment I read somewhere that a story capable of being "spoiled" by knowledge of what happens isn't worth spoiling. I admit exceptions of course, such as knowing the killer before the big reveal in a murder mystery (on first reading, at least) or works in which the climactic twist is the whole point of the thing, such as THE SIXTH SENSE. I don't at all mind knowing in advance whether a major character will live or die; in fact, I sometimes sneak a peak at the end to relieve the stress of wondering. When the series finale of FOREVER KNIGHT aired, I was glad I'd read a summary before viewing the episode. When I actually saw the devastating final scene, having braced myself for the worst allowed me to feel it wasn't quite so bad as other fans had maintained. Having reread many of my favorite books over and over demonstrates that foreknowledge of the plot doesn't bother me. With that knowledge, I can relax into the pleasure of revisiting familiar characters.

In one of C. S. Lewis's works of literary criticism, he declares that the point of a startling twist in a book or any artistic medium isn't the surprise in itself. It's "a certain surprisingness." During subsequent exposures to the work, we have the fun of anticipating the upcoming surprise and enjoying how the creator prepares us for it. In a second or later reading of a mystery, for example, we can notice the clues the author has hidden in plain sight. We realize how we should have guessed the murderer and admire the author's skill at concealing the solution to while still playing fair with the reader. (Along that line, I was astonished to hear Nora Roberts remark at a convention that she doesn't plan her "In Death" novels written under the name "J. D. Robb" in advance. How can anyone compose a detective story without detailed plotting? She must have to do an awful lot of cleanup in revision.)

Learning the general plot of a novel or film prior to reading or viewing doesn't "spoil" it for me. I read or watch for the experience of sharing the characters' problems, dangers, and joys, discovering how they navigate the challenges of the story, and getting immersed in their emotional and interpersonal growth. Once the "narrative lust" (another phrase from Lewis, referring to the drive to rush through the narrative to find out what happens next) has been satisfied by the first reading or viewing, in future ones we can take a while to savor all the satisfying details we didn't fully appreciate the first time.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt

Karen S Wiesner: The Conundrum of Spoilers or {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling

The Conundrum of Spoilers

or {Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling

by Karen S. Wiesner

Several criteria guide book-buying strategies, which is something I've spoken of at length in articles as well as in my book Writing Blurbs That Sizzle--And Sell! (Fiction Fundamentals, Book 7). Personalizing those standards, here's what guides my decisions on whether or not to commit to purchasing a book to read:

First and foremost, for me, is the author. If it's one I've loved his or her past offerings, that may be all that's necessary for me to sweep up every new release and get to the checkout ASAP. If it's an author who I inconsistently enjoy their work or a brand-new writer for me, I may waffle about buying. The format, price, genre, and subject matter would all have to come into play for me to cross the threshold of firm decision in whether to buy something from them.

Second, whether the book is available as a paperback almost always plays a significant role in my choice. There are almost no authors I would automatically buy a hardcover book for. In my opinion, hardcovers are too expensive, unless you can get them on sale. I only buy ebooks if there are no other formats available--because I spend far too many hours every single day looking at screens, it's hard for me to choose electronic reading material for pleasure, given the strain on my eyes and brain. Inevitably, I wait until the paperback edition is available before buying, period, even for my most favorite authors. However, I do occasionally make exceptions.

The third factor for me is the genre. If I'm sold on the previous two criteria and it's a horror story, it's a done deal--as in, I can't get to the cash register fast enough. My second favorite genre is (sigh!) all other genres. Science fiction, fantasy, mystery, Regency romance, thriller…you name it. I wish I could choose between them, but they're all in constant competition with each other and my interest at a particular moment.

Back cover blurbs tend to be the tie-breaker for all the previous directives, and it's the make-it-or-break-it point of whatever came before. If the back cover blurb doesn't sell me, that's it. It's either hello, or sorry thanks for coming goodbye. Most importantly, a blurb can't be too short. I need to know who the characters are, what they're facing, and what the stakes are. I want details up until the point of spoilers but never beyond. If I don't get the information I need in a blurb, little can convince me to move forward since the risk of buying something that doesn't have enough persuasive evidence to warrant spending money and time on is too great for me. Though back cover blurbs are the fourth and last factor in whether or not I may a book purchase, it's the one that plays the most significant role in my decision.

Note: Cover art and reviews--bad or good--aren't considerations in my book-buying choices even one iota. I would buy a book with a cover that doesn't appeal to me if it meets my four crucial requirements. As for reviews, I don't read them at all until the book has been purchased and I'm just about to start reading it. I absolutely hate it when a back cover blurb is little more than a publisher thrusting a fistful of reviews or accolades at me in place of the blurb, like most book distributors (Amazon!!!) do these days, as if any of that matters to me in the least.

