Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Welcome to the May 2025 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.”
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
To subscribe to this monthly newsletter, please e-mail me at MLCVamp@aol.com, and I will add you to the list.
For other web links of possible interest, please scroll to the end.
In keeping with the season of spring and Easter, an excerpt from my light fantasy novella “Bunny Hunt” appears below. After Melanie, a professional doula, has had a strange encounter at the community Easter Egg hunt, that night a mysterious telepathic voice summons her. The publisher’s page:
Our May interviewee is Elizabeth Schechter, who writes in multiple speculative romance subgenres.
*****
Interview with Elizabeth Schechter:
What inspired you to become a writer?
I am a total cliché – I always wanted to be a writer. I just came at it the long way around. I was told (often) that I was never going to make it as a writer, so I went into teaching, and when I burned out on teaching, I went into a variety of different things – retail, jewelry design, university admissions, independent artist. And all the while I was still writing, still working on getting better. I made my first short story sale at the age of 37, and my first novel sold one month after my 40th birthday.
What genres do you work in?
I write under the speculative romance umbrella. Everything I write is a romance, and the catalog includes Fantasy, Steampunk, Paranormal Romance, Science Fiction, Historical Fantasy, Weird Western, and Romantasy.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I make jokes about this – I write long, detailed outlines that my characters laugh at before doing whatever the heck they want. So my books will often start where the outline starts, and usually ends where I think they’re going to end, but what happens in between is anyone’s guess. My writing style can, I think, best be described as “taking down the incident report.”
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
I have told Jacqueline Carey that my career is all her fault. Years ago, there were several authorized play-by-email role playing games set in the Kushiel universe from Jacqueline Carey. This involved sending long, detailed story messages to the Yahoo group and tagging in the people who needed to respond to that post. You had to keep track of plotlines and characters and all sorts of machinations. The game ran for five years, and four published authors came out of it.
How do you define the relatively new subgenre label “romantasy”? Is it the same as paranormal romance or fantasy romance? A subset of one of those? An umbrella term encompassing both?
When I first heard the word romantasy, I thought it was just marketing. But now it seems to be an actual subgenre in speculative romance, and distinct from fantasy romance. It’s definitely not paranormal romance, because that really seems to signify some flavor of shifters, witches with lower back tattoos, and more modern settings.
I haven’t really dug into the brass tacks of the genre hallmarks of romantasy vs fantasy romance, but I think it might be that romantasy is where the plot is driven by the relationship growth, and fantasy romance is where the plot is driven by the fantasy elements. In both cases, the fantasy and the romance are integral to the plot, but which one does more of the heavy lifting determines fantasy romance or romantasy.
Please tell us about your various novel series.
My longest series is the one that started as stunt writing – it was a steamy closed-door serial that ran weekly on my Patreon for four years. That’s Heir to the Firstborn, and it’s a seven book romantasy series where you have the Chosen One and her four Companions (fated mates and why choose?) who have to save the world when a usurper overthrows the previous ruler and throws everything out of balance. That series is complete, and book one was my Vivian finalist Written in Water.
My favorite series is my historical erotic fantasy Swords of Charlemagne, a four book series that I occasionally pitch as The Song of Roland meets The Parasol Protectorate… in a blender. I take the legends and lore of Charlemagne’s court, and thread parallel storylines set in late-700s Carolingian France, and 1898 Victorian Europe. The series starts with the book Hidden Things, and is also complete.
I have two incomplete series as well. The first is Tales from the Arena, an erotic SF series about genetically engineered supersoldiers and the submissives who love them. There are two books out now, and there will be two more (I think. There might be three. It depends on how long book 4 gets.) The first book is Tales from the Arena: Opening Gambit.
My other incomplete series includes my most recent release. Blood of the Raven builds off my first book Princes of Air, and is a sequel series of two books of Celtic mythology inspired romantasy. Raven’s Fall came out in February, and Raven’s Flight is currently in edits with the publisher.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
My latest book was Raven’s Fall, which I mentioned above, and which follows Lorcan, the son of the Raven King who was featured in my first book, Princes of Air. The only problem with Lorcan being the son and heir to the Raven King is that his older cousin was heir first and isn’t letting go of his position without a fight! Lorcan finds himself kidnapped and sold as a gladiator in Rome.
