Karen S. Wiesner: {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Fractal Noise, A Fractalverse Novel by Christopher Paolini

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Fractal Noise, A Fractalverse Novel

by Christopher Paolini

by Karen S. Wiesner

In the previous two weeks, I reviewed Christopher Paolini's previous Fractalverse novel, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, in an article called "Combating Big Book Overwhelm with Audiobooks"; I also reviewed "Unity", An Interactive Fractalverse Story. The Fractalverse Universe encompasses all known space and time, binding everyone everywhere as fellow travelers.

Before we get started, a word of explanation about the order of this series is necessary. Here's what's currently available in the order the stories were published:

1.     To Sleep in a Sea of Stars (2020)

2.     "Unity" (2021)

3.     Fractal Noise (2023)

Influenced by an intense nightmare he'd had while writing Inheritance, the fourth in his Inheritance Cycle, Paolini wrote an initial draft of Fractal Noise (originally a novella) but wasn't happy with it and set it aside. Eventually, he moved on to To Sleep…, also set in the Fractalverse Universe. This project took him much longer than he intended to finish--years--and only after he completed that did he go back to Fractal Noise. With new ideas and direction, he did a major revision and it became a 300+ page novel. It's unclear when "Unity" was written but I'm going to guess soon after To Sleep… was completed, probably before he revised Fractal Noise into a novel. In any case, the chronological sequence of the three stories is the exact opposite of the publication order:

1.     Fractal Noise

2.     To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

3.     "Unity"

According to the timeline included on the fractalverse.net website, the Great Beacon on Talos VII, which is the focus of Fractal Noise, was discovered between 2234 and 2237. It was the first alien artifact discovered in the universe. Twenty-three years later, between 2257 and 2258, the events of To Sleep… took place, starting on the moon Adrasteia. "Unity" follows To Sleep… chronologically, and within the "Unity" story, on a doctor's report, the date is listed as "2335" so it's been just over 75 years.

As for suggested reading order, I would have to say either Fractal Noise or To Sleep… should come first; it doesn't actually matter which. "Unity" should follow the reading of To Sleep… regardless of what order you read the two novels. I prefer following chronology as a general rule for all series, but the author felt that To Sleep… "would be a better introduction to the Fractalverse". I read To Sleep… first because it was published first. I followed that with Fractal Noise because it was published second. I only found out about "Unity" after going to the author's website. If I'd had a choice, I would have read Fractal Noise first, then To Sleep… and finally "Unity". Make of that what you will.

I have to comment on the fact that I didn't understand the connection between the two novels published in the series beyond that they shared the same world. I wasn't sure if there were characters in common, a plot, place, or something else. It wasn't until after I read both books (and the short story) and then listened to the audiobook version of To Sleep… that I finally figured out the connection between the two novels: Alien artifacts. That's what ties the two books together, other than the shared universe. The first alien artifact was discovered in Fractal Noise, the second in To Sleep… The question whether the same alien species created both artifacts is much tougher to answer, and I couldn't find a definitive answer to that anywhere online and it's lost in the combined 1,184 pages of the two books. But at least I discovered that there really wasn't any other connection between the two novels beyond the shared universe and ancient alien relics. Sounds simple, but it was frustrating not knowing that. I always feel like crucial information that most readers will wonder about needs to be included in the series blurb. Saves on wear and tear of reader nerves to know something unifying like that upfront.

So, the focus of Fractal Noise is the anomaly found on Talos VII, an otherwise uninhabited planet. From space, the stellar survey crew onboard the SLV Adamura sees a pit fifty kilometers wide, definitely not natural. This giant abyss is broadcasting a signal, to whom or what, is unknown. Eventually (in To Sleep…), this hole is called the Great Beacon. A small team is sent out to check it out, and most of their journey has to take place on foot with limited supplies and protection. The group of four consists of (to be blunt):

1)    A stereotypical religious fanatic who believes no one and nothing matters other than divine will. This woman is one crack away from becoming the next Interstellar Psycho. Bad luck for everyone involved: She's made the team leader.

2)    An opinionated tough guy with a chip on his shoulder who starts out as fun and personable, but then becomes the religious fanatic's archenemy as he vies for control of the team and the mission.