Last to Leave the Room by Caitlin Starling has had many genres attached to it. I think psychological horror sums it up best. Some reviews mentioned science fiction as a potential genre, but I don't really see how that fits after having read it. (Too much of a stretch in my mind to classify this title that way.) Techno-thriller could also fit because there is a lot of technical information given about physics, technology, computers, engineering, etc. In any case, the horror aspects were what appealed most to me for this story.

I was eagerly awaiting Starling's next release, given how much I enjoyed two of her previous books. See my reviews for them here:

The Luminous Dead: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2023/06/karen-wiesner-book-review-luminous-dead.html

and

The Death of Jane Lawrence: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2023/07/book-review-death-of-jane-lawrence-by.html

The basic idea of this story is that a brilliant scientist with almost no moral boundaries embarks on ground-breaking research that leads to the city she's living in sinking. She's funded by an equally immoral corporation--though it's respectable on the surface--that retains a "bully" who makes sure none of the prone-to-lunacy scientists goes too far off the edge of the world. The scientist's own private research is actually the cause of what's happening to the city and that makes the consequences not only diabolically personal but universally dangerous.

The hardcover and ebook editions came out October 10, 2023. I held out until November 11, 2023, hoping to see the paperback release become imminent in that time. For reasons involving reaching a low point in my TBR pile and the additional motivation of Christmas only a month away, but mainly because I was very eager to read this author's next book (the genre and blurb utterly sold me), I decided to splurge and get the hardcover.

After I held the hardback with the wraparound paper cover art in my hands, I studied the cover for a long time. It was an interesting design, showing eight women who all looked identical. One of the women, the one in the spotlight, sat at the bottom of a staircase and was the central focus of the design. The others were obviously listening to her and giving her their attention. The fact that they so closely resembled each other intrigued me. Having read the back cover blurb earlier, before my purchase of the book, I started to form clear ideas about what the book's central themes were.

Next, I re-read the back cover blurb that was printed on the inner leaf of the slipcover. From there, I had a very strong concept of the plot. This was followed by reading the back cover of the book, which had no fewer than nine reviews put forth from other authors of the genre, I assume (I'd never heard of any of them, though some accolades were included for most of them). The reviews stunned me a little bit because they gave away what felt like crucial elements of the story conflict that I wasn't sure should have been leaked prematurely.

Let me inject here that I've never understood what people consider spoilers. An article on Wikipedia states that, "A spoiler is an element of a disseminated summary or description of a media narrative that reveals significant plot elements, with the implication that the experience of discovering the plot naturally, as the creator intended it, has been robbed of its full effect." On the sitcom Big Bang Theory, Sheldon calls a spoiler anything revealed that "pre-blows" the mind; as in, the only place the mind can and should be blown is where the writer intended shock and awe to dazzle like fireworks within the viewer's individual brain.

The only part I've ever been sure of when it comes to spoilers is that I'm apparently guilty of giving crucial information away too often. I've lost count of how many people have screamed out in the middle of an active discussion "Spoiler!", as if I committed a murder or worse. I know people who won't read a synopsis of a book, movie, or videogame in advance because those handful of words might wreck something for them. How do they know if it's something they'll like without reading even that much? I don't get it. Even after being called on it, I can't fathom why the perfectly innocuous thing I'd said is being viewed as an illegal revelation of vital plot elements that would have otherwise been an awestruck surprise to the one who hadn't yet read the story, seen the film, or played the videogame.

To so many people, spoilers are a serious miscarriage of justice. In the past, for me, I've actually enjoyed spoilers. I'm the type of person who reads as much as possible about a story (whether it's a book, a movie, or a videogame) in advance of submerging in it. For videogames in particular, I prefer not to have big surprises hit me while I'm immersed. I always read in-depth walkthroughs in their entirety before undertaking any game I'm interested in. I don't want to miss anything vital to gaining the best possible ending just because I didn't realize I had to say something specific that isn't obvious to anyone but the game developers. It's possible to miss or lose so much in videogames if you're not aware in advance of the event that causes potentially disastrous consequences. I once played a game that took about 25 minutes from start to finish. I solved all the extremely challenging puzzles, made the correct choices, and did literally everything right. I had a single misstep. I said something I didn't realize was even a bad thing to say; at the time, it seemed like the best choice of the few options I was given. The ramifications of that decision led to an ending that didn't seem fair. Though it was a short game, it was an exhausting one that I didn't want to ever repeat. I rue now that I didn't read a walkthrough first so I could avoid the seemingly fatal mistake of not reading the developer's minds. I haven't made that mistake since.

