Weekly Reader: Kaleidoscopic Shades Within Black Eternity by Dave A. Neuman; A Surreal Bizarre Fantastic Trip Through Nightmares, Bad Memories, and Other Strangeness

 

Weekly Reader: Kaleidoscopic Shades Within Black Eternity by Dave A. Neuman; A Surreal Bizarre Fantastic Trip Through Nightmares, Bad Memories, and Other Strangeness 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Dave A. Neuman's Kaleidoscopic Shades Within Black Eternity is one of those types of books that is almost too surreal to be believed. There are moments that seem so disconnected from the reality of the pages of a book that I wasn't sure whether they were actually in the book itself or I dreamt it as being part of the book. 

It's a strange bizarre trip of a narrative but it is impossible to forget once it's over. It's one of those types of books that you will mull about for days wondering about the various moments and what they meant.

In 2011, solar flares drove South Australia, particularly the town of Adelaide into near chaos. Communication was down, electricity was erratic, and strange almost supernatural things happened. Among the people who lived through that strange event are Bob and Sue Triplow. 

After the weirdness passes, the two move to Corona, California, have a son named Joshua, and become regular members of the community. Twelve years  after the solar flares, weirdness follows the Triplows and everyone else, I mean everyone around the world. 

This introduction is fascinating as it draws from many unexplained phenomena stories that suggest that the solar flare encounter and what happens in the book are only the latest events in a long string of things that happened over time that are somehow linked together. 

Before we read about the Adelaide Solar Flares, we are told about a man in the Victorian Era who stepped back into Medieval Europe. It makes one wonder if in this Universe, many of these phenomena are part of this situation. Can we attribute the Bermuda Triangle, creatures like Bigfoot, Time Slips, UFOs, alien abductions, and ghost sightings to these events? The plot widens the scope and gives reason to the strange bizarreness, making these seemingly random global events not so random.

After the introduction, we get the first strange event in the narrative proper. Joshua and several of his schoolmates have tense nightmares of a strange man in a dark suit observing them. The nightmares are so prevalent that Joshua and his peers suffer through the day. They move sluggishly, are afflicted with dark circles under their eyes, and have no energy. They look and act like they went several rounds with Freddy Krueger during the night.

What is particularly compelling about these nightmares is that the mysterious man in black never does anything physical to these kids. He never even talks to them (except Josh begins to hear taunting in his head that might be from this nightmarish apparition). He sits next to them and takes notes as though he is studying and observing them for some unknown reason.

His presence is just enough to terrify them. It's sort of like the child who swears that the Boogeyman is in their room. Then Mom and Dad come in and say no that's just a pile of clothes, but he's not convinced

Only in this book's case, the pile of clothes really is a terrifying monster.

This by any means isn't the only strange thing that is happening. As the book continues, we are subjected to a lot of weird incidents around the world that seem unconnected but we later find out really are.

An Englishwoman spontaneously combusts. A township in Brazil just vanished. A house with a strange old man with a love of Louis Armstrong appears and disappears in California. An old man is mysteriously flattened to death. Around the world, people see these strange balloons and hear the sound of bells. Bob is tortured by memories of his abused childhood that seem to become real.

It gets to the point where while reading each page, the Reader is just waiting for the next strange thing to happen. It's like a surreal journey into a dream which starts normal and gets progressively weirder the deeper into sleep you go. Kaleidoscopic Shades Within Black Eternity is one of those works that isn't so much a book as it is an experience. You have to dive right in and immerse yourself into what is going on.

Eventually, an explanation is given that is compelling and opens up other possibilities about alternate worlds, alien species, and science experiments gone awry. However, the explanation does little to help those that have to live with these disturbing events. 

Bob and Joshua in particular find themselves surrounded by a world that becomes so strange and nightmarish that it's hard to tell what is real and what isn't. 

Neuman deserves high praise for taking his Readers on this surreal journey that confuses and disturbs them almost as much as the characters. It's completely unforgettable and is one of the best books of 2022.

