Spread the joy!

My new book

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/edward-j-fisher/lands-of-in-ko-8-trilogy-3rd-edition/

KIRKUS REVIEW A sci-fi saga of an alien world, recounting its wars, its near-destruction and its risky restoration. Fans of such whimsical fantasy settings as Piers Anthony’s Xanth or Terry Pratchett’s Discworld may be equally impressed by Fisher’s audacious creation. Inchoate is a planet made of dark matter that occupies a point in space inside the Earth but that’s slightly out of phase in time. As a result, the two independent, evolving environments don’t (normally) interact. Inhabitants of Inchoate are one-sixth the size of Homo sapiens, with a quasi-feudal social structure, advanced technology, and a penchant for befriending talking animals such as jackalopes, rats, dogs and spiders. Successive, advanced alien races have visited Inchoate and used it as a key station in their intergalactic teleportation network. This inspires an act of wartime sabotage that causes Inchoate to be accidentally transmitted several light years away; its people awaken from long-term suspended animation to find themselves in a double-star system in Sirius, where they rebuild over the next thousand years. Fisher further stirs the pot by telling his three-part tale out of chronological order, starting in the middle, proceeding to the prologue and then reaching the finale. The major connecting thread between them is the resourceful troubleshooter Naksarben, aka John Narrowpath, aka Brother Nathan, who weaves his way through palace intrigues and virtuous secret operations against tyrants who rely on religious fundamentalism and militarism to gain power. A final, twist ending about the character’s true origin is a head-scratcher, but by then, readers will have bought into the novel’s blend of quantum mechanics and fairy tale. The author, who also contributes scattered maps, diagrams and illustrations, is a master punster, offering character names such as Hans Pholde, Shellson Carapace, a philosophy professor named Eponymous Muser, a scientist and professor named Prudence DeCysseve, a librarian called Reed Tomes, an order called the Monastery of the Inevitable Whens and a capital city dubbed Distopia. A fetching, seriocomic fantasy of faith, politics, science and death that never succumbs to cuteness.

3rd Edition: November 2014
ISBN: 978-1453519615
Page count: 514pp
Publisher: Xlibris
Program: Kirkus Indie
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31st, 2014

2015 Art Reach Calendar Reception

The Truly Horribles

The stars of Orion marshaled the last night of October to feast on those who walked alone with the frost coxing them indoors to a warm fire.

I was going to start a story for you with that as its first line but found it too frightening. Let’s start again.

The Truly Horribles were misfit spirits. They really wanted to frighten people but didn’t have the knack. To begin with, they didn’t look frightening, or even like spirits. They looked more like lumpy clowns in soiled baggy green pants, red suspenders to hold up the baggy pants, polka dotted blue shirts, purple bow ties (imagine, bow ties in this day and age!) and yellow bowler hats. Downright silly! They tried walking like zombies, with their eyes wide, their tongues lolling, and their limp hands straight out in front. People laughed, “Look the circus must be in town and the show can’t be very good. Just look at those foolish clowns.”

They tried disguises. When they wore sheets they forgot the eyeholes and couldn’t see. When they wore costumes over their clothes they looked like balloons from a Thanksgiving Day parade. When they put on invisible paint no one could see them.

Even their tricks for Trick or Treat were lame. They would ring a door bell and forget to run and hide. When they threw a pie it ended in their own face. When they tried to roll a garbage can down the hill, they would run in front and ended up crashing into the stone wall at the bottom. When they chased someone in the cemetery they would trip on the tomb stones.

To top it off, the Truly Horribles weren’t really even spirits. They were the misfit boys from down the street. None they less, they wished everyone a Happy Halloween, and I do too. BOO! So there!

Deep into Autumn at our house.

M'slle Hepzeba in our back yard

A social outcast crept into our back yard a night or two ago. She was ill and hungry and in need of solitude. We gave that to her as best we could. She has wolfed down sunflower seeds and shuffled off under a neighbor's porch. Nature is what it is, and we can't foresee her future, nor ours for that matter. Perhaps Pogo and Albert will come to her rescue.

Our 2014 trip to Maine