In any case, for books and movies, I need to read the back cover blurbs, any reviews I come across, and if I happen to hear too much detail in advance on social media or elsewhere, I don't mind. For mysteries or psychological thrillers, I generally guess the finer details almost immediately after starting the story. As a writer, I love the reverse engineer process of that. It doesn't ruin anything for me. If anything, it makes it more exciting for me as a writer. Yes, a twist is always welcome in any type of story, but, up until Last to Leave the Room, I'd have to say I've never minded spoilers at all, no matter how explicit and thorough. Ultimately, I'd say I've had a major blind spot where spoilers are concerned.

With Last to Leave the Room, something happened to me that I'm not sure has ever occurred before except in the case of most of M. Night Shyamalan's films, where the big reveal will forever change the story for me as I initially knew it. While most of Shyamalan's movies are still really good once I know the core element, that big twist in the story is the point of it for me. I don't want that ruined in advance. His promoters are good at telling the fringe edges of the story in the blurb and previews so nothing crucial is ever given away thereby wrecking the shocking twist to come.

After viewing the cover for this particular Starling tale, followed by reading the blurb and reviews slipcover, I felt like I went into starting the story with far too much information--revealed with too on-point cover art and reviews that sabotaged the jolt I'd been looking forward to getting while reading the story. I guess without really realizing it, I'd allowed this author to be the one I wanted to give me a horrifying shock or several in the course of reading her books, the same way I feel about Shyamalan movies. For the first time, I really understood why people got mad at me for, in essence, telling the punch line of a joke before giving the lead-up.

For those who don't mind spoilers, I'll include details below in very small writing about what it was that was "spoiled" or given away before I started reading Last to Leave the Room. If you don't want spoilers, don't read it and don't look at the book cover or reviews too closely.

The cover of the book shows nine identical women, eight of whom are circled around the central figure in the light, who's obviously the leader, almost looking like she's teaching them. Given that the back cover blurb speaks of the main character Tamsin finding a door in her basement that wasn't there before the distorting dimensions leading to accelerated subsidence affecting the entire city of San Siroco, and that an exact physical copy of Tamsin emerges from that door, it was easy to deduce that whatever this phenomenon destroying the city is, it creates doppelgängers--possibly many of them. In fact, Tamsin's cat also gains its own doppelgänger early in the story, after Tamsin's copy emerges. So I went into the story aware this would be the focus of the story. Reviews on the back cover talk about other focuses and conflicts, like gender, identity, and memory being central in the story premise. All of the things in this paragraph led to further deductions on my part, which were borne out almost exactly how I imagined they would be in reading the actual story.

I read through the first part of the book (titled "The City", comprising the first 28 pages), the second "The Door" (40 pages), and the third "The Double" (136 pages) with almost no surprises revealed that I hadn't already figured out before I ever started reading the book. I'll also add that on page 96, I felt compelled to re-read the back cover blurb and realized that the blurb contained information that was either highly inaccurate or wildly misleading. Again, so I can't be criticized for spoilers, here's what that is below, in tiny print that you'll really have to strain to read if you want to know:

The back cover blurb states emphatically that, at the bottom of the stairs, Tamsin "finds a door that didn't exist before--and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her." Point of fact, the door never actually opened in the story at the point before the doppelgänger appeared. If it did, it happened off-screen. Which is to say, it didn't happen at all, or the author was trying to trick the reader--blatant cheating when it comes to giving readers foundational facts. The opening of that door is a pivotal conflict in the story! In fact, the opening of the door is almost shown to be impossible throughout the story until the end. So telling the reader in so blasé a fashion in the blurb that the door opened (when it won't and can't and seems unlikely to within the story) and Tamsin's copy came out of it when the reader would find out soon enough that that event happened off-screen was beyond toleration for me. As a reader, I was denied seeing that take place within the story. I see this as a gross error on the part of the author or the publisher, or blatant cheating. Either that part of the blurb was accidentally or deliberately wrong, or it's wildly misleading, and, as such, in my opinion, is completely unfair.

Readers have to be given certain, foundational facts in the setup of a story. On the face of it, those foundations have to be valid from start to finish, or there have to be at least two very different perspectives that are equally true in order to justify the setup. Any alteration has to feel natural and be properly built-in from the beginning. In this case, I don't believe it was. I feel this inaccuracy unfairly altered and colored my perceptions pre-read. At the very least, I believe the word "presumably" should have been added to the blurb (in the area I spoke of in my last spoiler paragraph) in order to allow it to stand where it does as a foundational fact. Providing that one little word would have allowed me to feel satisfied on this point. I would have accepted everything as is with its inclusion. Without it, I couldn't help feeling that I'd been unreasonably deceived from the off by the author. This eroded some of my trust in the author-reader contract. I believe I will be wary about the next book she offers and worried she won't play fair again.