3)    A spineless weakling who will cave to whoever's strongest at the moment, incapable of doing anything but flying into the wind from one moment to the next, especially after he's injured so badly, he has to be carried the rest of the way.

4)    A scarred-from-childhood man so immersed in his grief from losing the woman he loved--the woman he's only realized in retrospect that he mistreated before her violent death by a tigermaul--that he doesn't really care about anyone or anything except in reflex. This person is Dr. Alex Crichton, a xenobiologist.

Alex is the main character. None of the other three major characters are really given more than a brief sketch in terms of fleshing out. We learn very little about them, beyond what's absolutely needed to tell the story, and so the book always felt a little lopsided to me. I might have learned too much about Alex, who became a little sickening since he was a train wreck personality, and not nearly enough about the other three pivotal characters. The loss of personal information became harder to take especially as the first two characters disintegrated in their escalating conflict with each other, the third became less and less useful to the team as he cringed away from their ongoing battle, with only Alex trying to keep the peace--mainly by staying out of the argument altogether. Alex is also the one who ended up picking up the pieces in the fallout and kept them moving forward steadily toward their goal. Clearly, he should have been team leader, but until someone is under duress in the field, I guess it's hard to know who might crack first. I suspect the captain of the ship believed he'd chosen the last person who seemed capable of falling apart as the team leader. Bad call leads to big mistake.

The conflicts with each other, the conflicts of their individual pasts that are motivating and driving each of them, and the conflict with the relic they're moving toward steadily despite all that's preventing them from reaching it are intriguing. The tension culminated, small outbursts becoming bigger and bigger, the results of the team’s in-fighting and bad luck making the journey even more stressful. I truly enjoyed the trek across the planet to the beacon, providing constant suspense with the internal conflicts of the team, physical injuries, the mission in jeopardy nearly from the beginning, and the things thrown in their way, like the growing, deafening noise, "turtles"--creatures that were obviously guarding the broken beacon's equipment, and numerous equipment failures.

Earlier, I said that the *focus* of Fractal Noise is the beacon. However, it's in no way the *purpose* of the story. If you don't want spoilers, don't read the next two paragraphs bracketed with asterisks:

**Within the pages of this book, you don't ever learn what the beacon is, who put it there, why it was constructed, what it was supposed to do or supposed to contact. You learn nothing important about the Great Beacon by the end. It's simply a relic that might have been covered over by the sands of time if not for the signal it was sending out that unfortunately captured attention from this crew and later the world. By the time the story To Sleep in a Sea of Stars rolls out, humans still don't know anything solid about that ancient artifact. In that book, it's revealed that they're called whirlpools by the Wranaui and that there are many of them around the universe. The Wranaui allies believe the Vanished created them but even they don't know for sure. But none of the species can even venture a guess what they're for.

Anyone reading this would have found it frustrating not to learn anything worthwhile about the relic. Initially, it seemed like the point of the story, though the back cover blurb did make it clear that the "ghosts of the past" following the members of the team were the true focus. In the end, Alex came to grips with his past and his grief. That's the best thing that happened--the only bit of closure provided. I presume he made it back to the ship, maybe with the weakling still alive, and that's how Kira and the other characters in the time period of To Sleep… know the beacon even exists.**

Despite a bit of annoyance about not getting any part of what I felt the story was building toward, I did find the story worthwhile reading. I savored the journey, weathering the disappointment in the end, yes, but I remained excited about where this series could be leading. Of the three Fractalverse stories I've read thus far, Fractal Noise was my favorite. Maybe in subsequent books, we'll learn what the beacon in Fractal Noise was intended for. At the end of To Sleep…, Kira learned that the Maw had left seven other parts of itself in different locations within the universe, and she intended to track them down alone. Perhaps we'll learn more about the rest of her journey to either kill or convert those seven fragments, as she did before.