New Book Alert: It's A Gay Gay World by Tatiana Kolesnikov; Parallel World Reverses Gay and Straight Statuses Has An Interesting Premise But Also Raises Some Questions

 New Book Alert: It's A Gay Gay World by Tatiana Kolesnikov; Parallel World Reverses Gay and Straight Statuses Has An Interesting Premise But Also Raises Some Questions

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Tatiana Kolesnikov's YA novel, It's A Gay Gay World is the type of book that invites the characters and Readers to "see how the other half lives." To see what happens when the majority becomes the minority, when the LGBT and the straight communities switch places. Heterosexual people have to suffer the legal ramifications when they want to have rights that others take for granted. They have to be mocked with stereotypes and derisive comments from entertainment and even from friends and acquaintances. They could face ostracism from family, isolation, sentencing to conversion camps, and could be potentially injured or killed by people so driven by centuries of religious and social hatred towards others who aren't like them.

It's A Gay Gay World takes that premise and brings it up to eleven when two straight teens travel to a parallel dimension where 

homosexuality is the majority and heterosexuality is the minority. It is an interesting idea that Kolesnikov brilliantly explores in her novel. However, the book does leave some questions in terms of plot and character.

High schooler, Katherine Borovsky and her boyfriend, Michael Morrow, wake up from a severe traffic collision to find a different world around them. Instead of her religious mother and father and kid sister, Katherine is greeted by her sister and two religious mothers. Instead of his bickering parents, Michael is welcomed by two loving fathers. 

In what Katherine and Michael dub "The G World" (Gay as compared to the "S World" where they came from), sexes are completely segregated. Boys are raised by men and girls by women. Since homosexuality is the norm, what they dub  "mixing" is forbidden even illegal. (In G World, even the terms gay and straight are reversed but to simplify things for this review, I will use the traditional meanings for both terms.) 

Kolesnikov went into great detail about the history and current structure that would occur in such a world. At a church service, Katherine hears this parallel dimension's version of the Adam and Eve story. This world's interpretation is that the sin that Adam and Eve committed was not in disobedience but in having sexual intercourse. Pretty flimsy, but is it any flimsier than the actual excuses that centuries of people have used citing the Bible as justifications for their prejudices in this world?

While procreation is not ignored, that is the sole reason that G World authorities allow men and women to have sexual relations or it used to be. Now with IVF and surrogacy, there is no reason for that. Straight couples get sent to internment camps like Camp Stork where they are separated from the rest of society and are subjected to inhumane treatments. It's Camp Stork that eventually becomes the source of investigations when Anna, one of Katherine's mothers, Rick, an investigative reporter, and Daniel, a BFI (G World's version of the FBI) agent and Rick's husband, discover a potential conspiracy involving the camp and immigrant straight couples.

The details aren't just found in the main plot.

When Katherine and Michael compare notes with their friends (and in G World, Michael's boyfriend and Katherine's girlfriend), Travis and Sydney, they find that G World's population is much smaller than the overpopulated world in which they came from. 

They also discover other clever facts about this parallel dimension such as that Sydney and Travis have never heard of Facebook, but MySpace is still the most important social media site. The current President in G World is Belinda Floyd, a woman who was a former movie star and is known for her progressive policies. Hurricanes only go up to Category Three. Many of these details aren't really important to the overall narrative, but they show how seriously Kolesnikov took the different aspects between dimensions.

 

This conspiracy develops many of the characters such as Elizabeth, Katherine's mother, who was at first appalled by her daughter being straight but then goes into full Defcon 1 Protective Mom mode when Katherine is threatened. Katherine's discomfort towards Anna thaws as before she refused to acknowledge her because Katherine missed her S World father. However, after Anna not only infiltrates Camp Stork but defends Katherine from attack, the teen lovingly refers to her as Mom like she does Elizabeth.

Besides the teen protagonists, many of the other characters are developed as well. Rick and Daniel are a loving couple who are good at their careers. They use those careers to help others such as investigating murders connected to Camp Stork and helping Nadia and Marek, an immigrant couple, who are kidnapped and sent there.

One of the best characters is Dominique Sullivan, a physics professor who provides details to Katherine, Michael, Sydney, and Travis about travel from parallel universes, something that he experienced first hand. Like Katherine and Michael, Sullivan came from S World decades ago. However, as an African-American gay man, he found love and acceptance in G World, particularly with his husband, David, so he decided to stay. However, Sullivan is not blind to the problems in his adopted home dimension so he also takes part in infiltrating Camp Stork.

