In The House of Root and Rot (The Altered Planes Book 2) by Sam Weiss; Between Life and Death Lies Confusion and Surreality

 

In The House of Root and Rot (The Altered Planes Book 2) by Sam Weiss; Between Life and Death Lies Confusion and Surreality

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Normally I get very uncomfortable when I read the second book in a series without reading the first. I often compare it to butting into the middle of a conversation and missing the opening or hearing the punchline of a joke and missing the set up.

Some authors consciously know that not everyone reads series in order so they compensate for that. Mystery authors often make their books stand alone while having occasional subplots carry over from volume to volume. Other genre authors summarize the events prior in the introduction or have the characters provide exposition for what happened before. 

Even when authors provide that assistance, it can be a confusing surreal situation to read the second book first. It can be frustrating but sometimes, as in the case of In The House of Root and Rot, the second book in Sam Weiss’ The Altered Planes series, that confusion and surrealism actually works. 

Will Deadmarsh (a name that is on the nose for a Horror novel but has a delightful ghoulish ring to it) is the only survivor in a family that is cursed by death according to his grandfather, Houl. Will’s mother died in childbirth. His father and twin sister got into a car collision which resulted in his immediate death and her coma and eventual death. Houl, had a stroke but is not responsive leaving Will to take care of the once cantankerous verbally abusive senior.

Atra Hart (another meaningful surname) has escaped from a psychiatric hospital with her scientist father, Tom. She was subjected to scientific experiments that Tom rescued her from while shooting her primary doctor, Dr. Glasser. As the two hide, Tom’s erratic behavior becomes negligent and borderline abusive so when Atra is put into a dangerous situation, she escapes. By chance, Atra encounters Will as he is questioning the aftermath of a sleep study in which his sister, Lex, returned from the dead and Houl disappeared. Finding their lives in danger possibly by the same people, Atra and Will go on with Lex in tow.

As I mentioned before, reading the series out of sequence adds and actually increases the confusion and surrealism that surrounds the characters and the Reader. Somehow it makes the events that much scarier when we don't know what's going on any more than the characters do.

We are given some exposition in the opening chapters. We are told that Atra was a guinea pig in a scientific experiment to explore life after death, particularly the spirit world called The Otherside. She can travel through a portal called The Altered Planes which is between life and death. She also has a piece of death inside her called Dread which appears as a sentient shadow. 

We also learn over the course of the book that Will's family was also involved in the experiments hence the frequent deaths and Lex's post mortem reappearance. But the exposition is few and far between and still leaves a lot of gaps and unanswered questions.

Under normal circumstances, alternating point of view chapters, flashbacks, and back stories put Readers ten steps ahead of the protagonists. This book however puts us two steps ahead of the characters at most. Because of this, Readers are unprepared for the weirdness without any information. We are just as startled when these things happen such as when Lex returns in an emaciated corpse form and taunts and threatens her twin brother. 

Her insults might have been gentle sibling ribaldry and teasing when she was alive. But now there is something savage and menacing about her words. She mentally creates confusion and suspicion within Will which leaves him emotionally isolated. It's possible that the price of Lex’s return was her soul. 

Lex isn't the only sinister paranormal presence. There are creatures that appear in and out of shadows and feed off of fear and negative emotions. They pass down through family generations. Will eventually learns such a spirit is attached to the Deadmarsh Family. Dread is similar to these creatures as it too has chaotic motivations and commits violent actions. It's hard for Will and Atra to hide from spirits that are within their brain, blood, and DNA.

Will and Atra are face to face with these spirits that can't be studied or understood. Indeed, part of the reason for their appearance is out of defiance of human scientists arrogantly researching them and expecting them to be contained. If they can't be studied and can't be contained, then they can't be defeated or killed. In fact, since they are associated with death, they are more than likely death itself or representatives of the end of life. So the only options are to try to run from them or learn to live with them.

The confusion lies not only within the characters but the setting. Some of the eeriest moments occur during Will and Atra’s road trip. They stop at small towns that are unnervingly silent with no one at gas stations, convenience stores, driving on the highway. There are buildings and vehicles, but they stand empty of people inside them. It's like a movie set that is supposed to imitate familiarity but fails at it. It only adds to the tension and puts the two in even more potential danger as their worst fears multiply in the silence.