By way of review, Last to Leave the Room is certainly one of the slowest moving stories I've ever read. That's not a criticism per se because I genuinely enjoyed the story, but, given that I basically knew everything foundational about the story before I started reading it, 205 pages of developing the characters, themes, and conflicts did seem a little excessive in the process of reading them--despite how well-written and compelling those pages were.

Additionally, I was put off by the present tense perspective the story was told in. On her website, the author said the reason she wrote the book this way was "in an attempt to capture that transitory feeling, of existing only in that moment in the narrative with no promise of a future, and an at times fast-receding glimpse of the past." Regardless, I lost track of how many times I had to read and re-read sentences because the present tense didn't sound quite right and I had to figure out where I was getting confused before continuing. In all cases, the present tense was the reason for why I became tripped up.

My final bit of criticism before I get into the good stuff is that Starling almost seems incapable of writing a protagonist that I as a reader can feel the slightest bit of sympathy for. She sets up a thoroughly unlikeable cast that, instead of growing, and maturing, and learning from mistakes, disintegrates page by page and frequently becomes an outright villain by the end. [It's this very reason I didn't enjoy Starling's novella "Yellow Jessamine". Absolutely nothing was redeemable by the end of that twisted little tale.] These are the kinds of characters you come to hate and secretly wish for the worst to happen to them instead of the best. As a writer myself, I don't understand that mentality in developing characters. I want readers to come to love, empathize with, and root for my characters. Could authors who create utterly despicable main characters actually want readers to root for their character's demise, pumping their fists in victory when the consequences of bad behavior inevitably come a-knockin'? I can't begin to fathom this. Regardless, I still find this author's stories utterly compelling, if for no other reason than that you simply can't walk away from these train wrecks without seeing how they resolve, satisfactorily if not happily.

On the plus side, the fourth and last section of the book gave me everything I was looking for in a Caitlin Starling novel. There was shock, disgust, horror, awe, unexpected developments, validation of several theories I'd been playing with throughout, and the answer that was pretty close to what I'd predicted before actually starting the book felt justified and captivating. I especially loved the explanation of the title. In fact, it may be what I loved most about the book. I apologize to those of you who don't care about spoilers having to read the next tiny paragraph, but in an effort not to be shouted at for revealing a spoiler, though I can't see how, here's how the title fits in with the story (and matches the cover art):

Tamsin reads endless theories, arguments, psychoanalytic reviews, and stories about doubles. In most of them, the doppelgänger causes destruction. The original usually tries to kill the double and is harmed in the process. Sometimes it disappears, other times it's the last one standing. Ultimately, the original always loses. In one particular yarn, the devil teaches black magic to seven students. The last one to leave each night forfeits his or her soul. In the case of a doppelgänger, that "shadow" is always the last to leave the room, so that's what the devil takes as payment.

While it took me two weeks to read Parts 1-3 of Last to Leave the Room, I read Part 4 in about two days, actually getting up at one a.m. one night to read more as the noose tightened. Ultimately, I found this story worth the price I paid for the hardcover. Starling never fails to deliver an impactful story with an explosive ending.

That said, I'm left with conundrums I've rarely had before about whether front-loading a story with what could easily be considered spoilers (even with my previous, blasé tolerance of them) can or will adversely influence the reading experience. About the closest I can come to an accurate response is that any spoilers, some spoilers, a lot of spoilers--it's all subjective. In the case of this novel, I was put off by what I felt was too much pivotal information being given in advance of reading a single word of it--almost to the point of fury. To add to my confusion, after finishing the book and just before writing this review, I went to the author's website. I found two essay/articles there concerning this particular story, and both gave away so much information about the plot that I was certain had I read either of them in advance, I wouldn't have enjoyed the book at all. They left little or nothing for me to discover on my own in the process of reading.

This experience leaves me with uncertainty about something that, in the past, before reading this particular title, I would have responded to very differently: At what point is a surfeit of information given in advance about the plot of a story overkill or buzz-kill, so that there's almost no point to reading the book since you can already guess the core elements? I simply don't know. Anyone else want to give it a try?

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/

Karen S Wiesner: {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier

by Karen S. Wiesner

A rare single title novel by New Zealand author Juliet Marillier, Heart's Blood was published in 2009. This historical fantasy is loosely based on Beauty and the Beast but it's a richer, more complex tale with a heroine, Caitrin, who flees a home life much more terrifying than anything she might encounter in her search for a safe haven. Her chief ability and means of employment is as a scribe, not a skill most young women in the time period possess. Her father taught his daughter his craft before his death.