It's A Gay Gay World is a great book but it offers some intriguing questions, perhaps for Kolesnikov to explore in a sequel, particularly since this book's conclusion is open ended. This book only refers to heterosexuality and homosexuality. Since gender and sexuality are constructs and are more fluid than that, it would be interesting to see how It's A Gay Gay World explores that possibility in G World. How are bisexuals treated in G World? (There are some indications that one of the characters is bisexual, but it is never outright stated.) What about transgenders, especially with how rigid cis males and females are segregated in this reality? These are other possibilities that could be explored in the future.

Katherine and Michael are aware that they are being discrimated against in this world to the point that Katherine makes a public plea for acceptance but they don't seem to make any comparisons towards their behavior in S World. There are some subtle implications that the two teens weren't exactly paragons of understanding and tolerance towards LGBT people in S World. Michael mentions that he felt uncomfortable towards a male friend who came out of the closet and began to phase him out. Katherine's first scene in G World shows her at a church service and she makes plenty of comments about her family's Christian background in both worlds. Their evolving feelings towards LGBT people could be illustrated in Katherine's growing acceptance towards Anna in her lives and their easy friendship towards many of the other G World citizens, but it would be interesting to see how this trip changes their beliefs once they return to S World.

Speaking of Katherine and Michael in S World, we learn that both worlds have the same people. While the teen couple are wandering around another dimension that isn't theirs, so are an alternate version of Michael and Katherine, both of whom are gay and are just as out of place as their counterparts. They will no doubt be subjected to homophobia and hate crimes. 

One of the most unfortunate implications concerns G World's Michael and his parents. That Michael left a world with two happily married fathers who loved their son and he clearly reciprocated that love. The S World's Michael lives with constantly fighting parents who give their son a toxic home environment. Since this volume involved a lot of Katherine's family, if Kolesnikov writes another volume set in S World, Michael's family should receive a stronger look that focuses on that conflict.

It's A Gay Gay World is an interesting premise that hopefully will be explored more on a future date. It presents an interesting look at both worlds.

New Book Alert: Murder in the Multiverse: Multiverse Investigations Unit by R.E. McLean; A Fun and Clever Series In This and Any Other Alternate Universe

New Book Alert: Murder in the Multiverse: Multiverse Investigations Unit by R.E. McLean; A Fun and Clever Series In This and Any Other Alternate Universe

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book about or by a woman in STEM


Spoilers: R.E. McLean's Multiverse Investigations Unit is a unique series in which the protagonists solve crimes in various parallel universes. It is like an exciteable physics professor giving a lesson on quantum theory with very bright flash cards and loud special effects. It's interesting and informative, but mostly it's a lot of fun.


Alex Strand, a young post-doctorate student in physics is studying quantum theories particularly how it pertains to the frequent death and resurrection of her cat, Schrodinger. (Get it, like Schrodinger's cat experiment? Yes, it's that kind of book.)

Unfortunately, she gets up close and personal to these experiments when reclusive billionaire, Claire Pope is found dead. Two mysterious police officers, Monique Williams and Mike Long tell her that they need her help to prevent the murder of... reclusive billionaire, Claire Pope.

Before Alex can say "Wha-?," she is taken to the Multiverse Investigations Unit, a secret organization which investigates and prevents crimes in the Multiverse, the various alternate universes. The MIU needs Alex's expertise in quantum physics to investigate. Alex is partnered up with Mike and the two explore Silicon City, an alternate version of San Francisco that is connected to the Hive, an artificial intelligence. The duo try to prevent Claire's murder while Alex explores this new world and conducts her own deeply personal investigation.


I haven't enjoyed a murder mystery satire this much since Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. This is one of those book series that is a complete delight to read and be amazed at the fantasy trip the author puts us on. McLean captures the alternate universe milieu perfectly. Silicon City is a brilliantly realized setting. The details from the fashion, to the slang, to the social customs are well thought out. There is also a real sense of the sociopolitical difficulties of a populace physically connected to an artificial intelligence that limits their freedom.


