The Long Farewell by Bob Van Laerhoven; Van Laerhoven’s War Time Tragedy and Ambiguous Protagonists Are Up to Eleven

 

The Long Farewell by Bob Van Laerhoven; Van Laerhoven’s War Time Tragedy and Ambiguous Protagonists Are Up to Eleven 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Bob Van Laerhoven is no stranger to the blog and no stranger to heartbreaking tragic prose and fascinating but morally ambiguous characters. Alejandro’s Lie focused on the release of a revolutionary hero released from a Latin American political prison and has to deal with life on the outside where many of his fellow rebels have died or conformed as well as face his own dubious reasons for fighting the power. Shadow of the Mole features an enigmatic psychiatric patient who writes a strange tale of history and magical realism that draws in his primary doctor who becomes obsessed with learning the patient's real identity.

The anthology Scars of the Heart explores the dark hearts and minds of various characters like a Syrian terrorist, an octogenarian from war-torn Algiers, a cynical reporter, a selfless nun, and a disillusioned child soldier trying to escape conflict in Liberia, two paranoid and disturbed New Yorkers with violent delusions about alien abductions, a Romany girl using her body and desire for vengeance in a WWII concentration camp, and a sexual abuse survivor in 1970’s Belgium having to come to terms with the trauma that he held onto all of these years.

Van Laerhoven’s latest book The Long Farewell does what he has already succeeded in and does it well. He takes his themes, plots and characters up to eleven in this WWII Psychological Thriller about family dysfunction, the remaining scars of war and genocide, and the pursuit of justice and vengeance.

The story begins in Nazi Germany where Hermann Becht lives with his SS officer father, Hans, and Belarusian refugee mother, Marina. After a violent encounter, Hermann and Marina flee Germany for France where Hermann’s hatred for Hans and the party that he represented grow until he signs up as a spy for Britain.

This book focuses on one man's survival in trying times as he tries to reconcile the various political and nationalistic views that surround him and his own damaged and fractured psyche after he comes face to face with the darkest, most subterranean dehumanizing acts that people can do to others.

Hermann lived in a time where nationalism was just about everything. It was used as an intentional weapon for discrimination, genocide, and declarations of war. This nationalism can also be found in Hermann's own family. In fact, his dysfunctional family structure is a microcosm of the effects that the Nazis and other oppressive regimes had over the countries that they conquered. 

We see that in the wide setting of Nazi Germany as the oppressive authoritarian regime spreads through the continent of Europe and how it impacts the Becht household. Hans, rules his home with an iron fist and fills it with an overinflated sense of racial and national superiority. He is a very toxic presence in his household, dominating his family with physical and verbal abuse just as Hitler used dominant and abusive language to become a toxic presence to the world. 

The counter to Hermann’s father is his mother. While Han’s nationalism is rooted in dominance and superiority, Marina’s is one of fluidity, transition, oppression, and a nostalgic return to the past. She yearns for the country that she left behind but has now been occupied and carved up by outside forces. It only exists in her dreams so she is carried along by her son in a present that she no longer wants to live in.

Hermann recognizes the Nazi threat embodied by his father and the lost nostalgia reflected in his mother so he has had to make some tough decisions. These decisions lead him to flee to Paris and join the war front from inside the shadows. He has seen the darkness in his family and former country and now wants to help end it.

Hermann is moved by the plight of others, particularly a Jewish family that he has befriended and have also been separated and divided by the Holocaust. But he is also motivated by his own private war with his father, Hans. He uses cunning, strategy, stealth, double cross hiding in the shadows to defeat the enemy that is right out in the open and changing Europe into something cruel and unrecognizable. 

However, the clandestine life only takes Hermann even further into darkness as he investigates concentration camps. He comes face to face with the “banality of evil” that Hannah Arendt spoke about, the banality that allows cruel inhumane things to happen to people who are seen as “The Other.” Torture, surgical mutilation, dehumanization, assault, physical abuse, gaslighting, extermination, and genocide.