What is even more sinister and disconcerting is that Will and Atra can't find respite in the human world any more than they can in the Otherside. I have often said that sometimes humans can be more frightening and more sinister than any supernatural creature and this book shows that.

Both Will and Atra have histories of abuse, loss, neglect, abandonment and so does the whole book.This book has parents experimenting on their own children, abusive family heads keeping a tight psychological grip on the rest of the family, people falling into poverty, despair, and desperation, victims becoming physically and mentally battered to the point of death, narcissistic guardians controlling their children for their own means, people betraying others out of avarice and ignorance, children being neglected and physically or psychologically abandoned by once trusted authority figures and family members, multiple incidents of gaslighting, physical, emotional, mental, and sexual abuse.

If nothing else, In The House of Root and Rot shows us that The Otherside might be filled with terrifying spirits and visions but the Human World is filled with the anxieties of everyday living. You don't need to read Book 1 to understand that. 

New Book Alert: Life is Big by Kiki Denis; Bizarre, Undefinable, Unforgettable Tale About Life, Death, Interconnectivity, and Achieving Immortality

New Book Alert: Life is Big by Kiki Denis; Bizarre, Undefinable, but Unforgettable Tale About Life, Death, Interconnectivity, and Achieving Immortality

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book with only words on the cover


Spoilers: Kiki Denis' book Life is Big is not an easy book to categorize. It's a fantasy that focuses on life after death. It's a science fiction because it explores scientific and technological achievements and how researchers quantify our everyday existence, even thought and emotion. It's a satire in which many characters' discoveries and theories are so extreme that they become ridiculous. It's a tragedy that discusses death and how connected we are to each other in strange but meaningful ways. It's bizarre, weird, and sometimes confusing. But most of all, Life is Big is a book that is unforgettable and hard to get out of your mind.


Because Life is Big is such a difficult book to categorize, it is also a difficult book to summarize the plot. It's neither long nor unwieldy, but it takes the point of view of 11 characters all with their own stories, pursuits, beliefs, and agendas. It seems to tell 11 different stories, but the chapters reveal that they are somehow connected to each other in different ways.

The first character that we meet is Alma-Jane, AKA A.J. A.J. is a brilliant 11-year-old girl who is the most genetically happiest person on the planet. (Seriously, she took a test for it.) Unfortunately, because of a genetic mutation, she is dying. A.J., her brother, Ayrtron, and friend, Alejandro have declared war on death. The trio use their mighty brain power (and these kids are geniuses so that brain power is mighty), to find a way to beat death or at least give A.J., a few more years of life. A.J. and Ayrtron have created a website which if successful could help change A.J.'s gene color (which is a contributing factor to her illness.). A.J. also is using the brief time that she has left researching other people who have genetic happiness and consoling a woman whose genetic happiness is zero.


Ayrtron also has another project going on. In cyberspace, he assumes the identity of a 42 year old scientist and gives advice to adult geniuses. (They wouldn't listen to advice from a kid, but maybe from another adult, he reasons.) He calculates heartbeats and thoughts in a person's lifetime. During his studies, he communicates with another scientist, Lazslo, who claims to have part of Einstein's brain in a jar. Ayrtron may be a genius kid, but he is still a kid. He recklessly books a flight to London to visit Laszlo and the brain so he can continue his studies.

Their buddy, Alejandro is also studying the behaviors of an iCub, Qining particularly while it interacts with him and A.J. He wants to study "the little brain people", how the mind works. He asks Qning questions such as whether it is alive and how it feels not to have a father.(Qning was created by a female inventor.)

In their own way and through their private studies, the trio are trying to find some meaning in their lives, and answer questions about the overall key to existence. Maybe through their researches, they are not only hoping to save A.J.'s life, but find something lasting, recognition that will outlive them.


The kids aren't the only ones who are doing bizarre scientific research. Ayrtron's online friend, Laszlo, also has his own studies, creating the Potentiality Puzzle, which measures happiness, delight, and fearlessness in a person. He was inspired by his late girlfriend, Sonia who was the smartest and most fearless person that he knew. Sonia had a mentor, Dr. Maurits Harvey, who created genetically modified mice so he could study their thought patterns and emotions. Sonia was on her way to meet Dr. Harvey when she booked a flight on September 11,2001, so her research remained unfinished. The once self-conscious, Laszlo is determined to continue her work, ironically becoming more fearless in his pursuits.