There are some brilliant clever touches to the series that lends itself to the concept of alternate universes such as different versions of the same people and how even if certain things change, they are still the same people underneath. Claire for example is a billionaire in different businesses. In one universe, she created a pet food empire and in another invents accessories for ear pieces that hook up to the Hive. However in any world, she is still an agoraphobic recluse with very few friends and one ex-husband.

The MIU has an employee named Madge Ciccone who was named for Madonna because she was born the same time that the pop singer had her first number one hit, "Into the Groove." However, Madge has prematurely aged, a fad in her universe. Silicon City has its own counterpart in Madge with Madonna, who looks and dresses like the pop singer, but lives in a world that has never heard of her.


There is a clever interactive experience between McLean, the series, and the Reader. McLean has a website that describes the various other alternate universes such as one in which the British won the Revolutionary War and another in a dystopia. These other universes offer intriguing possibilities for future volumes that should be just as fascinating to explore.

The website is also a mock recruitment process for potential Multiverse Investigations Unit professionals including a quiz to join and cases (book synopsis). It takes one back to the late '90's-early '00's when websites such as Galaxy Quest's or The Blair Witch Project's were created specifically to give fans a full interactive fourth-wall-breaking experience.


Besides the fun, the series stands out by giving us fascinating characters otherwise the book would just be a travelogue into weirdness. Mike is the typical veteran with a bad history that has yet to be elaborated upon. Though there are hints that somehow he lost a partner. His facial hair goes through some unintentional peculiar metamorphoses that changes every moment from a beard, to a van dyke, to a goatee, to a handlebar etc.(apparently an after-effect to some trip gone awry.)

Alex is also well-written: the brains to Mike's brawn. Fortunately, she is a lesbian so it saves us a "will-they-won't-they" scenario between our lead partners. However, she does fancy another MIU employee so we may see a potential office romance.

She also has a painful past and a lot of guilt that has consumed her life. When she enters Silicon City, she does not look around only for scientific curiosity. She also looks for information about her past and in an emotional moment, she receives it.


Murder in the Multiverse is a brilliant first step in this fun and exciting series. It is a brilliant work in this and any other universe.

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: First Among Sequels (The Thursday Next Series Vol. V) by Jasper Fforde; New Adventure Makes Thursday More Metafictional Than Before

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: First Among Sequels (The Thursday Next Series Vol. V) by Jasper Fforde; New Adventure Makes Thursday More Metafictional Than Before




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: Well he did it. I did not think it was possible but Jasper Fforde achieved it. I didn't think his Thursday Next Series could not get more meta and it has.

While the first four books in the series followed a straight story arc and carried concepts that were resolved by the book, Something Rotten, Fforde decided to do something completely different with the next tier of the series.


This time around over 20 years have gone by moving the series setting to the early 2000’s. Thursday is now in her early 50’s and lives with her uneradicated husband, Landen, her lazy son, Friday, her genius daughter, Tuesday, and her other daughter, Jenny who spends most of her time at her friend's houses.

Thursday is much older but still very active. She works at Acme Carpets, actually a front for Spec Ops which is forced to go underground. She also works for Jurisfiction as a sometimes agent so yay Book World is back!

Of course Thursday and Co. are in trouble (aren't they always?) in both worlds. People who were affiliated with Thursday's arch enemy, Acheron Hades are back and causing trouble. The Goliath Corporation are rearing their ugly heads once more. The Chronoguard want Thursday's son, Friday to join them to eventually become their leader and they don't mind killing the current Friday to send their Friday to replace him.

Meanwhile in Book World, Sherlock Holmes has been killed. He was last seen by Reichenbach Falls during “The Final Problem” with no Generic to immediately replace him. (Oh if only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had written a follow up story taking place near “The Empty House.” Oh wait.) Now Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan is in fear of her life inside her book. (Bones so far is the only copyrighted character to be featured in Fforde's series. He thanks author, Kathy Reichs, in the acknowledgement). The clones of Mrs. Danvers, the creepy housekeeper from Rebecca who are often required to do grunt work in Book World, are acting creepier than usual and now attack Thursday. Thursday is also training two new recruits which are……herself and….herself.

That's right, Fforde introduces the concept that if Thursday Next is technically a fictional character, then she should be subjected to the same regulations as the other fictional characters in the Book World including having fictionalized versions of herself.