Caitrin flees to Whistling Tor and its crumbling hilltop fortress. The chieftain, Anluan, is feared and repulsed by the townsfolk because of the dark curse over the ghost-filled woods that enthralls him. Not surprisingly, Caitrin causes a stir in the shroud that hovers like a dense mist over the household, bringing unexpected light and promise to most of the staff--and the reclusive master of the house caught in the web of sorcery that destroyed his ancestors and will soon claim his life as well. To free Anluan will also release Whistling Tor from the evil surrounding it, but to do so will require sacrifices and something perhaps more terrifying than misfortune: Hope.

This was a beautifully written tale, despite how slow moving (to the point of, at times, plodding). Complete with complicated, fully fleshed out characters and a rich, wonderfully elaborate setting, the Gothic atmosphere of creepiness in a dark castle surrounded by a forest haunted by spirits that may or may not be malevolent kept me guessing about who was actually trustworthy. I was interested, as well, in the plant in Anluan's garden called "Heart's Blood". I found out after reading this book that there's a flower commonly called bleeding heart, Lamprocapnos spectabilis, that's supposed to signify rejected or unrequited love. Too bad the beautiful woodland plant didn't make it to the cover of the book. It's really quite striking! 

Incidentally, while Heart's Blood is sometimes referred to as part of the "Whistling Tor series", the author's website states emphatically that it was intended as a standalone and no follow-up is planned. Bit of a letdown there, as this is an amazing world I would have liked to enter again. But the author does have six other series to immerse her readership in, and I highly recommend giving them a try.

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/

Karen S Wiesner: {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

by Karen S. Wiesner

A novel that took 10 years to write, completed in January 2004, sent to a literary agent in March of that year; two months later (and two days after sending the manuscript to publishers), the first-time author is offered a deal…that she refuses! The rights are auctioned off and finally bought for $2 million. That alone sounds like something made up. Add to the unrealistic quality of such a testament: Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel The Historian was published in June 2005, landed at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list in its first week, and by August of that same year, it'd sold in excess of 900,000 copies and gone through six printings.

I love vampires, Dracula (historical and fictional), and literary novels about people who love books--a particular theme in this book, as described by the main character Paul: "It is a fact that we historians are interested in what is partly a reflection of ourselves we would rather not examine except through the medium of scholarship; it is also true that as we steep ourselves in our interests, they become more and more a part of us." The history and folklore of Vlad Tepes and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula are explored in narratives told by Paul, a professor; his mentor Rossi; and Paul's daughter (who's never named), while utilizing letters and oral accounts, and covering 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s timelines. The goal is to find Vlad's tomb.

Described as a mash of genres including Gothic, adventure, detective, travelogue, postmodern historical, thriller, and epistolary, The Historian's origin centered on the author's father (a professor) telling her "real history" vampire tales when she was a child. Her librarian mother's love of books also had a profound effect on Kostova. Later, the author had a notion to write about a father spinning tales about Dracula tales to an entranced daughter with Dracula listening in--because Dracula's still alive. Two days later, Kostova started writing.

Interestingly, Kostova never wanted her novel to be classified as a horror, nor was she pleased with the comparisons it got with Dan Brown's Robert Langdon series. [Ironically, the reason for the bidding war for the rights to publish The Historian stemmed from the houses believing "they might have the next Da Vinci Code within their grasp" (according to Publishers Weekly).] While I can understand the connection to comparing The Historian to Brown's historical thrillers, better comparisons, I think, would be to Charlie Lovett's The Bookman's Tale or Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Club Dumas, both fantastic novels that won't disappoint readers.

The author intended to write a chilling Victorian ghost story. She chose the figure of a vampire for many reasons, not the least of which was because "our fear of Dracula lies in the fear of losing ourselves, of relinquishing our very identities as human beings." Not surprisingly, the main characters in The Historian become obsessed, all but losing their individual identities in their quest to discover the dark side of human nature in the complex figure of Dracula.

While this novel is large enough to be overwhelming to some readers (nearly 700 pages in the trade paperback), I found myself so riveted by the adventures these learned bibliophiles undertake that span the globe, I barely noticed the pages flying by. It's very hard to imagine that this was the author's very first book, considering how masterfully it's constructed and written. If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading The Historian. If you've already enjoyed it once, maybe it's time to re-read this timeless novel? I've already put it back on my TBR pile.