Another of Harvey's protegees, Lila, is also interested in studying happiness. In fact, she created the Overall Happiness test that determined A.J's score. This book contains a great deal of interconnectivity between characters, mostly through their reasearch. Names are dropped that become prominent later. One person's research proves beneficial to another.

The connection between Lila and A.J. is particularly compelling. Lila was given up for adoption by her birth mother, Raduska. A.J. got the highest score on Lila's happiness study and consoles a woman online whose happiness level is zero. The woman whose happiness level is zero is, ta da, Raduska, Lila's birth mother. A.J.'s research not only gives her recognition and meaning, but it also provides answers to Lila and Raduska.

Oh yes, Dr. Harvey's scientific work has continued beyond his death as well. His chapter is told not from his perspective but from that of one of his mice, Mighty-11. Mighty-11 and the other mice, called the Mighties, have created their own society inside Harvey's lab,where the elder mice educate the younger. Yes, a talking mouse narrates one of the chapters. Did I mention this book was bizarre?


This book is almost satirical in describing the various theories that these geniuses create and study. They demonstrate how scientific minds analyze and quantify everything, even that which cannot be necessarily quantified. How do you measure things like Happiness, Contentment, or Love? What is the process in measuring emotions, intuition, things that by definition resist being measured? What would the results prove, that some people are happier than others? How? Many people in real life do study behaviors and there are lists about the "happiest countries" or "happiest states". But, this book takes those studies to the extreme by giving us characters who live to find a solution to everything, even that which cannot be truly measured.

As if the dying happy little girl, the oddball research, the sentient AI, the talking mice, coincidence of a mother and daughter being linked through the dying happy little girl, and Einstein's brain didn't make this book weird, things get even weirder. We meet Albert Einstein (yes that one) who now lives as one of the Great Immortals with his girlfriend, Sabina, the female protagonist of Milan Kundera's novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Yes, a deceased historical figure and a fictional character have shacked up in the cyberspace equivalent of the Afterlife. It's that kind of book. However, as anyone who studied Einstein's life knows how troubled his real-life marriages to his wives, Mileva and Elsa were, it makes sense that he would not want to spend eternity with either of them. He is attracted to Sabina's "lightness," and ever the scientist, he is fascinated by and studies it.


Einstein is also friends with Alfred Butts, the creator of the board game, Scrabble and Pablo Neruda, the poet who spends his time after death flying kites. These three are considered Great Immortals, people who are missed by many because they left something behind from a scientific theory that changed the world, to Nobel Prize winning poetry, to a board game played by millions.

Then there are people like Socrates, no not the philosopher (I am actually surprised he's not), but A.J. and Ayrtron's grandfather and his wife, Sofia. They are concerned Minor Immortals, because they are only remembered by friends and family, the people that they loved.

Meanwhile, Death and his younger brother, Hypnos AKA Obituary Man or O.M., also get their two cents in. They argue over who to push The Button on, i.e. who is going to die. Death still is ticked off with O.M. for making an unauthorized switch by trading one person's life for another. Death who is pretty cranky also has a conversation with the soon to be late, Grandma Sofia that indicates that he doesn't always like his job but rules are rules. It takes a lot of convincing to persuade Death to bend the rules one more time.


Reading about Denis' version of the Afterlife is similar to the one in Thomas Milhorat's Melia in Foreverland, where famous and average people are strutting around doing their own things, forming friendships, pursuing new interests, even researching new things, and seeing how their achievements affected those left behind. They achieve immortality through their legacies that others follow and remember.


Ultimately, that's what Life is Big is about. How one achieves immortality, not by literally and physically living forever. Immortality is achieved by the things a person leaves behind: their research, their art, their philosophies, their ideals, their actions, and of course by their friends and family. It's not how and when they died. It's who they affected emotionally and what their lives meant to others.

This theme is prominent in a phrase that is carried throughout the book, a phrase that inspired the title of the book: "Life is Big. Immortality exists, although it doesn't apply to humans (yet)."

This book shows that in a way immortality does exist for humans.