These are things that enter into the darker reaches of the human soul the more they are studied. Things that leave permanent haunting marks on the mind and in Hermann's case completely alter it into something unrecognizable. 

That is what Van Laerhoven shows us.

Bird of Paradox and Other Tales by John Devlin; Short Stories of Love, Learning, and Diversity

 

Bird of Paradox and Other Tales by John Devlin; Short Stories of Love, Learning, and Diversity 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Author John Devlin knows how to capture ordinary events and conversations and create plots and characters who are rich with development and meaning. 

In his anthology, Bird of Paradox and Other Tales, each tale began (in his words) as “scraps of overhead gossip, a scribbled note, or the kind of boast a man makes when all bets are off.” They are based on situations that Devlin experienced in places from rural Ireland to China and Vietnam where he taught English.

Some are moving, others are humorous. All deal with lack of communication and understanding that can be found between people of different cultures, backgrounds, and genders. They can be messy, rude, argumentative, short sighted, suspicious, unpredictable, ignorant, arrogant, lustful, regretful, hopeful, confident, and enthusiastic. Most of all very understandable and recognizable.

The best stories are:

“Bird of Paradox”

In this case, bird does not refer to avian creatures in the sky. Instead it uses the British slang for women in the title, specifically one woman.

Barry is visiting his Aunt Lena, a visit that he is not looking forward to with good reason. Aunt Lena is a very contradictory and argumentative character 

This story is a witty character study of an aunt and nephew. Devlin’s gift of overhearing conversation is at play as Barry is in the Tube and train station. He is an observer watching other people and overhearing their stories, making this confined area even more crowded and claustrophobic with their conversations and faces. It's a place where you can't help but hear and see everyone and everything even if you aren't a part of it. 

Once Barry enters Lena's house, she is an antidote to the confinement of the Tubes. She is set apart from everyone around her. A woman who uses her bizarre anecdotes about life in a brothel, peculiarities like a fear of flies, and her opinions about everyone around her. She is an eccentric character who makes a magnetic but suffocating presence. You are fascinated by her but a little of her goes a long way.

It's an interesting dichotomy that the nephew exists to move silently around other people and the aunt is a force that commands others to move around her.

“Lady Luck”

This story demonstrates the difficulties of dating and how sometimes daters speak a different language. Walter is looking to get lucky and wants to have sex with the right woman. He places a personal ad specifically looking for Asian women. 

The women display various traits and behaviors but none are the right woman for him. One likes line dancing and has a large appetite. Another preferred a younger man. Another goes into a story about a troubled relationship with her late husband's brother. Another goes into long tangents about her ex never giving him a word edge wise. 

These dates are humorous exercises in futility as something is bound to go wrong leaving Walter perpetually alone. It's the kind of dating scene which relies on only a few minutes to decide whether or not they are compatible enough for a night let alone for a lifetime.

“The Xmas Party”

 This and the next story are part of a series involving Joe McKenna, a teacher at Great Wall English (GWE). The series deals with culture shock and diversity, interpersonal relationships in an academic setting, and finding common ground in a new place.

The first story involves Joe’s introduction to the staff at the GWE Christmas party in early November. Joe becomes involved in the various pairings and peccadillos of the teaching staff who could probably use some education.

Though the story is short, it packs a lot of character. From the awkward pairing of the pompous Ronnie and the mild mannered Sunny to a guy named Fat Freddy who inspires a lot of gossip, 

It's a very busy, noisy, and nosey environment. There's a constant stream of chatter, movement, and color to make the Reader feel like they are among this group having small talk and trying to sound interested in the tenth person that they have been introduced to. It can be fun but draining to put on a performance.

The politeness, talk, and overwhelming tedium is broken during a fight between a couple of the teachers. This fight is a reminder that even when people are together for a common goal whether it's teaching English or having a party, differences are bound to collide and if unchecked, tempers could flare.

“Charlie Visits the Ancestral Temple”

If “The Xmas Party” celebrated the noise and chatter, this story is a comparatively simpler affair. It involves Joe McKenna and his colleague, Charlie Bell visiting an ancestral temple.