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/

Karen S Wiesner: {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories and Farthing House and Other Stories by Susan Hill

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories

and

Farthing House and Other Stories

by Susan Hill

by Karen S. Wiesner

Susan Hill is one of those authors that effortlessly puts you directly into the fictional settings and personal lives of her characters with so much atmospheric reality, you're convinced of the authenticity of everything. While many of her stories are ghost and/or horror, as in the case of the first collection I'll review today The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories, others are simply brutally realistic and disturbing vignettes of the darker side of life, as we'll see in Farthing House and Other Stories. One reviewer describes Hill's work as "locating the horrific in everyday life". Simply put, few other authors capture such haunting qualities that linger on in the memory long after reading as Susan Hill does consistently.

 

The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories was published in 2016 and contains four short stories. The 2017 edition also included a fifth story, "Printer's Devil Court", which I reviewed previously in this column. The title story is classic Susan Hill, when revenge takes on a new supernatural twist. A wife searching for answers to her husband's untimely death brings in a psychic detective to find out the truth by utilizing the deceased doctor's favorite travelling bag. This is as good of a story as any Hill has written. The focus of the story is a man seeking revenge on his apprentice who stole his life's work while he was besieged by illness. The unexpected denouement really makes this story clever.

"Boy Twenty-One" harkens back to two of Hill's stories I reviewed previously "The Small Hand" (2010) and "Dolly" (2012), adding a hair-raising element to the slightly disturbing, undying friendship of a young boarder at a boys' school with a fellow student who doesn't return after the summer holiday. This particular tale got bad reviews. One in particular said of it that "it feels more like indecision on the writer's part, as though she is still playing with ideas", adding that it wasn't "fully realised". I, on the other hand, believe the faltering is what added to the creepy aspects of the story. The narrator had trouble establishing friendships, finally found of soulmate of sorts, and unfathomably lost that friend. The story ended abruptly in a way that felt shocking, incomplete, unresolved--just as it needed to in order to realistically portray the events and the character's stunned uncertainty combined with an unwillingness to let go.

The story "Alice Baker" is a strange, tragic little tale. Office workers are using an old building that harbors a forgotten origin while a better one is being constructed for them. An odd new employee brings both curiosity and dread to co-workers. All the senses come alive in this lovely little spine-chiller.

"The Front Room" is menacing and goes against everything we're taught is good and right. A couple is inspired by a sermon about feeding the hungry and being a blessing to the destitute. They invite the husband's aged stepmother Solange to live with them and their growing family. The woman they remember, but weren't particularly fond of, has changed almost beyond recognition. What a wonderfully warped, ominous (but intriguing) story that might draw from it a lesson opposite of what the Good Samaritan parable tried to establish.

All of these tales are perfect for Halloween or when you're just in the mood for really good, short ghost stories.

Most of the nine stories included in Farthing Hill and Other Stories aren't supernatural or have little to do with such mystic meanderings, although "Farthing Hill" itself is, "Kielty's" has an edge toward the strange, "Red and Green Beads" is the quintessential ghost story, and maybe "Mr Proudham and Mr Sleight" could be considered otherworldly but I honestly didn't understand that particular story at all enough to figure out what it was intended to be. Oddly enough, given my love of all Susan Hill's other ghost stories, the weird, extramundane stories in this collection are the ones I liked least (though I did enjoy all but the latter one I mentioned).

The tale that stood out most for me was titled "The Custodian". For a good portion of the story, I had no idea why it was named as it was. An old man sacrificially takes on the care of his young grandson. The old man is good to the young boy, and they learn and enjoy their time together. Everything changes when the boy's father returns unexpectedly. What a devastating, forlorn glimpse of a life and what a sad commentary about putting all of one's self into another being--and yet this is the very thing that can give life meaning and purpose. There's no good reconciliation to this existential quandary. I was left gasping at the contradiction and simple summary of life as we know it.

"The Albatross" is another mournful story of an 18-year-old boy with disabilities who's taking care of his wheelchair-ridden mother. The mother is hard and harsh and does everything in her power to keep her son with her, even when the home environment becomes toxic and the breaking point is reached. While not much sympathy can be roused for the mother, I nevertheless found it easy to imagine feeling helpless in her condition. To be alone when there's no one to care for or about you, or to share your life is a terrifying, lonely thought--not that it justifies her behavior toward her son. I appreciated the efforts of secondary characters to intervene, but sometimes in life we learn there is just no way to turn something horrible into something good.