As a reader, I look for closure in a story and series, and I felt both Fractalverse novels left a lot of the opposite, though not in a way that could be described as a deal breaker. I accepted the loose ends, though I'm not sure all readers would be as forgiving, because I'm eager to know more about this world. I suspect the author will produce many other stories that are connected to the universe but not tied closely to them, leaving even more fragments littered around the Fractal galaxy. Eventually, there may be a way to tie them all together--what I'm ultimately hoping for. In the meantime, there has been talk about either a film or TV series adaptation of To Sleep… with the author and his sister already writing scripts and presumably too occupied for Paolini to work on the next installment in the series. I look forward to hearing more about whether the visual adaptation goes forward, assuming that, in some way, the events of Fractal Noise and "Unity" will be included in that. At this point, until the author gives us a clue, who knows what might happen next in the Fractalverse? If you have any conjecture, leave a comment.

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/

Parallel Lives in Different Worlds

Speaking of living one's life over again, have I mentioned Jo Walton's novel MY REAL CHILDREN before? Having reread it last week, I'm impressed anew by its unusual approach to alternate history, possibly unique. At least, I don't remember encountering anything else like it. The British protagonist's personal timeline splits into two at the end of her Oxford education, and the story follows both of her lives in two separate worlds from that point in early adulthood to her old age.

The prologue introduces the elderly Patricia in a nursing home. As the nurses often note on her chart, she's Very Confused. She remembers her life as Tricia, in which she accepted Mark's proposal at the crucial point of divergence, but also her life as Pat, in which she refused him. Did she have four children plus multiple miscarriages and stillbirths, in an emotionallly abusive marriage from which she escaped in middle age, or three children in a fulfilled, mostly happy life with love, travel, and success as a writer? After the prologue, chapters alternate episodes from the timelines of Tricia and Pat, each helpfully labeled with the years covered in that chapter.

Interestingly, neither of her worlds corresponds to the history we know. Therefore, the reader can feel no temptation to prefer either timeline as "real." Both alternate Earths are more scientifically and technologically advanced than ours, having colonies on the Moon by the 1990s, at the end of Patricia's life. In one history, there's a multi-national research station; in the other, two mutually hostile lunar military bases confront each other. In the latter world, President Kennedy died from an assassin's bomb; in the former, he served out his term and declined to run for reelection in 1964. In one history, international chaos, local wars with a constant threat of nuclear holocaust, and repressive political systems even in advanced Western nations plague the world. The other timeline, although of course not perfect, enjoys prosperity, widespread freedom, international cooperation, and relative peace.

In the novel's most intriguing twist, Pat leads her fulfilling life in the dystopian world, while Tricia suffers through her miserable marriage in the much better world. Suppose she could relive the decisive conversation with Mark and make one timeline definitively real. Which would she pick? Ordinarily, I snarl in frustration at novels that leave the reader hanging at the end. This book's "Lady or the Tiger?" conclusion, however, strikes me as perfect. What alternative does Patricia choose? What SHOULD she choose? Leaving that question open makes the ideal culmination for this thought-provoking narrative.

Margaret L. Carter

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

Karen S. Wiesner: {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: "Unity", An Interactive Fractalverse Story by Christopher Paolini

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: "Unity", An Interactive Fractalverse Story

by Christopher Paolini

by Karen S. Wiesner

Last week, I reviewed Christopher Paolini's previous Fractalverse novel, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, in an article called "Combating Big Book Overwhelm with Audiobooks". The Fractalverse Universe encompasses all known space and time, binding everyone everywhere as fellow travelers. In order to really understand "Unity", you had to have read and understood To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, so this review is filled with spoilers. If you haven't read To Sleep… and want to before learning all the basic details, you might want to come back to this review later.

Here's a very concise summary of that nearly 900-page book:

On an alien world, the heroine, a xenobiologist, Kira blunders into an underground hole where an artifact was left by an alien culture long, long ago. An ancient xeno seed left there resurrects enough to infiltrate Kira's body, inside and out, so she and the alien become one. This thing is called the Soft Blade. After Kira's taken into military quarantine, the ship they're on is attacked by Wranaui, aliens that worship the Vanished--the beings that originally hid the Soft Blade in the underground reliquary. In her attempt to escape, Kira causes an explosion that joins a piece of the Soft Blade to the doctor in charge of testing Kira and to one of the Wranaui. What's created from this is a corrupted being called the Maw. Floating in space, it grows and spreads malevolently. It converts a planet into interstellar ships that are used by the Maw's corrupted warriors. There's a whole plotline about a lesser bad guy that takes up hundreds of pages. But the Maw is the real enemy in the universe. A faction of the Wranaui join humans in the fight. Long story short, the Maw and the Soft Blade merge so their minds are joined. The Maw is subdued, the Corrupted unmade, and the Maw's mass is converted into a space station--Unity--intended to serve as an embassy so humanity and its new alien friends, the Wranaui, can hammer out a peace treaty.