The story is both mesmerizing and humorous. Charlie is captivated by a lion dance and the souvenir pigs. Joe however is concerned about the confusing directions and tourist crowds. 

People can look at one place and see something different: a sacred temple or an abandoned ruin. A colorful performance or a tourist trap. A piece of local culture or a tacky item. It depends on who is doing the looking.

“Online Teaching in Lockdown”

This story is part of a series involving an unnamed narrator (possibly Devlin himself) teaching in Vietnam, a difficult endeavor made even more so during a pandemic.

This story in particular involves The Narrator arriving in Vietnam just as COVID hits. Besides getting accustomed to a new country and school system, he also has to take a crash course in online education and Zoom.

The Narrator is bemused as the online interactions become increasingly personalized as people do chores and get undressed during them. Social media keeps people apart but also lends them a degree of intimacy that they never had before.

The students also exhibit various behaviors to deal with the stress of being out of a social environment. They get into fights, withdraw into themselves, behave recklessly. It shows that in times of stress, people will respond in a variety of ways. 

In using Zoom, the Narrator learns more about his students seeing sides that he would never have seen in a classroom.

“Sidestreets of Saigon”

This story does not deal with character interactions so much as it deals with setting. The Narrator describes his new neighborhood.

The Narrator is fascinated and somewhat overwhelmed by this new location with its temples, crowded streets, and ubiquitous sidestreets. It's easy to understand why he feels culture shock and out of place. It takes awhile to get used to the rhythm of a new location and that discombobulation can increase in a foreign country. 

The Narrator is a great observer focusing on the various people like a mother-daughter team of restauranteurs, an efficient female barber, a woman with two dogs, and others. The people give the streets color and life. They are captured going about their daily lives through someone else's words.

“Lonely Hearts”

Similar to “Lady Luck” this story covers dating but instead of a series of bad dates, this is a dialogue heavy focus on one bad date between an unnamed man and woman.

The two constantly talk to each other in brief question and answer format (“Do you work evenings or days.” “Evenings are sacred. I work days.”) It's practically like an interrogation or a tennis match where the two characters try to size and one up each other.  

The two characters go around in circles trying to search for something in common or at least some form of connection. As their conversations get deeper and more personal, it's clear that this is one relationship that is bound to fail.

“The Wrong Gerri”

This story might have the healthiest relationship in the entire anthology and it involves mistaken identity.

Tony returns from Japan where he taught English to reconnect with his former girlfriend, Gerri. He calls her number and gets Gerri, but it's another woman who doesn't remember Tony or any of the details that he mentions.

Unlike the other couples, they click well and are genuinely interested in what the other has to say. He compliments her cosy house. She teases him about Japanese women. They share unbelievable stories that leave one another amused, curious, and probably in disbelief, but at least captivated.

 The possibility of meeting again is certainly in the air. Even if she isn't the right Gerri, it's clear that she is the right woman.

The Forgotten Queer A Journey of Self-Discovery, Breaking Free, and Healing by Stella Mok: Tragic and Triumphant Memoir About Coming Out, Authenticity, and Living Ones Truth

 The Forgotten Queer A Journey of Self-Discovery, Breaking Free, and Healing by Stella Mok: Tragic and Triumphant Memoir About Coming Out, Authenticity, and Living Ones Truth 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Stella Mok’s book The Forgotten Queer: A Journey of Self-Discovery, Breaking Free, and Healing is a tragic and triumphant memoir about coming out, authenticity, and finding the physical and emotional space to live one's truth.

Mok’s writing style is both personal and informative. She summarizes and gives dry fact based accounts like most nonfiction authors and memoirists. But she also uses literary techniques like dialogue and internal thoughts in parts. This dual nature is a means to highlight the most important conflicts and themes within her story.

For example, most of the book is centered around Mok’s troubled relationship with her parents, Leandro and Nora. In the first chapter Mok, her siblings, and her father get into an argument about future plans and Leandro goes into a paragraph long diatribe about how women couldn't be doctors. This exchange is foreshadowed in her opening sentence, “I wish I were a boy.” 