Thursday's adventures in the previous four books became a fictional series of its own inside the series. However, they went through a change than the ones we know.
The first four books are dark, violent, sexy gritty noir tales and the Thursday that emerges from that is a tough talking gun toting badass.
Our Thursday, the one from First Among Sequels, wanted the fifth book, The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco to be more diplomatic and peaceful and the Thursday that emerges from that is a flighty dizzy hippy. So Thursday has to train her fictional counterparts, I mean her more fictional counterparts...I mean oh forget it!


The moments between Thursday and her fictional counterparts, Thursday 1-4 (the violent one) and Thursday 5 (the hippy) are some of the highlights.
Our Thursday has to come between them as Thursday 1-4 goes really bad and Thursday 5 goes really good.

Thursday also comes to realize that her counterparts, and by extension, she are fictional characters so they too are controlled by the whims of Author, Reader, and the limitations of fiction hood. The three share this realization as they impersonate each other and even take turns narrating First Among Sequels for stretches at a time. At one point, Thursday 5 recites the opening of the Eyre Affair which is word for word the opening of The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde from our world.

Understand, this is not breaking the fourth wall. This is jumping on the fourth wall, smashing it with a hammer, obliterating it, selling the spare parts for scrap, removing any evidence of it, and acting like the fourth wall never existed in the first place and doing the same to the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Walls while Fforde is at it.

With a plot as meta as this involving three versions of the same character, time travel, and other plot devices things intentionally get confusing. Perhaps some coherence in the narrative would not be too much to ask. The time travel aspects get hand waved leading to a plot hole with the other books in the series that is too headache inducing to get into. The murdered fictional characters subplot starts strong but is left open ended possibly for a resolution for another book as does the possible non-identity of one of the characters. Thursday's fights with her counterparts are intriguing as she realizes that she truly met her match, literally.

While this one is the most confusing and meta of the series, it definitely stretches Fforde's imagination to its limit. It makes any fan of the series clamor for the next book, One of Our Thursdays is Missing.

At the very least, it will be entertaining to see how many more walls Jasper Fforde can break.

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next Series Vol. II) by Jasper Fforde; Thursday Goes Behind the Scenes of Books in One of The Best Volumes in the Series

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next Series Vol.II) by Jasper Fforde; Thursday Goes Behind the Scenes of Books in One of The Best Volumes in the Series


By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I always said that the Thursday Next series is the Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Wreck-it-Ralph of the literary world. Roger and Ralph take viewers through the world of animation and video games respectively featuring characters from other sources meeting, rubbing elbows, arguing, and showing how they act when they aren't working. The Thursday Next series does the same thing with the world of books.

While The Eyre Affair gave us a small taste of literary character's lives outside of their books by having its protagonist Thursday go into Jane Eyre to save Jane from a dastardly villain, Lost in a Good Book takes us one step beyond. We visit several books and a place called The Great Library where characters visit and congregate during after hours. (i.e. when they aren't being read).

Thursday received much fame for killing villain, Acheron Hades, ending the Crimean War, and not only rescuing Jane Eyre but changing the ending of the Charlotte Bronte novel. (In the Nextian world, the book ended with Jane traveling to India with her cousin St. John Rivers. Thursday changed it to the ending we know that she returns to Thornfield to marry Rochester.) Thursday barely has time to get bored with pointless censored interviews and PR gimmicks when she's on yet another case or cases.

There are plenty of different plots that run through this volume. Thursday and her colleagues receive word of a newly discovered Shakespeare play, Cardenio which just might be the real thing. She hears voices from a man called Akrid Snell, who claims that he is an attorney and she is charged with Fiction Infraction for changing Jane Eyre's ending.

Thursday is also being stalked by coincidences such as a Skyrail ticket arriving at the exact same moment she needs one and a crossword puzzle that conveniently spells out “Meddlesome,” “Thursday” and “Goodbye” before an assassin appears with a gun. Worst of all, her husband Landen Park-Laine has been eradicated (removed from time) and she is pregnant with his child.