"Halloran's Child" moved me with this shameful tale of a family treated badly and shunned without justification by fellow townsfolk. I've always been disturbed about the "levels" in society and how badly people can treat others in the name of social status. The rich, the poor, the middle-class--we're all guilty of this kind of thing. Why can't we just genuinely show respect and kindness to everyone around us, not setting ourselves up as more worthy than anyone else? Sigh. This story really brings mankind's cruelties home, but it's told from the point of view of a human being who's simple, humble, and even sweet, so the despicable events are that much more shocking and dismaying.

"How Soon Can I Leave?" is another odd little slice of life revealing two women who share a strange relationship that both enriches and hinders their lives. We're only in the point of view of one of them, and you can't help but see in this tragic tale how a person can lie to herself and manipulate her own mind to believe what she wants to about herself, her motives, and those of others.

"The Badness Within Him" shares the sadness of the previous installments in this collection with a boy considered the black sheep of the family, but there's a twist that I didn't expect at the end. It really made me think and grieve about similar things I've her about and experienced.

Susan Hill's stories consistently highlight the bleak darkness inherent within the commonplace; the sinister, preventable failures, wrong-headed foibles, and fragile beauty in a life where least expected. In these two collections, this author nails those bitter, heart-rending and life-changing concepts.

Note that these stories are published separately as well as in the author's other collections.

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/

The Practice of Benevolence {A Reflection on Dickens' A Christmas Carol} by Karen S. Wiesner

The Practice of Benevolence

{A Reflection on Dickens' A Christmas Carol}

by Karen S. Wiesner

One of my all-time favorite stories is and always will be Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, first published in 1843. I imagine it's a story nearly everyone everywhere has heard in one form or another. For my part, I try to read the novella and watch one of the countless film adaptations every year around Christmas. Dickens wrote, "I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it."

The messages in this story are timeless. I did an internet search asking what the major themes in this undeniable classic are, and almost none of the offerings that came up could focus on just one because there are so many good messages in this one little tale. Here's my attempt at coming up with a motif for the story:

The spirit of benevolence and goodwill toward our fellow human beings throughout the year is in the eternal need for compassion, kindness, and mercy to all, as well as the transformative power of change coming from within.

Benevolence is the disposition to do good, embodying a genuine desire to promote kindness, charity, and positive attitudes toward others along with an inclination to perform acts of goodwill or extend help to those in need. A benevolent person actively seeks opportunities to benefit others, often without expecting anything in return.

Our world and the people in it often aren't a very good reflection of that description, wouldn't you agree? Selfishness, putting one's desires first, despising one another because of our differences looks like the norm in this day and age--as, in truth, it was at the time Dickens wrote the story and probably has been all throughout time. Does this description of Scrooge (written 180 years ago!) from the narrator of the story sound like anyone you know? I can think of several (including myself) who fit some or all of the points:

"Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster… But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance..."

I thought it would be illuminating to explore the many good lessons taught, in quotes, by the characters in A Christmas Carol as they reflect on life. Draw what conclusions you will from each quote, but I think most of the truths are self-evident.

Jacob Marley's Reflections of Life:

“I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."

"...no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused!"

"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Fred 's (Scrooge's Nephew) Reflections of Life:

"...I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time...as...the only time I know of...when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave..."

“…his offences carry their own punishment… I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always."

Bob Crachit's Reflections of Life:

Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge’s nephew… "…he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard… 'If I can be of service to you in any way,’ he said, giving me his card, ‘…Pray come to me.' "Now, it wasn’t for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way..."

Ghost of Christmas Past's Reflections of Life:

"Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it…

 “What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!”

Ghost of Christmas Present's Reflections of Life:

“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”

“Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”

Ghost of Christmas Future's Reflections of Life (note: this ghost didn't actually speak out loud, but Scrooge inferred its intentions based on the things shown to him by it):

"Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man’s. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal! … No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge’s ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly! … He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him... “Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope! ... Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!”

Ebenezer Scrooge's Reflections of Life:

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.”

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

Narrator's Reflections of Life:

"He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew…"

We live in a world that's ever in need of the very things that are least evident in it. Hatred, intolerance, and violence over things that shouldn't but inevitably and inescapably do divide us against our fellow human beings have become our daily bread. Every day, each one of us commits offenses against others in some way, shape, or form. As I reflect on this sad commentary, I often consider how much good benevolence would have on us and our world throughout the year, if only we practiced it.

Instead of fighting over all the wrong we see others doing, what if we as a whole didn't specify wrongdoing (as in transgressions, flaws, weaknesses, vices, and regrets) into its unlimited categories, instead generalizing wrongs as "wrongs"? We're all carrying around a big bag of those wrongs. If we didn't look inside everyone's "bag of wrongs", wouldn't we have to conclude that we're all equal in the eyes of God as well as each other? Would we then conclude--since we're all carrying around a bag of wrongs, regardless of what's inside--that maybe we should have compassion on one another and accept that we individually are not the only one in need of grace, forgiveness, and unquantified mercy? At that point, could we minister, show kindness and empathy for each other in the name of goodwill toward all? Consider also that, if we realize it's not our place to punish others for their perceived wrongs, a tremendous weight is lifted from our shoulders, leaving us free to pursue peace instead.

