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Review of Secrets in the Mist

Secrets in the Mist, the first novel in the Skyworld series, is part adventure, part mystery, and all steampunk—a fascinating genre. Award-winning author Morgan L. Busse’s latest combines lighter-than-air transports with class inequalities and a strong undercurrent of Christianity into an unforgettable novel.

Young Cass lives on the streets and survives by thinking on her feet. She comes across the airship Daedalus where she’s offered a job. Upper-caste Theodore (Theo) Winchester is a scientist who cares more about people and science than politics and privilege. He’s concerned about the mist that shrouds the surface and the lower parts of the mountains. And in that Mist? The infected, known as the Turned, seek their next victims.

For the first quarter of the book, Cass and Theo go about their own business until they cross paths. When they meet, the novel kicks into high gear. Close encounters with deadly adversaries, both living and unliving, make for some tense sequences.

Cass’s growth from street urchin to one of the leaders of the ship, and her longing for a home and how she’ll fight for it, makes her a delightful main character. Theo’s righteousness and steady resolve hardly changes despite the revelations he encounters. A third “character” is the setting. All people live on mountains or islands floating in the sky as in a Roger Dean painting. All the elements of steampunk are here, and for once, a real use for goggles than just for show!

While the novel never gets downright horrific or gruesome, the scenes are plenty tense. And the descriptions of the surface world are captivating. As this is the first part of a duology, no one should be surprised that the novel ends on a cliffhanger. Fortunately, the second novel is available.

The style of the novel is fairly simple and straightforward. It serves the purpose of the narrative and never shortchanges the descriptions or the dialog. Overall, the story pulls you in and doesn’t let go for a moment.

Secrets in the Mist builds a unique and riveting world with characters you care about and stakes that are as high as the mountains people live on. The first book kept me turning pages. I’ll be sure to pick up the second one soon.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093MLRFYW

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Tell A Fairy Tale Day 2023

For Tell a Fairy Tale Day, I’m making available new content.

Read my free short story, The Third Time is not a Charm, about a rogue cat person who kidnaps Snow White.

My new page detailing my fourth upcoming novel, Will Be Done, is now live.

And read my review of author C. Rae D’Arc’s Fairest and the Frog.

Purchase my fairytale-based novels on Amazon: Kingdom Come or On Earth, As It Is or Kingdom’s Advent or Deliver Us or Kingdom’s Ascension

Anthologies. I’m also published in the anthologies Moonlight and Claws, Havok Casting Call , and Who’s the Monster. All available on Amazon.

I’ve published over ten short stories in various online publications, including Havok and Every Day Fiction

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Review Fairest and the Frog

Cover Fairest and the Frog

C. Rae D’Arc’s first entry in her Dreaming Princesses, Dreaming Beauty, focused entirely on Emer, a combination Sleeping Beauty and one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses characters. With her newfound ability to control plants, Emer has recently awakened in her kingdom Somnus and found it in ruins. The awakened princess is determined to find her other sisters (i.e. the other Dancing Princesses). That quest is taken up in this follow-up novel, Fairest and the Frog.

The second novel of the series follows Emer along with two of her sisters: Marin and Pearl. Both were put into a deep sleep after being poisoned. The “dream” they have transports them to Earth in modern times, allowing the reader to view our world through a fairytale character’s eyes. For example, Marin’s examination of a kitchen and Pearl’s dinner of spicy food make for great segments. Each dreaming princess must accomplish a goal to return to Somnus. The two narrative threads follow their fairytale origins closely, I won’t spoil it to tell you which ones. Marin’s sequence follows her original plot more closely than Pearl’s. Pearl’s segment is more of a side adventure within her fairytale. Both have action, romance, and humor.

Marin’s segment is at the start of the novel. She was married before entering the dream so her tale continues with her husband, Ranae, joining her on Earth. But Ranae, in particular, comes over transformed. This setup opens the door for humor and mystery which allows the narrative to glide along as the characters do on a boat on the ocean. I enjoyed having a main character in a fairy tale who was already married as it shook up the traditional boy-meets-girl plot. This narrative also is more like a quest with a puzzle at the end Marin has to solve. That said, this character’s part feels short, and because of the setting, the enjoyable segments of a fairytale princess discovering our modern way of life isn’t as prominent as it was in the first novel.