My next book will probably be The Sea Prince, which is book one of a series that doesn’t have a name yet. It’s a sort of gaslight fantasy Master and Commander. I’m hoping to have this one out sometime this summer. (I say probably because there are other irons in the fire at my publisher, and I’m not sure if they’ll beat me to the publishing punch!)
What are you working on now?
Right now, I’m working on The Coral Throne, which is follows The Sea Prince. I’m also working on Tales from the Arena: King of Swords, which is book four of Tales from the Arena.
I have Tales from the Arena: Dead Man’s Hand (book three of Tales from the Arena) with an editor now, and I’ll be revising that to submit once I get it back.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
I’ve given this advice to a lot of aspiring writers. They need to understand that as a new writer, their writing is going to suck, and that they are not alone. We ALL sucked when we were new writers, and the only way to not suck is to keep going. Keep writing. Keep reading. Keep learning. Eventually, you learn enough and read enough and write enough that you get good at it. Jake the Dog said it best: Sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something.
Don’t be afraid to suck at something.
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?
I have all the socials, so the easiest way to corral them is with a linktree. You can find my website, my sales sites, my newsletter, and all my various social media links here.
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
THE BUTCHER OF THE FOREST, by Premee Mohamed. This short novel has the shape and atmosphere of a dark fairy tale. It takes place in a secondary world, in a country oppressed by a ruthless, capriciously cruel foreign conqueror known as the Tyrant. Veris Thorn’s small village lies adjacent to an enchanted forest all the locals know mustn’t be entered, ruled by old gods and dark fae. Many years ago, Veris trespassed in the forbidden wood to rescue a child captured by its nonhuman inhabitants, as children are so often lured or kidnapped by fairies in folklore. Nobody else in living memory has ventured into the forest and returned. At the end of the book we learn the truth of her finding, but not quite saving, of the lost child. The story begins, however, with Veris snatched from her home by soldiers of the Tyrant, not even allowed time to change from her nightclothes and robe. She learns the reason only when she’s presented to the warlord. His two small children have disappeared into the forest, and he expects her to recover them within an absurdly brief time. The only reward for accomplishing the mission before the deadline will be not having her family slaughtered and her village burned. Somewhat to her surprise, he clearly cares for his children. When she eventually catches up with them, she discovers they don’t view him as a cruel oppressor but as the father who teaches them the principles of rulership. She reluctantly forces herself to acknowledge that the Tyrant’s son and daughter can’t be blamed for his crimes. During the ordeal of bringing them safely out of the enchanted wood, she even comes to like them a bit, especially the girl. Like an archetypal fairy-tale protagonist, Veris gets aid from talking animals, possesses some modest magic of her own, and engages in contests of wit with tricky and sometimes malicious faerie beings. After finding the children, she faces the still more daunting challenge of keeping them alive and out of the supernatural creatures’ clutches until they reach the border between the magical realm and the fields we know (to borrow a term from Lord Dunsany). The numinous milieu offers both dangers and temptations. One price of her victory is a grievous wound. A believably flawed but appealingly strong character, Veris wins through a suspenseful series of perilous encounters to an ambiguous but satisfying conclusion.
HUNGERSTONE, by Kat Dunn. A re-imagining of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla,” set, like the original, in the second half of the nineteenth century, but in England instead of central Europe. Dunn’s protagonist, rather than a young girl like Le Fanu’s, is a married, upper-class woman in 1888. The love between Lenore and her husband, Henry, a prosperous, rigidly proper, social-climbing industrial magnate, has long since cooled. Her “failure” to conceive a child has contributed to their quiet estrangement. Propriety must be outwardly observed, though, and Lenore prides herself on her competence in running their household and providing hospitality to Henry’s associates. When they leave the city for a stay at a huge, rundown country mansion he has just bought, she has to pull the place into shape quickly enough to be presentable for a hunting party he plans. There the real story begins like its classic prototype: A mysterious young woman in allegedly delicate health is foisted upon the household. Like Le Fanu’s Laura, Lenore finds Carmilla simultaneously alluring and alarming. The name of the estate, Hungerstone, foreshadows the entire novel’s thematic focus on hunger in all its forms, physical, emotional, and metaphorical. It’s sometimes harrowing to read Lenore’s first-person narrative of her struggle, torn between the duty she has always embraced and her yearning for freedom and self-expression. Carmilla embodies the latter, of course, goading Lenore to take daring risks, while the financial and social trap of marriage to Henry closes progressively tighter around her. Where can she turn for help when a Victorian husband can have his wife committed as insane at will, and no male doctor is likely to listen to the truth as she sees it? “My appetite is vast,” she admits to herself late in the book, “and I am in agony knowing myself to be unsatisfied.” A shocking event ultimately liberates her, taking advantage of conventional society’s unquestioning image of what a proper wife must be, to go with Carmilla and become her true self. The word “vampire” never appears as far as I recall, and we don’t learn exactly what kind of vampire Carmille is, except that a psychic, energy-draining component seems to be involved. An afterword by the author discusses the historical background of the industrial revolution in the Sheffield setting.