Thursday learns that Landen was eradicated by the Goliath Corporation and Spec Ops’ Chrono Guard who need her cooperation to release a Goliath operative from the pages of Edgar Allan Poe's “The Raven” where she left him in the last book. She reluctantly agrees but does not have access to the Prose Portal which her uncle built and allowed her to travel into books. Using some coaching from her grandmother and a Japanese woman who also have the ability to travel into books, Thursday is able to travel into the Book World without the Prose Portal.

The Book World of Jasper Fforde's series is very well thought out from creatures called gramnasites who fix grammatical errors to the Bowderlizers, a group bent on removing content that they consider objectionable. There is even a law enforcement organization called Jurisfiction, whose job it is to protect books from within by making sure characters don't hop into other books and plot holes are nicely filled.

Akrid Snell, Thursday's attorney, is a member of Jurisfiction and he represents Thursday at her Fiction Infraction trial. After a very confusing trial in-what else?-Franz Kafka's “The Trial”- Thursday is introduced to the Jurisfiction staff. This is when Fforde's imagination really takes flight.

Like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Wreck-it-Ralph, part of the fun of the Thursday Next series is watching different fictional characters interact with each other. Whereas The Eyre Affair was mostly limited to just Jane Eyre's characters, this one has more fun with the literary cameos. Thursday is trained by Miss Havisham of Great Expectations fame. While she is as much a man hater as she is in Dickens's original work, she is also prone to driving fast and reading trashy romance novels which she fights the Red Queen of Alice Through the Looking Glass to own. The Jurisfiction agents meet in Norland Park, home to the Dashwood family of Sense and Sensibility. Other Jurisfiction operatives include Falstaff from Shakespeare's Henry IV and Merry Wives of Windsor, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle one of Beatrix Potter's charming characters, and the Cheshire-oh sorry Unitary Authority of WarringtonCat (rezoning laws forced him to change his name). The Cat is also the Director of the Great Library, where all of the books that are or will be written are kept.


Sometimes Fforde has to resort to his own made up characters to stand in for real ones such as the aforementioned Snell and his partner, Perkins who represent every crime solving detective duo ever, Commander Bradshaw, an adventurer in the style of H. Rider Haggard's Alan Quartermaine, and Vernham Deane, the caddish but actually likeable villain of books by trashy romance novelist, Daphne Fahrquitt. Whether they are characters from other author's or Fforde's own writing, the effect is still the same. The Book World is a magnificent place that most literature lovers would dream of visiting. This and Roger Rabbit's Toontown are the ultimate destinations for an imagination influenced road trip.

Besides opening up the Book World, Fforde also opens up his characters particularly Thursday. Thursday goes through a tremendous amount of stress throughout this book and the chapters where she is coming to grip with her husband's disappearance are truly heartfelt. She is particularly stricken with the fact that no one else remembers Landen but her. This is particularly strong when she is given the choice of going to a world where she never met Landen, she chooses to remain in her world because she wants to remember her life as it was, the good and the bad.

Lost in a Good Book is a much darker story than its predecessor. Thursday uses her newfound skills to get the operative out of “The Raven” but is screwed over yet again and hunted down by various enemies. Thursday realizes that she is up against villainy that she cannot yet beat.

Instead of a happy ending, it ends with despair and defeat as Thursday goes into temporary hiding to get away from her various enemies. However she is not surrendering so much as temporarily retreating so she can fight again.

The second volume in the Thursday Next series builds on the concepts of The Eyre Affair and made them better. It makes the Reader want to do what the title suggests: get Lost in a Good Book.

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Series Edition: The Eyre Affair (The Thursday Next Series Vol. I) by Jasper Fforde; The Start of A Great Series with A Brilliant Protagonist and a World Every Reader Will Love

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Series Edition: The Eyre Affair (The Thursday Next Series Vol. I) by Jasper Fforde; The Start of A Great Series with A Brilliant Protagonist and a World Every Reader Will Love

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: I am trying a new experiment this year for my Weekly Readers. I am devoting one article each week to books in the same series. Right now I am reviewing two of my all-time favorite series: The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde and soon I will also begin reviewing The Plantagenet and Tudor Court Series by Philippa Gregory. One is an alternate fantasy that takes place in the world of literature. The other is a historical fiction about the female players behind the War of the Roses, Henry VIII and his six wives, and the Elizabethan court. They are both great but long series so sit back. We’re going to be here awhile.