I only discovered "Unity" when I went to the fractalverse.net website to find out what else Paolini had to offer in this universe. There, I came upon an interactive short story that was laid out in a similar fashion (though much less complex) to the Choose Your Own Adventure "gamebooks" that were published from 1979-1998. I devoured these as a kid, even if the stories weren't always fantastic. The concept was what captured me. They were a precursor to the videogames I would soon come to embrace as an adult, making them my most favored hobby in lieu of watching TV. In a Choose Your Own Adventure story, the reader is the protagonist who makes decisions about how the story will proceed and end. Frequently, a wrong choice leads to a bad ending--in other words, "Story Over", and the reader has to choose another path to try to reach a good ending. The number of endings included in each adventure varied--Wikipedia's write-up talks about as many as forty-four in the early titles to as few as seven in the later ones.

As I said, the "Unity" interactive adventure was much less complex. There were never more than three choices as to which direction to go, and most didn't end badly. Only occasionally did a bad choice lead to a "You're dead" ending. So you had to go back a page and choose another path, or simply do the opposite of what you did last time. Fairly uncomplicated. I did die once or twice, lol, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

In the time since the events of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars concluded, Unity has become an advanced space station where both humans and Wranaui abide in peace. It's the last place anyone would expect a murder to take place. You play the investigator trying to piece together what happened. The story is fun and well-written, especially with some backtracking involved if you choose a wrong path. It won't take you longer than a half hour, possibly much less if you're faster running through it and don't die. If you want to partake, you can start your adventure here: https://www.paolini.net/works/unity/ or here: https://fractalverse.net/works/unity/.

A print version was in the works, as Paolini explains in a Twitter post (you can access it from the fractalverse.net link I posted in the last paragraph). He actually shows in a video the print edition that was designed with gorgeous, original, custom artwork. The cost with print on demand was apparently prohibitive, so unless there's a "Kickstarter" (global crowdfunding platform initiative), the online version that's available free on Paolini's website is all there is or ever will be available for "Unity". I say, enjoy it for what it is. This is the kind of thing that's intended to be interactive and doing it online just streamlines the process. All the artwork is also free on the website for you to enjoy.

Next week, I'll talk about the publication, chronological, and optimal reading order of all the installments in the Fractalverse series as well as review Paolini's newest offering in the Fractalverse. Finally, I'll extrapolate about where he might go from here in the series.

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/

Groundhog Day

February 2 is almost upon us -- Groundhog Day, aka Imbolc (Celtic) or Candlemas (Christian). Here's a brief overview of its history:

Imbolc

This date constitutes one of the major seasonal milestones of the pagan year, halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Originally the festival of the goddess Brigid, it morphed into the feast day of St. Brigid in the Christian era. According to the website above, Imbolc marked the beginning of spring. Maybe in the British Isles, but definitely not around here!

Since the official first day of spring falls approximately six weeks after February 2, it's logical for the emergence of groundhogs (in North America) from their burrows -- woodchucks or badgers in Europe -- to signal six more weeks of winter. If you assume that's what the animal's shadow portends, your guess has a high chance of being correct. I wondered for years why seeing his shadow would forecast a longer winter. Wouldn't bright sun lead us to expect an early spring? Eventually I realized clear weather in winter is likely to be colder, while warmer air holds more moisture and thus might produce a cloudy day. So the association of sighting a shadow with the prospect of continued freezing temperatures makes a certain amount of sense.

Oddly, the alleged predictions of the famous groundhog of Punxsutawney, PA, have consistently more often than not been less accurate than chance. Nowadays, why don't the handlers "translating" for him consult a long-term weather forecast before making their pronouncements?