AMERICAN GHOUL, by Michelle McGill-Vargas. A very different vampire novel about an ambiguous bond between two women. Shortly after the Civil War, former slave Lavinia meets Simone, who feeds on her without killing her, creating a bond. The term “ghoul,” by the way, refers to a living person bonded to one of the undead, not the vampire herself. On the plus side, Lavinia now heals fast. As a serious disadvantage, being separated by more than a certain distance from Simone causes intolerable pain. Tough-minded Lavinia is more annoyed than frightened by finding herself in this predicament. Having never even heard of vampires before, she has to learn the nature of her new companion/mistress with no background knowledge to draw upon. Moreover, Simone herself knows almost nothing about her kind, having been turned against her will and abandoned with no explanation. Lavinia tells her story in first person to the constable who guards her while she’s in jail for allegedly murdering Simone. Lavinia tries to hammer into his head the points that (1) technically, Simone was already dead, and (2) she may still be undead. In either case, Lavinia didn’t kill her. As she gradually persuades the constable that she might be truthful instead of a lunatic or liar, she obsesses over her fear of a lynch mob and tenuous hope that Simone might come to her rescue. The jail interludes are narrated in present tense and the flashbacks (the greater portion of the text) in past. Tension between Lavinia and the jailer builds, enhancing the suspense of the present-time plot thread. During Lavinia’s adjustment to her role as caretaker, servant, and sort of babysitter to an impulsive vampire, an odd semi-friendship grows between them. Knowing she can’t leave her mistress, Lavinia puts up with finding prey for the vampire, disposing of bodies, hiding out in uncomfortable situations, and coping with Simone’s suspicion and jealousy of any human connections Lavinia tries to form. I felt she too quickly developed a callous attitude toward choosing people for Simone to “eat,” showing scant evidence of guilt. On the other hand, Lavinia does try to pick potential victims who “deserve” their fate and rationalizes her complicity on the grounds that Simone would do much worse if left to herself. Eventually Lavinia attains a position where she isn’t tied to the vampire constantly and can enjoy a limited degree of normal human interaction. We know from her plight as an accused murderess, of course, that no such precarious happiness can last for long. Her deepening relationship with a man she could actually fall in love with is complicated by a clash with a family of fanatical vampire-hunters. Lavinia displays a ruthlessly clear-eyed view of race relations in post-Civil-War America, cleverly maneuvers within the limitations of her social status, and reflects on the meaning of freedom. The transformations she undergoes over the course of her life as she narrates it culminate in an ending I didn’t expect.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “Bunny Hunt”:
Melanie realized she’d fallen asleep only when she jerked awake to the faint sound of bells. Glancing at the clock on her nightstand, she found she’d slept no more than half an hour. No, she wasn’t hearing bells. A silvery voice called to her. *Wake up.*
“What?” She flipped the sheet aside and sat up. “Who’s there?” She whispered, not wanting to disturb Jason.
*Help me.*
One look at her husband confirmed he was still asleep, if the rhythm of his breathing hadn’t already made that fact clear.
*Come to me. I need your help.*
Jason didn’t stir, so that must not be an audible voice speaking to her. It’s talking inside my head.
Her legs wobbled when she stood up. Her head seemed to float, as if from one glass of champagne too many. Who is this? And why me?