This chapter and various other ones reveal the toxicity between Mok and her parents which went beyond cultural, generational, or gender conflicts. At one point, they use emotional blackmail to keep Mok’s sister tied to their family business. They also used various other means to keep Mok and her siblings under their control. It's a troubling environment that one does not thrive so much as be fortunate enough to survive.

Mok lived in a tight, oppressed, and psychologically abusive atmosphere in which Mok did not only have to suppress her true self, she had to pretend that it never existed to begin with. One where the freedom to be honest with herself was treated as a luxury that she could not afford so it couldn't exist. At one point she realizes this by thinking, “I had to fight for my life, or end up losing what I worked so hard for.”

This fighting for her life also played into Mok’s sexuality and various relationships. An early romance ended because Mok was uncertain about pursuing a full romantic relationship with another girl. She also had a long term relationship with another woman who had trouble reconciling her lesbianism with her religious beliefs.

Throughout the book, Mok used different means to find her own inner strength and personal happiness. Two of the most triumphant moments occur when she wrote letters to her parents dealing with their deficiencies in parenting while also forgiving them and herself. These gestures show someone who is ready to move on into the next step in life. 

This and other actions moved her to a more positive path that led to a new more honest and fulfilling life. She had to break the cycle that her family gave her and heal herself.

Recovering Maurice by Martin Zelder; Intellectual and Introspective Academic Journey

 Recovering Maurice by Martin Zelder; Intellectual and Introspective Academic Journey

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Recovering Maurice by Martin Zelder is a novel about an academic’s journey of self-discovery that is both intellectual and introspective.

Maurice Obster (pronounced with the long “O” he insists), is a 60 year old economics professor who is contemplating his comfortable life, nice home, and relationship with his wife, Lucia. However, a chance meeting on a plane changed his outlook. A passenger is reading a book called Trauma and Recovery. This meeting illustrates the maxim of “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear” because this quick encounter causes Maurice to think about the traumas that occurred throughout his life.

Maurice largely reflects on his older brother Emil who had hydrocephalus. His parents often paid more attention to Emil than Maurice leaving the boy to parent himself. 

This results in a boy who learned independence but anxiety. Self-reliance but self-consciousness. Quiet in nature but longing for attention. Supporting his brother but jealous of him being the primary focus. 

In one key moment, Maurice auditions to be a guest on the Bozo show but isn't able to make it out of the studio audience and get on stage. This moment says something that throughout his life Maurice often comes close to happiness but never quite hits the landing.

This self-consciousness, anxiety, restlessness, and constant searching become consistent through Maurice's life. He accepts various positions but has trouble remaining in them. Sometimes he has issues with colleagues, sometimes the students, and sometimes with the faculty. He has immense knowledge in the subject of economics but not the ability to establish roots and let that knowledge grow in a stationary place.

He also has some relationship issues that end early until he finds a stabilizing influence with Lucia. Lucia becomes a catalyst for Maurice to settle down and find some permanence in his life. He is able to find the familial, personal, and professional success that has eluded him for so long.

Maurice's successful life becomes halted when his parents and Emil go through separate health crises. He is then forced to confront his childhood in which he was neglected and cast aside and assume the role of caregiver and primary focus. 

Maurice's chapters with Emil reveal the depth of Maurice's care for him and also the deep seated regret of being away for so long. It's a relationship where words were never said and instead of saying them Maurice went away. Now the two brothers are surrounded by a silence that needed time and each other to fill it. 

Gravity Flow The Jimmy Whistler Stories by EM Schorb, Walk With Me One Hundred Days of Crazy by Ernesto H Lee, Penthesilea Rise of An Amazon by Stephanie Vanise, The Bluestockings A History of The First Women's Movement by Susannah Gibson, Violeta by Nikki Roman

Gravity Flow: The Jimmy Whistler Stories by EM Schorb, Walk With Me: One Hundred Days of Crazy by Ernesto H Lee, Penthesilea: Rise of An Amazon by Stephanie Vanise, The Bluestockings: A History of The First Women's Movement by Susannah Gibson, Violeta by Nikki Roman 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

These are summaries. The full reviews can be found on Reader Views or MockingOwl Roost 

Reader Views 

Gravity Flow: The Jimmy Whistler Stories by EM Schorb 

This is a seriocomic anthology of various moments in the life of Jimmy Whistler, a writer, in the 50's-60's.