The movie GROUNDHOG DAY presents an initially funny but gradually darkening exploration of "What if you could live your life over?" The hero of the film, of course, just lives one day over -- and over and over. The compulsion to keep repeating that day until he gets it right leads to a downward spiral of nihilistic despair rather than optimism about getting a fresh start, until he changes his attitude and sincerely tries to do better. In the midst of its humor, the movie raises the grim prospect that getting a do-over in life might not turn out so great as we'd hope. What if every attempt to fix some mistake in the past created a fresh disaster? Luckily for the protagonist's future and the viewer's satisfaction, he does eventually get it right. In that respect GROUNDHOG DAY resembles A CHRISTMAS CAROL. In an interesting coincidence, the same actor, Bill Murray, stars in both GROUNDHOG DAY and SCROOGED as the selfish cynic needing reformation.

Margaret L. Carter

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

Period, Full Stop

Who cares if a late night comedian's voice-over says PERIOD and displays an exclamation point? How influential is that? It is thoroughly illiterate, and wrong... or is it, if a powerful governor bases their remarks on the misinformation?

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/period/

A period is either a full stop, or a certain uncomfortable time of the month for a woman... for a cis woman, some might disclaim.

“They have the right not be harassed, not to be denied, not to be arrested for peaceful protesting. Full stop. Period," said Newsom.

"We have the best three year record of any modern American presidency. Period. Full stop.”

"Period, full stop" is a fine example of tautology. Tautology is consider poor style and a red flag of ignorance. It is like saying "ATM machine". That is, Automated Teller Machine machine. Or, "widow woman", cited by the site.

On the other hand, and still not considered good style, it might be explained as saying the same word in American English and also in British English, like "hood/bonnet", "trunk/boot", "windshield/windscreen", "chin/pecker" and "fender/wing".

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

Karen S. Wiesner: Combating Big Book Overwhelm with Audiobooks or {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, A Fractalverse Novel by Christopher Paolini

Combating Big Book Overwhelm with Audiobooks or

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review:

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, A Fractalverse Novel

by Christopher Paolini

by Karen S. Wiesner

Within an extensive article I wrote called "Presentation is King", previously published on the Alien Romances Blog, I talked about Christopher Paolini's first science fiction mega-novel, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, which was the first offering in his Fractalverse series, and provided a review for it. While I thought the novel was well-written, I complained about the obscene length that overwhelmed my basic enjoyment of the story. You can read the article here:

               Part 1: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/12/karen-s-wiesner-presentation-is-king.html

               Part 2: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/12/karen-s-wiesner-presentation-is-king_01963401706.html

               Part 3: https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2022/12/karen-s-wiesner-presentation-is-king_02089261396.html

The weird thing is, I wanted to love that book wholeheartedly instead of just liking it but fervently wished it'd been published as three, manageable, separate stories (which it could so easily have been, given the way the book was conveniently divided into several parts) instead of a massive one. That way my overwhelmed brain could have enjoyed it more.

Within my three-part article, I also talked about Paolini's other series, The Inheritance Cycle, which suffered from the same problem. His stories are too big to allow true immersion and would be so much better presented in multiple parts, allowing the reader time between to recover from the page-overloaded, detail-heavy material. This brings to my mind my favorite fantasy series. Most people who love this genre know that J.R.R. Tolkien intended The Lord of the Rings to be one, exceptionally long novel. Wisely, I think, his publisher thought one book would be cost prohibitive and also they wanted to get the material to eager readers faster, so they turned one book into a trilogy. I might never have read that book--my all-time favorite fantasy--if not for the brilliant presentation. As one volume, I would have been instantly intimidated and deterred from even starting it. Instead, we now have three installments, presented in a way that allows readers to enjoy segments of the story without becoming overwhelmed by the sheer size of the material and ponderous details that need to be absorbed to follow it.

I wondered in the time since I wrote the article/review for To Sleep in a Sea of Stars what other people thought of the book. I found a review by Lotte on The Escape Velocity Collection website, which amused me, though it was a bit too harsh in my opinion--however, I didn't fully disagree with the conclusions drawn. You can read Lotte's review here, if you want: https://escapevelocitycollection.com/fiction-fix-to-sleep-in-a-sea-of-stars/.