*You helped me earlier. I need your aid again. Please hurry.*
Again Melanie glanced at Jason in the dim light of the bedside digital clock. Still asleep. He inhaled and exhaled in faintly whistling snores. I guess I’m dreaming. Pretty interesting dream so far. Might as well go with the flow.
She pulled off her nightgown and fumbled into underwear, jeans, and T-shirt in the near-dark. As she was slipping on her sneakers, the voice said, *Wear the amulet.*
The what? Oh, the voice must mean her grandmother’s necklace. She put it on.
Just as she stepped into the hall, it occurred to her that she might need her professional kit. Unsure where that impulse came from, she decided it was simply dream logic, which she should obey. She tiptoed back into the bedroom, picked up the zippered gym bag that held her supplies, and sneaked out again.
Downstairs, she exited the house through the kitchen door, since the voice in her head seemed to be coming from that direction. She carefully left the door unlocked, not wanting to get stuck outside even in a dream.
Their yard backed up to the wooded area whose other end bordered the playground where the children had searched for eggs that morning. She started toward the trees, listening hard, hunting for the source of the call. When the plea for help echoed in her mind yet again, she realized there was no question of its origin. The voice definitely came from the woods, and there was only one way in from here.
As soon as the damp grass touched her ankles, she realized she should have put on thicker socks. Also, the April night breeze chilled her bare arms. When she considered going inside for a sweater, though, the disembodied voice chimed, *Please hurry. Still feeling pleasantly drifty, Melanie shrugged off the chill and quickened her pace.*
On the trail that led into the woods, trees cut off most of the light from houses and street lamps. Even with a full moon, she could barely see her way, but fortunately she’d strolled this path many times before. The second time she stumbled on a root, though, she yielded to common sense and dug the emergency flashlight out of her bag. Wouldn’t you think I’d be able to see fine and walk safely by moonlight in a dream?
Every few yards, the voice renewed its appeal for her to hurry. Where was it coming from? How long had she been walking, anyway? Surely not much more than ten minutes. Shouldn’t she have reached the border of the woods by now? The walk from one end to the other took no more than fifteen minutes at a leisurely stroll, and by road the long way around only about five minutes.
Of course, that was in daylight. Maybe she’d unconsciously slowed down to avoid a fall, despite trying to obey the urgent appeal of the voice. On the other hand, she didn’t recall the trail having this many curves. Could she have accidentally stepped off the main track onto a side path?
Around the next bend, what she ran into convinced her she was definitely not on the right path anymore.
Overhanging the trail, a tangle of tree limbs entwined with thorny vines formed an arch. This shouldn’t be here. This dream is getting wilder by the minute. Am I supposed to go through that?
-end of excerpt-
*****
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, visit the Dropbox page below. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
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All Vampire’s Crypt Issues on Dropbox
A complete list of my available works, arranged roughly by genre, with purchase links:
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Carter Kindle Books
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My Publishers:
Writers Exchange E-Publishing: Writers Exchange
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You can contact me at: MLCVamp@aol.com
“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the April 2025 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.”
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
To subscribe to this monthly newsletter, please e-mail me at MLCVamp@aol.com, and I will add you to the list.
For other web links of possible interest, please scroll to the end.
My light paranormal novella “Summertide Echoes” has an official release date: July 7 of this year. The cover blurb:
Joyce Walton wants to sell the vacation cabin she and her childhood best friend, Mark Girard, inherited together. The money will make her long-cherished business plan come true. To her shock, he’s determined to hang onto the place. Although they’ve drifted apart in recent years, she still cares for him. She’s always counted on his support, so why can’t he understand the urgency of her need? Mark believes his younger sister, who died in her teens, lingers on the property, visiting him in dreams at the cabin but nowhere else. He struggles with severing this last remaining tie. Yet he doesn’t want to hurt Joyce, especially when his old feelings for her reawaken. After encountering the ghost of their long-dead Saint Bernard and dreaming of Mark’s sister, Joyce accepts the reality of the supernatural manifestations. Why are the two spirits haunting the cabin? On top of that, she’s falling in love with Mark. How can they settle the clash over their shared property without ruining any hope of a shared life?
There’s an excerpt below.
This month I’m interviewing Kimberly Baer, a Wild Rose Press author who writes mostly paranormal YA fiction.