The covers Jimmy's troubled childhood, his time working in a burlesque theater, military career, writing career, his friends, lovers, children, and other important experiences.

Characterization is this book's strongest asset. Jimmy's experiences are told by various vignettes that describe events in his life. He encounters many eccentric characters including a burlesque performer, a Beatnik poet, and different lovers.

The book is told through Jimmy's point of view so we see the world through his eyes. Most of the characters are broad, farcical, and bizarre. Jimmy's narrative voice is arrogant, impulsive, but always fascinating.

 

Walk With Me One Hundred Days of Crazy by Ernesto H. Lee

This is a powerful evocative novel about life, love, death, and learning to appreciate life.

Mark Rennie and Karen McKenzie are both dying. Instead of just waiting for the inevitable, they decide to spend 100 days traveling and enjoying themselves before the end.

The book is a descriptive travel guide of different experiences like dancing in Cuba, walking across the Great Wall of China, and swimming with sharks in Cancun. It is a scenic itinerary of exciting adventures and experiences.

It also captures how people face death in different ways. Some want to do everything medically possible to prolong their lives while others would rather face death on their own terms. There is no one way to face this conflict and all are valid.

Penthesilea: Rise of An Amazon by Stephanie Vanise 

This is a powerful and gripping Historical Fiction novel about a young Amazon, Penthesilea during the Trojan War.

She is third of four daughters of the Queen of Amazon. Penthesilea lives in the shadow of her other sisters and struggles to find her own identity in war.

Various characters and events from Greek Mythology appear including Hippolyta, Hercules, Paris, Helen of Troy, and Achilles. They are made more complex in this adaptation as Vanise captures their psyches and inner conflicts.

Penthesilea in particular is looking for recognition in a powerful war like family. She strives to empower herself and stand out. She strives to be one of a kind not one of hundreds.

MockingOwl Roost 

The Bluestockings: A History of The First Women's Movement by Susannah Gibson 

This is a fascinating Historical Nonfiction account of the Bluestockings, a group of 18th century women who hosted salons, encouraged creative talents, and discussed politics, philosophy and other topics in which women were discouraged from discussing.

These women supported one another in their creative pursuits like writing and art. These were women whose voices might otherwise have been followed. They also had unconventional lives where some married supportive men, had Lesbian relationships, or opted not to marry at all.

The Bluestockings did not last very long but they were an influence for many women like Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Elizabeth Gaskell who in turn inspired the various waves of Feminism. Women's History would have been very different without them.

Violeta by Nikki Roman 

This is a Gothic Literature novel that focuses on child abuse, trauma, and finding ones personal power and independence.

Violet Valentine is isolated by her mother who keeps her secluded from the outside world. Her only contact is with her brother, Tommy. The toxic situation explodes when their mother puts both children'a lives in danger.

Violeta involves the anxieties that are found in families particularly between parents and children and siblings. The Valentine Family engage in continuous conflict, emotional and psychological instability, and fragile dysfunction. 

The siblings are confined and battered by their mother's volatile abusive behavior so they can only rely on each other. They support each other to break from her, find their comfort, independence, strength, sanctuary, and real home. 

December-January Reviews

 December-January Reviews

Finally, I thought that last list would never get done. It looks like I am going to have to do that again. As usual I overbooked myself (pun not intended). 

Because of it being the Holiday season, I want to finish editing Elyria's Journey by Rina Hasan, and I want to do the Annual Favorite Books Lists at the end of the month, I will probably get to do only half of these this month and save the other half for January. 

So some will be eligible for Best Books for 2025 and others will have to wait until 2026. I will try to keep to all strict headlines but some more lenient ones will have to wait. 