The Thursday Next Series is a book lover’s dream come true. In this strange meta-fantasy series literary characters interact with Readers and sometimes have the power to change their books.
In this world lives Thursday Next, a LiteraTec with Spec Ops. Thursday is a clever memorable protagonist who takes her world's oddities with a wry amusement and detachment similar to her male counterparts like Dashiell Hammet's Sam Spade or Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe.

A LiteraTecs's job is to locate counterfeit books being sold on the Black Market and to break up vicious gangs that engage in fisticuffs over who wrote Shakespeare's plays. LiteraTec isn't the only division Spec Ops has to offer. There is Art Crime (watch out for French Impressionists), the Chrono Guard (time travelers one of which is Thursday's father who is lost in time), Vampire and Monster Hunters (AKA Suckers and Biters whose only member is Spike Stoker), and Internal Affairs which guards the other branches.

As a LiteraTec, Thursday is looking towards a career of forgery hunting and authorship rights when she is called outside her jurisdiction to join the hunt for Acheron Hades, the Most Wanted Man in the Whole World, Criminal Evil Genius, and All Around Nasty Guy. Unfortunately, a stake out goes wrong and Thursday is the only survivor who is left without a job and plenty of blame.

Thursday is then led to a LiteraTec job in her hometown of Swindon where her search for Hades becomes personal when he kidnaps Thursday's aunt and uncle and steals the Prose Portal, a device that allows people to travel into books. (Though there are hints that people can do it without the Prose Portal as an early encounter between a young Thursday and Edward Fairfax Rochester from Jane Eyre reveals.)

Fforde's writing is filled with brilliant word play and clever references. Thursday reveals that while she was born on a Thursday, her mother, Wednesday was born on a Sunday and that she doesn't know her father's name since his identity was erased by the ChronoGuard. Thursday's boyfriend is named Landen Park-Laine which is a term in the British version of Monopoly. (In a later book, we find out his parents are named Builden and Housen.) There's a sinister weapons dealer named Jack Schitt. Hades and the rest of his villainous family are all named for the rivers that surround Hades in Greek mythology such as Acheron, Styx, and Aornis.


Fforde also gives some clever details to his Alternate England. There are Will-Speak machines on every street corner which quote lines from Shakespeare's plays. There is an ongoing performance of Richard III in which audience members shout comments and participate ala Rocky Horror Picture Show. People have genetically engineered dodos as pets. Instead of airplanes, people travel by air ship.

While The Eyre Affair is filled with plenty of laughs, there is also plenty of drama as well. England has been at war against Russia over the Crimean Peninsula for over 150 years. Thursday is a veteran of the war and still suffers from the occasional PTSD induced flashback and from the death of her brother, Anton. She is also furious with Landen whom she feels betrayed Anton.

Alternate England's biggest problem besides Hades and The Crimean War is the Goliath Corporation, a conglomerate that controls every aspect of the character's lives. Thursday often finds herself arguing with Goliath's shady representatives who want the Prose Portal for their own gain and aren't particular over who has to die to get it.


The highlight of this and the other books in the Thursday Next series are the trips into other books. Fforde has a good handle on writing his and other author's characters.
Thursday's aunt takes a brief journey into William Wordsworth's poem, “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud” and sees Wordsworth's field of daffodils. A character from Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit gets extracted from the book and is murdered in the real world. (Don't remember Mr. Quaverly? Didn't think so.)


Thursday spends a great deal of time visiting Jane Eyre to protect her from getting kidnapped by Hades. (She's a first person narrator so the book falls apart without her.) It's interesting to read Thursday interact with Bronte's characters who behave like actors in a play waiting off stage for their next moment to enter the scene. They are well aware of the ending but can do little to stop it. (In this Alternate version of Jane Eyre, Jane joins St. John Rivers on his mission to India instead of returning to Thornfield to marry Rochester.)
Bronte's characters are written to act a certain way, to have a certain style and have no past or future beyond what she wanted. It is a difficult existence but the characters are full aware of the impact that Jane Eyre has on its Readers so they, like Thursday, are willing to protect their book/home at all costs.