*****
Interview with Kimberly Baer:
What inspired you to become a writer?
My mother read stories to me when I was very young, and that early exposure ignited my love of fiction. At one point, I was so taken with a particular book that I painstakingly copied some of its text onto paper and told my mom I’d written a really good story. She explained that I shouldn’t steal somebody else’s story but, rather, should write my own. So I did. My first “book,” written at age six, was about a baby chick that hatched out of a little girl’s Easter egg after somehow surviving the hard-boiling process. My mom typed it up and placed it in a binder, and she even put my name and the title (“The Wonderful Easter Egg”) on the cover. I was so proud of my “published book”!
What genres do you work in?
Mostly paranormal young adult, though I’ve also written several middle-grade novels and one adult romantic suspense novella.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
Something in between. I never create a formal outline, but I do like to have a firm idea of the story arc before I start to write. At the beginning of each chapter, I type a bulleted list of plot developments, contextual details, and other elements that I want to include in the chapter. Of course, sometimes the characters seize control and take the story in a whole different direction—but that’s usually a good thing! It’s their story, and I trust them to know what they’re doing.
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
When my kids were in school, they brought home a lot of middle-grade and young adult novels, which I would promptly whisk away to my favorite reading chair. That’s how I became interested in the MG/YA genres. As both a reader and a writer, I love robust, offbeat plots, so I was particularly captivated by works such as Louis Sachar’s HOLES, the HARRY POTTER series, the HUNGER GAMES trilogy, and various Neal Shusterman novels. In addition, I always strive to deliver my best writing, and I find inspiration for that in novels such as Janet Fitch’s WHITE OLEANDER. Her writing blows me away every time I read that book.
What is it like to write in a shared-world series? What’s the procedure, and how is consistency of the setting maintained from book to book? How does participating in it differ from writing in your own fictional world?
For me, writing in a shared-world series (THE HAUNTING OF PINEDALE HIGH) was slightly more challenging than dreaming up my own fictional world, because I was constrained by certain “rules.” But all in all, it went well. The publisher provided a list of guidelines and set up a Facebook page for the authors’ use in posing questions and sharing details from our individual stories. When I was writing my book, I communicated directly with a few of the other authors to ensure consistency in the layout of the town, the names of local establishments, character descriptions, and other details that aren’t addressed in the guidelines.
What main differences have you found between writing YA fiction and adult fiction?
YA fiction often includes a coming-of-age component that isn’t present in adult fiction, as well as an emphasis on the insecurities and angst common to that age group. But generally, there’s a fine line between YA (specifically, upper YA) and adult fiction. A lot of today’s YA contains mature themes, including sex, violence, drug abuse, suicide, and more. I try to avoid the really dark themes in my own books, though.
What will readers find on your blog?
My blog consists primarily of interviews with other authors, though it’s been a while since I’ve interviewed anyone. I’ve also written a few general blogs; for instance, there’s one about the calendar that foretold my husband’s death and another about the true event that inspired my paranormal YA novel THE HAUNTED PURSE.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
My latest release, WOULD YOU RATHER…, is part of the HAUNTING OF PINEDALE HIGH series I mentioned earlier. It’s a standalone novel about a classroom game of “Would You Rather” that takes an ominous turn when the students’ choices start coming true. Some of the kids get good fates, others get bad fates, and a few get REALLY bad fates that will result in death if they come true. A small group of friends try to track down the mysterious substitute teacher who hosted the game in the hopes of persuading him to end the curse. The story is presented from multiple perspectives to show how individual characters are affected by the curse.
What are you working on now?
I’m still doing a lot of promotional work for WOULD YOU RATHER…, and I’m polishing a middle-grade novel about a boy with a unique superpower. In addition, I’m thinking about taking back the rights to my paranormal YA novel THE HAUNTED PURSE when they expire later this year. I might reissue it as a self-published book. So I’m reading through it again and making some minor edits.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
(1) Read well-written books in your genre. Not only will you become familiar with what readers expect from the genre, but you will also absorb good writing techniques through a kind of literary osmosis. (2) Don’t let rejections from agents or publishers discourage you. If your dream is to be a published author, you absolutely can make that happen. Learn the ins and outs of book marketing, and then self-publish your books. These days, many self-published authors are selling a decent number of books, and a few are doing extremely well. Not gonna lie: it’s a lot like playing the lottery. But who knows? You could be the next sensation—and you won’t have to share your profits with a publisher!