Two things stood out for me in that review. First, that the reviewer felt Paolini was a good writer and wanted to love To Sleep… just like I did but didn't quite get there. The second thing that stood out was in the very first sentence of the review: "…I've been listening to the audiobook of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars…" This is how the reviewer managed to get through the enormous amount of material without giving up out of exhaustion. I think one of the biggest reasons people prefer to watch a movie over reading the book is because it's just so much easier to grasp the concepts in that visual form. What may be hard to wade through and grasp in a dense, overloaded read is simpler to see and comprehend playing out on a screen. The brain pulls everything together in a different way that doesn't lead to fatigue, the way it might in reading. I think audiobooks may also provide another means of making sense of a tremendous amount of material--not quite as visual as a film, but I was hopeful this was an avenue that could help my brain fatigue with some large books that I genuinely wanted to love.

I thought about it for months and finally decided to start 2024 with a new willingness to listen to audiobooks, which I confess I tend to think of as cheating for a true reader. But if the sole reason I'm avoiding certain books I know I'd enjoy if they were presented in a different way is because the size overwhelms me, why not try?

The best time for me to listen to an audiobook is while getting ready for the day in the morning as well as while I'm doing household chores at various points throughout the day. Normally, I listen to music during those times, which I'd miss, but it seemed like a worthwhile, temporary swap. I'm not a fan of downloaded audio files, in part because I want something tangible for my money that can be utilized even when technology changes, as it inevitably does and would. Finding cd audiobooks wasn't easy (Amazon doesn't seem to carry them, that I found anyway--only offers Audible.com files, and Barnes and Noble has the same issue) but I did manage to purchase audio cds elsewhere for To Sleep in a Sea of Stars as well as all of Paolini's Inheritance Cycle titles, including the brand new offering in that series, Murtagh, Book 5. I started with Eragon, Book 1, since I received that first. I enjoyed listening each day and looked forward to progressing in the story. As soon as I got the audio cds of To Sleep…, though, I switched to that.

This is a much, much better way of digesting Paolini's brilliant Fractalverse, a way that doesn't strain my brain and make me share in Lotte's hilarious, wearied weeping for reprieve: "Please save me. This book is legitimately 900 pages long and I don't deserve this." Thus far, incorporating audiobooks into my "reading" is a revelation for this diehard, traditional bibliophile. I never would have realized what a difference it would make in dealing with what could otherwise be considered an agonizing endeavor in reading a book too big to be believed.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars was well-written with exciting and compelling, well-developed characters and plot conflicts, with plenty of universe and contextual detail to make everything logical. I love science fiction, and, when combined with horror…forget about it. Win-win. I do admit with To Sleep…, I wanted more Alien, less Enemy Mine (Dennis Quaid). Regardless, the bottom line is that I highly recommend not just To Sleep… but the whole Fractalverse series to any fantasy and sci-fi lover. I especially enjoyed listening to Jennifer Hale read To Sleep… with the audiobook. Like Paolini, I'm a huge fan of Mass Effect, and Jennifer Hale was the voice actress for fem Shep in that videogame series. I also learned that Hale, with music producer Todd Herfindal, wrote and performed some beautiful music for To Sleep… Find out more here: https://fractalverse.net/works/music-to-sleep/. If you want to dig deeper into anything in the Fractalverse Universe, Paolini's website has a ton of visuals and explanations for anything from lifeforms to star systems, organizations and religions, as well as a fairly detailed timeline.

There's also talk about a film adaptation or possibly a TV series of To Sleep… I strongly believe either of these would make the most of an incredible story that almost can't be enjoyed in its original format.

Over the next two weeks, I'll review Paolini's other two, subsequent offerings in his Fractalverse.

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/ 

Deities in Fantasy Worlds

Recently T. Kingfisher published the fourth book in her "Saint of Steel" series, PALADIN'S FAITH. (The others are PALADIN'S GRACE, PALADIN'S STRENGTH, and PALADIN'S HOPE.) Also in the same setting: The Clocktaur War duology (CLOCKWORK BOYS and THE WONDER ENGINE) and the stand-alone novel SWORDHEART. These works may be broadly described as sword-and-sorcery romances in a late medieval or an early steampunk milieu.