Short reviews and links for Gravity Flow: The Jimmy Whistler Stories by EM Schorb, Walk With Me: One Hundred Days of Crazy by Ernesto H. Lee, Penthesilea: Rise of an Amazon by Stephanie Vanise, The Bluestockings: A History of The First Women's Movement by Susannah Gibson, and Violeta by Nikki Roman 

The Long Farewell by Bob Von Laerhoven 

Goon by Glenn Erick Miller*

The Wise Marie: Paradise Edition by Natasha Brune*

Oath by Kate Butler*

Bird of Paradox and Other Tales by John Devlin

Recovering Maurice by Martin Zelder

Magnificat (The Galactic Milieu Series Book 4) by Julian May 

The Wine Broker (The Richard O’Brien Series Book 3) by Ian Rodney Lazarus

The Waterway Girls by Milly Adams

Pulverize (Aiko Rising Book 2) by D.B. Goodin

Rising Karma by Eugene Samolin

The Promise of Love by Emmeline Lovel

Quest for Freedom: The Conquest Trilogy Book 1 by Matthew Devitt

The Dark Chronicles by Karmen Spiljak

The Forgotten Queer: A Journey of Self-Discovery, Breaking Free, and Healing by Stella Mok

Raising Readers: How to Help Your Child Learn to Read by Amy Coffey

Wasted Talent How Greed, Exploitation, and the Promise of the Future of Work has Failed the Front Line and a Plan to Fix It by Sam Caucci

The Platinum Workforce How to Train and Hire For the 21st Century’s Industrial Transitions by Trond Arne Undheim

Best of The Best 2025: Contemporary and Historical Fiction 

Best of The Best 2025: Fantasy and Science Fiction 

Best of The Best 2025: Horror, Mystery/Thriller, and Nonfiction 

If you have a book that you would like me to review, beta read, edit, proofread, or write, please contact me at the following:

Bluesky

Facebook

Goodreads 

Instagram

LinkedIn

LitPick

Reader Views 

Reedsy Discovery

Threads

Upwork

Email: juliesaraporter@gmail.com 

Prices are as follows (subjected to change depending on size and scope of the project):

Beta Read: $50.00-75.00

Review: $50-100.00**

Copy/Content Edit: $100-300.00

Proofread: $100-300.00

Research & Citation: $100-400.00

Ghostwrite/Co-Write:$200-400.00

*These are books reviewed for LitPick or Reader's Views and will only feature a summary and a few paragraphs with links to the full reviews on their sites. Some may not be featured at all.

**Exceptions are books provided by Henry Roi PR, LitPick, Reedsy Discovery, Hidden Gems, Voracious Readers, Reader's Views, and DP Books. Payments of short Nonfiction reviews are already facilitated through Real Book Review, Amazon Book Groups, Michael Cheng, Five Stars Books, and Book Square Publishing. 

Payments can be made to my PayPal and CashApp accounts at juliesaraporter@gmail.com

Well that's it. Thanks and as always, Happy Reading.

Inside Out Worlds: Visions of Strange by Sophie Jubillart Posey; Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds and Concepts Captured in Novella Form

 Inside Out Worlds: Visions of Strange by Sophie Jubillart Posey; Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds and Concepts Captured in Novella Form

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: If anyone can capture a complete fantastic world with important themes found in Science Fiction and Fantasy in less than a novel length, it's Sophie Jubillart Posey. Her anthology, Inside Out Worlds: Visions of Strange covers ten novelettes and novellas that do just that. They build descriptive worlds, create important concepts, and explore themes of loneliness, romance, conformity, rebellion, empathy, trauma, communication, AI, dehumanization, transformation, and ecology. 

The best selections are:

"The Angel and The Sphinx"

This story explores the concept of love between immortals and Alternate Universes.

Adiphael, an angel, has fallen in love with the Sphinx. Oh not the one protecting pyramids in Egypt. The one from Greek Mythology who posed a riddle to Oedipus before he killed his father, married his mother, became king, and blinded himself. 