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?
Author Website
Instagram
Bluesky
Amazon
Goodreads
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
CONCLAVE, by Robert Harris. After watching this Oscar-nominated, near-future movie about the election of a Pope, I immediately ordered the novel. To my delight, the movie follows it very closely, so I didn’t suffer any disappointments in either direction. The most prominent difference is a change of name and nationality for the protagonist, the Dean of the College of Cardinals. In another noticeable alteration, the Archbishop of Baghdad in the book becomes the Archbishop of Kabul in the film. Although I have no idea of the purpose for either of these changes, they have no material effect on the plot. CONCLAVE is a difficult book to review effectively, because to reveal the mind-blowing double twist at the end would constitute an unpardonable spoiler. In the first scene, the previous Pope—who the author declares is not meant to represent the current real-life Holy Father, although clear similarities exist—has just died. The Dean, Cardinal Lomeli, bears the responsibility of presiding over the Conclave to elect a new Pope. He agrees with a close friend in the “liberal” wing of the Church that Cardinal Tedesco, a rigid traditionalist with reactionary views (not only does he want the Church to revert to the doctrines and practices of over fifty years ago, near the end of the book he openly calls for a holy war against Islam), must not become Pope and wipe out all the progress made under his predecessor. Although the Cardinals aren’t supposed to lobby for themselves or anybody else but instead remain open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it quickly becomes clear that the system doesn’t transcend politics, behind-the-scenes intrigue, and all the other failings of human power structures. The major players have no compunctions, it seems, about nudging the Holy Spirit in the right direction. Two other men stand out as viable alternatives to Tedesco. Meanwhile, Lomeli reacts to any hint that he might be a candidate with horrified rejection. He had tried to resign his position as Dean to join a monastic order, but the Pope had turned down his resignation. The first shock to the characters and the reader comes when a previously unknown Cardinal, spiritual leader of a dangerous, war-torn region and renowned for his radical work on behalf of the oppressed, appears out of nowhere. Shortly before the late Pope’s death, he made the Archbishop of Baghdad a Cardinal secretly in an irregular but legal procedure. Not surprisingly, this is a heavily male-dominated story, aside from the nuns who cook, serve meals, and otherwise perform necessary housekeeping duties for the sequestered Cardinals. The Sister in charge, however, a strong character capable of intimidating even men in positions of ecclesiastical power, plays a critical role in Lomeli’s eventual discovery of revelations that turn the tide of the electoral process. Although the participants are supposed to be strictly shielded from contact with and information from the outside world, Lomeli bends the rules. When he uncovers scandals that eliminate two major candidates, who’s left to block the ascendancy of Tedesco? Lomeli reluctantly considers the possibility that he might get stuck with the papacy. As mentioned above, I can’t say anything further without disclosing a major crisis and its astonishing outcome. Other than those elements, I found the most memorable scene to be Lomeli’s introductory speech to the Conclave, in which he deplores certainty and prays for a Pope who can embrace doubt. Also, the intricate details of how a Pope’s death is handled and a papal election is held are fascinatingly portrayed.