The Eyre Affair serves as a way to introduce us to the world of Thursday Next. For such a brilliant imaginative series, it's a great start.

New Book Alert: Glossolalia: The Agents of the Nevermind Vol. 1 by Tantra Bensko ; Bizarre But Gripping Psychological Conspiracy Theory Thriller

New Book Alert: Glossolalia: The Agents of the Nevermind Vol. 1 by Tantra Bensko ; Bizarre But Gripping Psychological Conspiracy Theory Thriller


By Julie Sara Porter


Bookworm Reviews





Spoilers: Of the New Books I have read for this blog, I would say Tantra Bensko's novel, Glossolalia is certainly the most bizarre, most confusing but I will also say that it is the most engrossing and hardest to put down.

The plot is one third psychological thriller, one third conspiracy theory, and one part alternate universe with a lot of dark fantasy thrown in. It could be a mess with so many genres battling for dominance but it is the strange narrative that makes it so compelling. It would be interesting to see if the book takes off to become a movie or a series. It definitely has a dark Twilight Zone-early season X Files- Jason Bourne movies vibe and could do well alongside those and other well known titles.

The novel's universe exists in an Alternate United States where occultism is the preferred religion. Also there is a sinister organization called Agents of the Nevermind which seems to have its tentacles in just about every business and government organization from schools, to corporations, to reality television (explains a lot), to blockbuster Hollywood films, to the half time productions at the Super Bowl. They are in charge and the frightening thing about it is that while some may rebel, the majority of the populace are either in denial or are too terrified to do anything about them.

With good reason too. The Agents of the Nevermind are prone to using just about anything to achieve their goals and that includes brainwashing, drug therapy, subliminal messaging, and an odd cocktail combination of magic and science to create the perfect sleeper agents.
While the Agents of the Nevermind would make some Readers roll their eyes over their obvious evilness, there is an understated quality that makes the situations horrific and at the same time believable.

For example their plot to create subliminal messages during the halftime show of the Super Bowl to wake up sleeper agents on paper sounds like something that could come out of Pinky and the Brain. Thankfully, Bensko focuses on the psychological torture that the sleeper agents would go through under the circumstances particularly one of the football players who comes to a bad end because of the mental torture. Bensko gives us the results of such a situation that makes these potentially ludicrous situations more terrifying and somehow more real.

The effects of living in such a world is traumatic for all the characters particularly the lead. Our Protagonist, Nancy is in for quite a bit of trouble. She is a martial arts student and works for her greedy uncle's toxic chemical factory. One day she stumbles upon some of her uncle's employees illegally dumping chemicals. After a frightening car chase, Nancy plans to report the dumping to a concerned citizens environmental bureau only to discover that number gets rerouted to her uncle's office! (So in other words the guy who is in charge of cleaning up environmental disasters is also the one who makes them in the first place.)

Finding no help through legal channels, Nancy seeks help from outside sources to report her findings. She goes through the obligatory uncertainty over who to trust by confiding too much in people that she shouldn't and withdrawing from people who are legitimately trying to help but she pushed away because she is concerned for their safety. This journey feeds on her paranoia and damaged psyche and leaves her to lose herself in Jolly Wests, psychotropic addictive drugs that become key to her rediscovering answers to her identity.

Glossolalia takes some really bizarre turns particularly in the characters of Emily and Angela. Emily is a spiritual child prodigy who has an interest in Glossolalia, the strange language created by 16th century astrologer, John Dee. She is part of a highly influential cult (whose pastor is yes an Agent of the Nevermind.) and is either the inspiration or the actual lead character in a series of Harry Potteresque movies about an adventures of a young girl.

Angela is a hardened sexy Nevermind Agent who appears whenever dirty work needs to be done. She is often involved with seducing agents, providing drugs, and being a go-between with the agents and their higher ups. She is almost a stereotypical character in these type of novels but she is more than she appears, She has an almost metaphysical knowledge of situations in which she was not an eyewitness or personally involved. She later reveals that she, Emily, and Nancy have a unique bond that changes the course of the book once it is revealed.

Glossolalia is the first book in Tantra Bensko’s Agents of the Nevermind Series. If the first book is any indication, it should be a long strange trip but a completely unforgettable one.