Adiphael can't stand to watch his beloved leap to her death when the riddle is answered so he reverses time to convince The Sphinx to give Oedipus a different one that he can't solve. Unfortunately, this decision creates more problems for the pair and the entire world.

Adiphael and The Sphinx make a peculiar but compelling couple. Since Adiphael is an angel, he is practically made of love and empathy. He is a highly emotional creature who feels things strongly when he helps others. He is ruled by his heart. 

The Sphinx is made of thought and cunning. She is a highly intelligent creature who thinks deeply as she challenges others with her words. She is ruled by her brain. It is an attraction of opposites but that doesn't always translate to a happy or healthy union.

A theme in this story is of unending obsessions and appetites. Adiphael is obsessed with the idea of helping others but can't always understand that helping sometimes causes more problems. His actions are born out of love but sometimes don't carry enough foresight to see the results.

The Sphinx is obsessed with using her gift of riddles to outsmart and defeat others but doesn't know what to do with herself when she is defeated. If she wins, she is left with an appetite for human flesh which can never be filled or appeased. 

The two characters are completely consumed by their obsessions becoming a toxic couple. The obsessions become addictions and a love affair between two different immortal creatures becomes destructive to everyone including themselves.

"Prophecies of the Great Mother"

A story that frightened me the first time that I read it was “By The Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet. In it, a boy from an agrarian society travels to a forbidden place for a rite of passage. Upon arrival, he learns that the forbidden place is the remains of New York City and he lives in a Post-Apocalyptic society. 

I hadn't read that many Science Fiction works at the time so I wasn't as familiar with this twist so it disturbed me enough to give me nightmares. I have since read many Post-Apocalyptic Dystopian Science Fiction works, many for this blog in fact. But I never forgot my experience with Benet’s short story.

Posey’s “Prophecies of the Great Mother” could be seen as a continuation of Benet’s work with a huge difference. Benet’s story was published in 1937 and while commenting on war and industrialization, a future like that could only be imagined.

 “Prophecies of the Great Mother” reminds us that this future is not far away. It's right here and that makes this story more haunting and disturbing. This story demonstrates exactly what happens when society collapses and communication, interdependency, and learning are sacrificed.

In “Prophecies,” we know that this is a Post-Apocalyptic society from the beginning. The Narrator is part of such an agrarian tribe. The society in which he lives is caught between vilifying and learning about the past. 

They are many generations removed from the Old World but many of the younger people are sheltered from learning about it. They can't leave the confined villages and all they know comes from the elder’s words, the words that they learned from their predecessors and so on.

This society knows of the past but without literacy or technology, it's told through oral storytelling and playacting. Their history speaks of the modern world destroyed by prejudice, war, and climate change but this only consists of pockets, mere drops of information and is interpreted by the one telling the story.

 The tribe members are forbidden from learning anything deeper or exploring for themselves. Many such as The Narrator's friend Ikewa burn with curiosity because so much is forbidden. She sneaks out of the village to understand why people are disappearing. 

Despite the Elder's good intentions to not let history repeat itself, their refusal to let the young ones learn for themselves makes them unprepared and ignorant when they are faced with these problems.

 Instead of gaining agency and fighting against other societies, they are passively destroyed by a more technologically advanced society. The Narrator is captured, graphically tortured, and dehumanized by a scientist. 

The technological society is cruel and inhuman and the agrarian society is wilfully ignorant and passive.  They can't work together, understand, or function so they destroy each other and themselves.

"Girl at Sea"

Unlike many of the other stories in this anthology, this one’s central conflict is not societal. Instead, it's more personal. This story is part Psychological Thriller and part Dark Fantasy/Horror. It's a Gothic Literature novelette by way of a Grimm Fairy Tale. Oneira is a naive innocent held captive by an evil guardian, her mother.

Oneira’s mother physically and mentally abuses her. She frequently tells her that she is Oneira's mirror. She repeats Oneira's negative traits but increases the attacks. Oneira gets mad and responds with a sharp retort and Mother becomes furious and answers with a cutting insult. 