We're all on the road to death, and every single road in life inescapably leads to that conclusion. If we're all on even ground, then no one is better or more righteous than the next one, right? In the same vein, no one is more sinful than another either. We're all the same. If we each deserve unilateral hatred and scorn, then, by the same token, don't we all deserve unbiased love and tenderness? Shouldn't we then practice benevolence as our common ground? In this way, respect and courtesy could and should be given to every single person on the planet regardless of who we are and what's inside our particular bag of wrongs.

For as long as breath remains in our lungs, life in our bodies, blood in our veins, it's not too late to live out the benevolence of A Christmas Carol to the world around us every single day. In this way, we each do our part in sowing the world with life immortal.

Read A Christmas Carol free here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm#link12.

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

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

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

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

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

Karen S Wiesner: {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Woman in Black and Printer's Devil Court by Susan Hill

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Woman in Black and Printer's Devil Court 

by Susan Hill

by Karen S. Wiesner

Susan Hill is one of those authors that effortlessly puts you directly into the fictional settings and personal lives of her characters (many of her stories are ghost and/or horror) with so much atmospheric reality, you're convinced of the authenticity of everything. Two stories that seem to go together extremely well are The Woman in Black and Printer's Devil Court. Both are haunting (forgive me but it's fitting) ghost stories that linger on in the memory long after they're read.

The Woman in Black was published in 1983. Most people have heard of it because of the 2012 film adaption starring (Harry Potter) Daniel Radcliffe, which was excellent but not quite as good as the book. There were changes made to the movie (ones that I think worked there) that weren't in the book, and it’s within the pages of the novel that the story, characters, and unforgettable settings are breathtakingly expanded.

The novel is narrated by Arthur Kipps and follows his life. In this one, we start at the end, and work our way to the beginning. In the initial scenes, we see Kipps settled with his wife and stepchildren. They ask him to tell them his own ghost story. Kipps resists but eventually decides to write it down. He starts at the beginning when he was young  and engaged to be married the following year. As a junior solicitor, Kipps is assigned to attend the funeral of Alice Drablow in Crythin Gifford, a small town on the coast of England. He’s charged with settling her estate, the secluded, desolate Eel Marsh House situated on Nine Lives Causeway, which is surrounded by marshes. At high tide, the property is completely cut off from the mainland.

During the funeral, Kipps sees a mysterious woman in black lurking in the background. As he learns more about his deceased client and her sister, who became pregnant out of wedlock, one of the wealthy landowners from town divulges the horrifying truth that none of the other townsfolk want to talk about--that Jennet has returned often in the years since her death, and a sighting of this “Woman in Black” presages the death of a child.

This story reflects on the deep, indelible impressions death can leave on lives, and the damage that harshness, unforgiveness, and loss can have on the mind. The Woman in Black is everything I love in a ghost tale. It has great potential for re-reading often.

In Printer's Devil Court, a Victorian spooky tale, four medical students discuss the ramifications of interfering with death as it approaches. In truth, they should have talked about whether it's advisable at all. But, in the throes of youth untouched by the taint of regret and uncertainty, so many evils are perpetrated and simply never questioned in the face of imminent exploration and discovery. The experiments the men embark on in the cellar of their lodgings in Printer's Devil Court and a little used mortuary in a subterranean annex of the hospital is unnatural and horrifying.

Hugh, one of the doctors, found he couldn't continue with the unethical undertakings, but years later he's called back to the unpleasant memories of the events he had a unwilling but intrigued hand in bringing about. Now he sees the damage that lives on unceasingly. But is it possible to change the consequences of monstrous actions?

This story reflects on the deep, indelible impressions of life and death, what happens in-between, and how inept man is at playing God in these areas. The reader is forced to consider the frailty and violence inside men. This Frankenstein-like story swept me along, unable to put it down for long. As an author, I couldn’t help marveling at how the author chose the best narrator for this story. If she’d chosen any of the other medical students, the story wouldn’t have any the same impact. Stories like these make for good warnings against getting involved in ambiguous things that make you uneasy and are sure to keep your conscience at full alarm until you extricate yourself.

If you haven’t read a ghost story before or are simply looking for the best of its kind, these two are not to be missed.

Note that these stories are published separately as well as in the author's own collections.

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/