My complaints are addressed in Pearl’s half of the book. With Pearl, author D’Arc nails the voice of an innocent royal-born-yet-still-teenage girl. In Pearl’s section, she adopts an identity with a guardian and a job at Warwick Castle. Her adventures are a bit more engaging because she interacts far more in our world with characters from the first novel. The scenes with the other characters come off charming (pardon the pun), and her plight by the end of the novel makes the reader feel for her.

The two parts are interlaced with Emer and her band of heroes searching for her sisters while avoiding villainous ogres. Emer is afraid that her beau, Caden, may be more interested in one of her more beautiful sisters. It’s a bit of a stretch as the first novel cements Emer and Caden’s relationship, but Emer’s fears offer an interesting reflection on how our society views women, in particular, what we value as “beauty.”. Her concern about Caden’s affection is a clever bit to add to a fairytale narrative.

Filled with great love for fairytales, the twist of having them interact in our world, and a series arc that progresses, I found Fairest and the Frog hard to put down. If you are a fan of fairy tale princesses and what “comes after,” you’ll love this series.

First novel in series

Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BT4KCZ6H

First in the series: Dreaming Princess.

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Review of Animal Kingdom

Cover of Animal Kingdom

For this anthology, Havok asked writers to create stories about animals. Whether they galloped, slithered, or swam, the stories had to have some animal kingdom element in its plot. The variety of what the authors produced is amazing.

I read the stories and rated them based on the entertainment value, the writing itself, and how well the animal was incorporated. High marks if the animal’s characteristics were central to the story (i.e. the writer couldn’t have swapped in any generic animal). I was also drawn to stories where it shed our multi-legged friends in a new light.

Since the anthology is about animals, this review will focus more on the stories with solid “animal” ratings, but I wanted to point out what scored high in the first two categories. The story with the highest entertainment rating, regardless of the animal, was “Theirs” by Pamela Love. This unique take on a familiar theme was satisfying to the last sentence. I went back and read it again immediately.

The story whose prose swept me along was “Change of Heart” by Beka Gremikova. It’s a rare case of second-person point-of-view that works (they often don’t). “Change of Heart”, strictly with its writing, allows the reader to personally feel what the main character is going through.

And now the animal ratings. Both “Theirs” and “Change of Heart” scored high enough to be mentioned here as well. Both used their animals—and to mention what they are is a bit of a spoiler—to great effect. 

It’s rare when I rank a humorous story high on my list but “Negotiations of an Igneous Nature” by Michael Dolan had me chuckling with both the first and second sentence. The story has comedy and creativity in its depiction of how salamanders and dragons are interconnected. 

Speaking of dragons, the imaginative tale of “Taming the Volcano” blends tension, adventure, and heart. Author Cassandra Hamm has taken the tired idea of a dragon as a winged reptile flying around and breathed some new fire into it.

Another highly rated story has pigeons as its focal point. In “Preserving Peace” by S. E. M. Ishida, a lone pigeon becomes a McGuffin in a future society where nothing is as it seems.

Dragons, flying manta rays, and other creative creatures are standard fare in Animal Kingdom, so a simple story of normal birds in cages wouldn’t seem as exciting. Yet “The Queen’s Aviary” by Mia Rumi demonstrates how a well-told story without magic or technology may captivate a reader. The same holds for Andrew Winch’s “Duty.” This fictitious piece depicts a familiar situation, but the point-of-view changes to the dog. In particular, how a dog thinks and reacts.

Finally, I thought “My Friend Pher” detailed the best combination of story and animal. Ronnell Kay Gibson’s short story about a photographer and a Barbados threadsnake exemplifies the bond we have with the creatures of the earth. Humor, danger, and a narrative that could only work with a snake all combined to show why we love to read animal tales.

This anthology contains so many good stories I didn’t mention. I hope you pick it up, cuddle with your favorite furry (or scaly) companion, and read it.

Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BKX3JPR2

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Review of Elatsoe

The winner of a Time Magazine award, Elatsoe (Ellie) Bride is a descendent of the Lipan tribe of the United States. But this isn’t the United States you know and love. This is a United States with magic, with ghosts, and with vampires all living together. When Ellie’s cousin Trevor is murdered and, at the same time, sends a long-distance message in her dreams, Ellie’s problems just begin.