Oneira uses her hands to defend herself and Mother punches her Oneira makes an innocent cooking mistake and Mother destroys dinner. It's a childish and immature mind game but it keeps Oneira captive and from retaliating or defending herself.

Mother is a true example of a Narcissistic parent. She sees Oneira as merely an extension of herself. She believes that her daughter's only purpose is to serve and take care of her without any agency for herself.

 Oneira can never leave the house, make friends, or do many of the things that most kids should do. Oneira's mother might have given birth to her but holds no maternal love for the girl, just ownership. 

Like many fairy tales, Oneira's escape comes in the form of magic. She finds a bottle that when opened, smoke spills out and grants her every wish but only temporarily. She takes full advantage of the situation to reunite with friends, travel to different places, and change into different forms. 

Unfortunately, she always has to return to where she was before. It's an escapist fantasy which clears her mind but offers no real solutions.

Like many protagonists in such works, Oneira's freedom is not a result of outside forces like magic. It comes from her finding her own self-respect and courage to stand up to her mother. Only when she changes herself inward is she able to change her life outward.

"ReGroup"

This story would fit right in with Black Mirror (which I started watching this year and loved. It's one of my favorite new series to me).

 Like the Netflix series, this novelette shows the addictive hold that technology can have on people and how many will exploit others for money, hits, or entertainment.

There's a new social media app called ReGroup. Among its members are Dhriti, a Yoga instructor, Gilbert, a chef, Abigail, a hunter, and Akio, a historian. This story reveals the positive and negative attributes of social media. 

The characters are able to share their interests and expertise with like minded individuals. They can earn a living doing and talking about what they love. 

They can openly express themselves and explore their creativity to its fullest. Communities and relationships are formed. There are definite benefits to this app.

Unfortunately, with positives comes negatives and in ReGroup’s case the latter outweighs the former. Users are rated by hits and receive cash prizes with the more hits, posts, comments that they make. Motivated by financial greed and instant fame, comments become inflammatory, hateful vulgar posts and videos are created, and hate speech and death threats become frequent. It's a mess.

The logical thing that most would do is reduce their time on ReGroup, only use the app for their specific interest, change their settings to private, close their accounts, or leave the app entirely. But the characters can't or won't. 

They are consumed by notoriety, avarice, and anger. Some flame others and others just passively accept it but don't do anything to stop it. They are watching a train wreck and can't look away. 

The characters are a figurative part of the machine of hatred that the app exploits. It changes them until they become a literal part of it. They gave their humanity away and now they are nothing more than endless streams of data, words, and numbers that no longer have any purpose or meaning.

"The Sea"

This novella combines many of the frequent tropes that are found throughout the anthology like it is Posey's final word on the book as a whole. It is an allegory about the union between humanity and nature.

Amos is drawn towards and frightened of water. It provides him some comfort but he also has nightmares of drowning. He imagines conversations with it like it's a living being. It provides a connection that he can't always find with people. 

When Amos is alone, The Sea speaks to him. It warns him that he, like the rest of humanity, has squandered the gift of nature and they will die. Amos begs for another chance that they can turn things around and he will lead them.

The relationship between Amos and The Sea is complex. It serves as a mentor that inspires him to study marine biology and oceanography. He becomes an expert in water conservation and addresses governments about climate change. He can feel the Water’s pain and suffering as it is polluted and altered by corporate greed and willing denial. He has found a purpose in life and is determined to give his all.

There is also a personal component between Amos and The Sea. They share a connection that is borderline sensual. The descriptions of Amos swimming and The Sea surrounding is reminiscent of making love. The Sea takes a human form and Amos has visions of himself in mercreature form so they can explore one another's bodies.

 For someone who can't communicate with many humans, Amos shares desires, longing, secrets, and deepest thoughts and feelings with The Sea. He finds a worthy partner, so he becomes more determined to save it. Amos defends it the way a devoted spouse would to find a cure for their dying partner. 

The novella has a theme of transformation. Humanity has transformed the seas to become unlivable and separated themselves from nature. Both The Sea and Amos take other forms to balance humanity and nature. Soon all of Earth, the land and the people will have no choice but to transform.