The premise of "Saint of Steel" is that the deity in the series title died, from a cause so far unknown. His paladins felt his violent death. The few who survived the cataclysmic trauma struggle to carry on with their lives despite a void where the bond with their god should be. Two gifts of their divine patron remain, the "voice" that empowers them to persuade anyone of almost anything (provided the paladin sincerely means what he or she says) and a battle frenzy called the "black tide," which grants them superhuman strength and speed but leaves scars on their souls. The surviving paladins have been taken under the protection of the temple of the White Rat.

The stories in this fictional universe feature three principal deities, although others are mentioned: The Saint of Steel, whose warriors fight evil and protect its victims; the pragmatic White Rat, whose temples are noted for exercising charity and correcting injustices, many of whose devotees are lawyers or investigative accountants; and the Dreaming God, whose servants specialize in exorcizing demons. As illustrated by a scene at the climax of PALADIN'S FAITH when the Saint of Steel speaks to a large crowd through the mouth of a character, everyone knows and takes for granted the existence of the gods. In the face of incontrovertible evidence, nobody disbelieves in supernatural beings. If there are any "flat-earth atheists" in this world, we don't meet them:

Flat-Earth Atheist

The background of the Dungeons and Dragons games is similar, but even more so. Everybody knows that multiple gods exist and that clerics acquire their magic spells by praying to their patron deities.

What would it be like to live in a world where the existence of deities is a routinely accepted truth? Faith in the sense of intellectual belief would be unnecessary and nonexistent. You don't have that type of "faith" in something definitely known. No matter how powerful, divine entities would be as mundane a fact as the sun and the moon. Faith in the sense of trust, of course, would be an entirely different matter. Granny Weatherwax in Terry Pratchett's Discworld doesn't approve of believing in gods; it only encourages them.

The rare person who experiences an epiphany like the characters in the aforementioned scene would presumably react with awe. Most ordinary people, lacking either a personal divine encounter or Granny Weatherwax's strength of character, would probably regard the gods as powers to be approached with caution, placating them but not getting too deeply involved. Rather like living next to a forest infested by semi-tame tigers, maybe.

Margaret L. Carter

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

Untrained Melody

I was planning to regurgitate some of the current discussions about AI, particularly with respect to copyright (this is, after all, a blog by and for authors), but I have just changed my title to Untrained Melody because of something I noticed this morning on Amazon.

One of the most important factors in buying something on Amazon is how many stars a book or other product has, and how many five-star reviews there are. Well, now that Amazon is using AI to sort reviews, one maybe cannot trust Amazon star ratings and reviews.

I am looking for a magic mat that will gently shock my feet and make foot and leg pain vanish temporarily. Walmart has something of the sort on clearance for less than $10, and it appears to have very poor reviews. So, of course I visited Amazon, willing to pay four or five times the Walmart price for a foot-shocker for authors and other sedentary people, providing that the Amazon product has good reviews.

 

Check this out, not literally, of course. 

"Customers like the quality and sturdiness of the health personal care product. They mention that it is beautiful and well made.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews"

The sentence about AI is in very fine print. (I put up a screen shot, but that was not permitted).

Intrigued for many reasons, I scrolled until I found the reviews. Here is the reviews link:

https://www.amazon.com/BFAHE-Stimulator-facilitate-Performance-Temporary/product-reviews/B0CMDK8B6D/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews 

What should tires and a low-slung skirt, or a necklace, or a router table, or a sandbag have to do with a stimulating bit of electrified leather or plastic?

Maybe, authors, you should investigate what Amazon AI may have done to your reviews. Maybe, would-be-buyers, you should check if you are looking at a product where the reviews have been AI generated from the text of customer reviews.

I might have happened upon an isolated SNAFU.

 

Even so, the AI does not appear to have perfected the spelling, punctuation, grammar of the reviews, so what use is it?