The world created in Elatsoe is fascinating and often mirrors our own, especially in terms of social ills. People subtly discriminate and not-so-subtly alienate Ellie and her people as she looks into Trevor’s death. Even knowing the identity of the murderer doesn’t help as the killer is a well-respected doctor (most of this comes out in the first chapters).

Ellie is a great hero for the story. An aromatic, heritage-proud, and magic-enhanced individual, she’s an interesting character. Nearly all of the novel is told from her point-of-view. Ellie drives a car investigating her cousin’s death at a mysterious location in Texas. Her friend Jay is an unconventional sidekick, and most of Ellie’s family and other friends serve the novel well. With these types of stories, there’s often the problem where you can’t have a good-hearted character kill an evil villain, but the villain has such control that calling the police isn’t an option. This dilemma is satisfactorily resolved.

For such a praised book, I was surprised by a few technical issues. An abrupt point-of-view change near the end seemed out of place. I also had a hard time determining if this was a YA or a MG book. I could argue it both ways. Ellie is seventeen in the novel, but she seemed more like fourteen to me. And while I liked most of the book, I thought Jay was a shallow character and not much of a foil or sidekick to Ellie. My last quibble is Trevor tells Ellie everything about the murder. It’s not much of a mystery, though I suspect it wasn’t intended to be.

Overall, this is a fine book for a certain type of reader. Someone who enjoys a relatively clean book (just language and some violence) but loves darkness and weird environments. Someone who can forego a romantic subplot in favor of a rollicking adventure. And someone who likes to see justice done over a traditional mystery. I think a few readers will walk away puzzled, but the ones who stick to the end will likely enjoy this novel.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BRBL9JR

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Review of The Midnight Folk

John Masefield’s The Midnight Folk was published in 1927 to great acclaim—so much so it received a sequel The Box of Delights. I came across this children’s book in search of a Halloween tale in the spirit of The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. I kept it on my list until October but put it down halfway through that month as the novel wasn’t what I expected.

While I have entitled this post a “review,” this may stray far from a typical review of a book and more of an analysis of how much children’s novels have changed in the last one hundred years. If I had to review it, I would say it was disappointing, jumbled, and tedious. It has long stretches that had nothing to do with the plot, and the narrative was nonsensical at times. Pretty harsh. I struggled to read all of it until I had to adjust my attitude and read it in the spirit for which it was intended. A spirit of a bygone era.

Now, some of my criticism remains. Compared to The Wizard of Oz, written a couple of decades earlier, The Midnight Folk pales in comparison and ages far worse. The Oz series by Baum remains widely read today because it has the landmarks of children’s writing. Though Baum writes down to his readers (a no-no today, and something The Midnight Folk doesn’t do), The Wizard of Oz has a solid plot, creative characters, and memorable sequences. The Midnight Folk lacks all of this.

Again, in the 1920s, books for children were limited and those that existed were fairly dry. After fairy tales, you didn’t have much of a selection. This gap was filled by The Midnight Folk. If you think of it as a loosely coupled set of short stories to engage the imagination of children, it’s a far better reading experience. Witches, talking animals, pirates, mysterious maidens, mermaids along with rainstorms, typhoons, desert islands all combine into a sequence of adventurous stories. The book also has a setting, an English estate with a surrounding countryside, that is perfect for our young character to explore. Unfortunately, there are no chapters, another downside. But if there were, each chapter would be an exciting jaunt for our main character Kay. Where will he go this time and what trouble will he get into?

Once I realized this wasn’t a Halloween tale—yes, the main antagonists are witches but they could just as well be a group of evil women—and more of a disconnected adventure tale, reading it became easier. And I could see how it would inspire children in the 1920s, including Madeleine L’Engle who wrote the Afterword in my copy.

Be warned, it has racial stereotypes that I wish weren’t present, and the lack of chapter breaks is maddening. Nonetheless, I would recommend it to future writers who want to break into middle grade books. This is what you don’t do: too many characters, ex deus machina, bait-and-switch, and long sequences. It should help generations to come write better stories for young, creative readers.

And while Box of Delights looks like a lot of fun, I’ll pass.

URL: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1590172906

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The Three Doorways

A pivotal point in my novel “Deliver Us” involves the characters traveling to other worlds. Three doorways are opened up to allow the characters to travel to a gothic horror, a proper-manners romance, and a dystopian scifi world. Illustrator Dan Johnson has captured this moment perfectly. I’m proud to present it here.

The Three Doorways
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Dermis

On November 7, 2022, my story “Dermis” was published on Havok. This is a story I started many years ago in high school when I met a new friend, Len. Len was an artist, I was a writer, and we were both excited about horror comics. Together, we decided to put together a comic book in the spirit of E.C.’s “Tales from the Crypt.” I came up with five stories and he illustrated three of them.

This was my first collaboration, and it taught me something at an early age. Being a teenager, I thought I was God’s gift to writing. If I could just break out, I knew I’d write best selling novels, be successful at everything I tried, and have millions of fans. When I gave my stories to Len, his illustrations brought them to life as I expected. What I didn’t expect was that he added captions to shape the tales in a visual way. He increased the level of quality of the stories, and to this day, my hat’s off to him.

This made me realize a few fundamental elements of writing. The first is that the author doesn’t work alone. Even if writers don’t elect to have their stories illustrated, they still collaborate with fellow writers, editors, and their readers to make a stronger story. Len taught me some basics of writing a comic book that I’ve applied to general writing for the rest of my life.

The other element was humility. We all want to be the best at our craft, but you can always find someone better. And it’s not that simple. Someone may excel at dialog but have less skills in sensual detail. Others may have solid foundational talents but less creativity. No matter what you do, don’t compare yourself. Learn instead. You may think you are better at something than someone else, but that shouldn’t inhibit you from growing. Even the best soccer player in the world can learn from the second-best.

Getting back to “Dermis,” I wrote a similar story for our comic book collaboration all those years ago. This was one of the three Len illustrated, and I remember the last panel perfectly. That one-pager was ridiculous but a ton of fun and always somewhere in my memory. While the original story has changed quite a bit, the bones (sic) of it remain the same. In tribute to its early origins, I asked my collaborator now, Dan Johnson, to illustrate the final panel like a graphic novel (see below). He did a fantastic job. And I consider “Dermis” incomplete without his contribution.

Havok site: https://gohavok.com

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Review of Lovers and Other Monsters

Cover of Lovers and Other Monsters

Lovers and Other Monsters, an anthology edited by Marvin Kaye presents suspense and horror stories centered on the theme of love, in particular, eros love. Kaye is well known for putting together unique and interesting anthologies, and he’s collected some of Weird Tale’s best stories in his other anthologies. This offering consists of approximately forty-five short stories (it’s how you count them, one is contained in another), six poems, and one play. Most of the stories are short, including a handful of flash fiction, which is surprising when one considers the author had to set up a “love/lust” story as well as a horror story. The anthology is arranged in clever sections: Odd Couples (mismatched characters), Worldly Love (non-supernatural, often suspenseful, relationships), Not of this World (supernatural creatures/themes), Out of this World (often, scifi), and Fatal Attractions (often femme or homme fatale). As Marvin Kaye writes in his introduction, this is not an anthology for the romantic as a vast majority of the stories have a tragic ending.

So what can you expect? Kaye’s selection of authors varies from the expected (Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury) to the surprising (Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett, Mary Higgins Clark). Unlike some anthologies, you’ll find some gems here like a rare short story by Anne Rice; a short story by Ray Bradbury from his Dark Carnival collection, long out of print; a lust story by Isaac Asimov;  an original, unedited poem by Christina Rossetti; and a translated erotic story by Guillaume Apollinaire. There’s even a story that Kaye had collected but lost a few of the pages. The backstory was he tracked down the author, Dan Potter. Mr. Potter also did not have the original or a copy, so he rewrote the pages strictly for the anthology (“Tripping the Light Fantastic”). In this last case, this background is more interesting than the resulting narrative.

You’ll also find authors who are the staples of suspense and horror here, but not perhaps their best known work, including Edgar Allan Poe, Theodore Sturgeon, and H.P. Lovecraft.