The Mintz law firm's Insights Center has an excellent (if possibly over-punctuated) examination of the (Un)fair Use? Copyrighted Works as AI Training Data.

https://www.mintz.com/insights-center/viewpoints/54731/2024-01-10-unfair-use-copyrighted-works-ai-training-data-ai#page=1

Authors Bruce D. Sokler, Alexander Hecht, Christian Tamotsu-fjeld, and Raj Gambhir discuss the dilemmas that have arisen around the world from the methods used by developers to train their tools and models.

As they write:

"Many have been amazed by the capacity of generative AI tools to answer questions, crack jokes, and compose poetry."

 And:

".. for training AI models, researchers have “scraped” various data sources including internet forums, book corpuses, and online code repositories."

Allegedly, it wasn't a contentious issue until AI became commericalized. Perhaps a use can be fair as long as it is for the benefit of all mankind, and is not exploited for the financial gain of a few.

Apparently, in Europe, there is a right for copyright holders to opt-out of having their work data mined, and if they do so, the AI trainers must seek permission. It would have been simpler if the AI trainers had stuck to works that are unquestionably in the public domain, but would they find Chaucer, Aphra Behn, Shakespeare, The Castle of Otranto, and the Bible a tad inconvenient for training purposes?

The Mintz authors supply links to efforts in the USA, including President Biden’s “Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence” and a couple of partisan lawmakers' AI Foundation Model Transparency Act.

 

Meanwhile, there are lawsuits. Last month, the New York Times sued leading generative AI companies for “unlawful use of The Times’s .... content without permission to develop their models and tools.” 

 

The Authors Guild has organized a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI. There is an article about it on the Times site, here:

https://authorsguild.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=727ad03949c981c140a2bf125&id=240dd73de4&e=4daaa77539

 

The purpose of the law suite is to take a stand against wholesale theft of the work of all authors, no matter the genre in which they write. The Authors Guild penned an open letter, which thousands of authors supported. You can use the search function to check whether or not you signed. 

 

My name is on page 22 of 200 pages of supporters' names,

https://authorsguild.org/app/uploads/2023/10/Authors-Guild-Open-Letter-to-Generative-AI-Leaders.pdf

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/

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/

WEIRD TALES Centenary Tribute

I've recently finished reading an anthology called WEIRD TALES: 100 YEARS OF WEIRD, edited by Jonathan Maberry, current editor of "The Unique Magazine." As the subtitle implies, this book was published in honor of the magazine's 2023 centennial. It hasn't operated continuously all those years, having lapsed and been revived several times, but its present incarnation claims continuity with the venerable pulp zine famed for showcasing the early works of H. P. Lovecraft and many other classic twentieth-century horror and fantasy authors. The contents of the anthology consist mainly of fiction (plus a few poems) but also several essays. One of the latter, "Swords and Sorcery: WEIRD TALES and Beyond," by Charles R. Rutledge, is a reprint from the November 2022 issue of the periodical. The others, original to this volume, explore topics such as the history of the magazine, the evolution of occult detectives, cosmic terror, shared world authorship, and some sources of Lovecraft's visionary horror.

As for the fiction, I was mildly disappointed to discover that this isn't exclusively a reprint anthology. Stories from the actual magazine are outnumbered by new ones. In addition to two pieces from twenty-first-century issues, "Up from Slavery" (2021) by Victor LaValle and "Jagannath" (2011) by Karen Tidbeck, we get eight "classic reprints." The vintage authors comprise H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Tennessee Williams (under a pen name), Richard Matheson, and Allison V. Harding. While I thought it was a bit of a cop-out to choose what's probably Lovecraft's best-known and most often reprinted tale, "The Call of Cthulhu," to represent him, several other "classic" entries may be new to many readers, as some were to me. And one can hardly complain about the original stories, given their uniformly high quality. This compilation offers abundant thrills for lovers of weird fiction, however we define the term.

Horror fans in general would enjoy the anthology, and for devotees of WEIRD TALES, it's a must-read book. The numerous illustrations and ads reprinted from the magazine practically justify the purchase price in themselves.

I count as one of my most treasured writing milestones a story published in WEIRD TALES (September-October 2003): "Manila Peril," featuring Filipino vampires in southern California.

Margaret L. Carter

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