The anthology works best as a collection of widely varying stories. You must have an eclectic taste in genres to truly enjoy it. If you are strictly a horror aficionado, you’ll have trouble with the more literature-based contemporary stories. On the other hand, those who love Alfred Hitchcock but could care less about monster tales will find themselves skipping many sections.

Rating each story 1-10, I have stories on either end of the scale. Ironically, my favorite remains that most underrated Poe tale, “Berenice.” I believe this is one of his best. Every time I read it, I get a thrill, and it remains just as chilling without the gore and relativism that dominates modern horror.

The other standouts include “Teacher” by C. H. Sherman. In the Odd Couples category, the story teases a “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” narrative but shifts gears suddenly. Well-written and suspenseful, it was my favorite discovery. “The Fiend” by Frederik Pohl was a surprising sci-fi story that fit the theme of the anthology perfectly. Intensely creepy but with definite science fiction overtones, this one won me over. And “The Maiden” by Ray Bradbury was a guilty choice. Likely written in under an hour and dismissed by Bradbury later (he didn’t re-publish it in his October Country collection of Dark Carnival tales), it’s a rare insight into a younger, more vicious Ray that people don’t often read.

The majority of stories are worth reading. A rock star’s fan is a winged creature (Songs of my Young), a love story between an adventurer and a female minotaur (Minotauress), a woman driving her car while dragging her husband’s corpse around (The Woman Who Dragged Her Husband’s Corpse), an astronaut discovers a flower on Europa with horrific results (Moonflower), a being that lurks in your dreams and uses seduction to kill you (Let No Man Dream), the perfect match upsets the reality of a man’s life (The Deadly Ratio), an updated lady-and-the-tiger story set at the time of Jesus (“The Lady and the Tiger”).

Overall, an interesting anthology. I have many similar ones on my bookshelf, but none so creatively themed. Recommended.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0681417382

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How Haunted Houses Inspire – Part Four

This blog series wraps up exploring haunted attractions and how scary attractions must have story elements. We’ve examined perspective, alternate endings, setting, and “the hook” (or, the promise). This last in the series looks at characters.

Dead Man’s Pier: Winter’s Wake is an attraction not based on an existing intellectual property but imagined by the team at Universal Studios – Florida. This was the last—and best—house I visited the one night I was at Universal Studios. The group in front of us entered and I heard one say “Oh, wow.” Walking in, one enters the middle of a town square set somewhere in an imaginary New England coastal town. The sound of water and the noticeable drop in temperature only added to the immersive setting.

But this house is about more than setting. It tells the story of a dead sea captain summoning ghosts / zombies from the sea. Also, a violinist is connected to the onslaught of the undead in its cold and icy surroundings.

This house was both thrilling and awe-inspiring. The sets were picture perfect, the effects were a great deal of fun, and some of the images—especially of the violinist—will stick in my mind for a long time. I loved every minute of this house, and it will forever be the best haunted attraction I ever walked through! (Note the word “walked through.” “Rode through” belongs at the theme park down the road).

Note: The image below is from inside the attraction as you enter. The picture is actually cutoff—far more of the town is present. Notice the detail of the setting and the statue of the violinist, promising what lies ahead. Amazing.

Inside Dead Man’s Wharf

But how does this relate to story telling? As in the best of attractions, including a certain mansion down the way, it gives you only glimpses of a story without spelling it out. Your mind fills in the details. It also has characters that are distinguishable and central to the plot. The sea captain makes an early appearance. His presence warns you of what is to come. And what about the siren-like violinist perched atop the scenery! Nowhere did it say that her melody is what raised the dead, but it’s strongly implied. The use of multiple actors throughout the set really lends to the story and atmosphere. The instant I exited, I wanted to write a story about “Dead Man’s Pier.” And doesn’t that happen with most good stories? To retell them with your additions or embellishments?

Good stories require a strong character. The plot alone cannot generate enough interest to get the reader to the end. Most haunted attractions are based on plot, but when one goes above and beyond and creates its own memorable characters, then you have something truly special. As in writing, when you combine interesting characters with a well-designed plot, it’s a one-two combination that has the reader spinning with joy.