WOOING THE WITCH QUEEN, by Stephanie Burgis. This secret-identity, enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance is the first book in a series called “Queens of Villainy.” The heroine, Queen Saskia, isn’t actually a villain at heart. She assumes the “wicked sorceress” persona to protect herself and her realm from her truly villainous uncle, whom she overthrew to claim her rightful throne. Other than the safety of her subjects, all she wants is to get the neglected castle library straightened out and find her mother’s research notebooks scattered amid the chaos. Saskia greatly prefers working in her laboratory over routine royal duties or, worse, hosting the diplomatic social events needed to offset her image as a “monster”—an image she reinforces with a crown of bones and an appropriately grim-looking castle. Meanwhile, Felix, the young archduke of a neighboring country allied with her uncle in support of his campaign to retake Saskia’s kingdom, has fled into exile. His late wife’s father, Felix’s former regent and now Chief Minister, would gladly see him dead. Given the enmity between the Chief Minister’s regime and Saskia, Felix grasps at the chance of appealing to her for protection. When he appears at her castle gate, however, she mistakes him for the dark wizard she’s awaiting to organize her library. Before he can correct this misconception, he overhears a conversation among Saskia and her allies, the other two Queens of Villainy. They believe him responsible for his cruel father-in-law’s ruthless tyranny and thirst for conquest. Moreover, potentially rich rewards await whoever kills or captures the missing archduke. Felix doesn’t dare reveal his true identity. To make matters worse, he has no magical ability or knowledge at all. Organizing books, though, he does very well. In the process, he tries to teach himself enough magic to fake the role of a dark wizard. Saskia is pleased with his progress as temporary librarian. After a rocky start, he begins to feel at home in her unusual household, which includes a troll, an ogre, and a flock of intelligent crows. Naturally, he and Saskia soon develop a mutual attraction. But what will happen when she inevitably discovers who he really is? If she realizes he has betrayed her trust, how can he regain it? And what about their respective evil relatives? Quirky characters, moments of humor, a delightful dark-fairy-tale setting, life-threatening suspense, emotional upheavals, and sensuous sexual tension interweave to create a story sure to appeal to readers of secondary-world fantasy romance.
WOULD YOU RATHER. . . by Kimberly Baer. This novel reminds me of a YA horror story by Vivian Vande Velde, not in any specific element of content, aside from the focus on a group of teenagers, but in the foreboding paranormal tone. It also has something of a “Monkey’s Paw” vibe of “be careful what you wish for.” This installment of “The Haunting of Pinedale High” is told from multiple viewpoints of students caught up in the inexplicable events. No need to summarize the plot any further, since the author provides a lucid synopsis in the interview above. The mysterious substitute teacher won’t allow anyone to skip the choice between two offered alternatives, even the direst such as two terrible deaths. The experiment begins almost lightheartedly but quickly grows darker. “Would you rather be an amazing artist or a brilliant mathematician?” and “Would you rather get the romantic partner of your dreams or land the perfect job?” sound fun to speculate about. But there’s no good answer to “Would you rather go missing forever or have the person you love most go missing forever?’ The students, naturally, think it’s only a twisted game and try to put it out of their minds—until the choices start coming true. Some of the “bad” choices turn out worse than they sound, and even the paired “good” alternatives don’t necessarily unfold as expected. Tracking down the substitute proves to be a problem, since nobody on the staff seems to have heard of him. Juggling an ensemble cast of characters and multiple viewpoints while making each person vividly individualized and sympathetic is a difficult task that the author expertly pulls off. Body horror, life-threatening events, and mounting suspense keep the reader’s attention riveted from start to finish. The satisfying resolution to the supernatural mystery realistically leaves no one completely unchanged. I especially like the denouement “spreadsheet” chapter that lists each of the affected characters with the nature of their curse and how it turned out.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from “Summertide Echoes”:
Joyce poured a glass of bottled iced tea and settled in a lawn chair on the front porch with the paperback mystery she was currently reading.
Her attention wandered from the page only when fading daylight made it hard to focus. As she glanced up to rest her eyes, she caught sight of movement among the trees. An animal? A doe strolled into view, picking her way around the edge of the clearing, with occasional pauses to nibble leaves on low-hanging branches. Joyce held still to avoid scaring her, although this close to the national park most deer didn’t tend to be wary of humans. Seconds later, though, the doe’s head shot up, and she dashed into the woods.
Joyce caught her breath in surprise when the Saint Bernard she’d seen twice before emerged from the undergrowth, chasing after the deer. He disappeared under the trees but reappeared in less than a minute, apparently giving up the pursuit. He ambled up the path toward the cabin.
She moved cautiously from the chair to the top step, stretching a hand toward the dog. “Hi, there. Nice of you to visit. I wonder where you live.”
Instead of veering away this time, he walked straight to her, tail wagging and tongue hanging out. Strangely, she didn’t hear panting. Nor did she feel warm breath on her skin as she reached for his collar to check the tag.
Her hand passed through him as if he were a hologram. Or a hallucination.
He couldn’t be. Ms. Ortega and Mark had seen him, too. She snatched her hand back. “Bruno?” Hesitantly Joyce fumbled for the collar again. Again she touched nothing. The dog licked her, but she didn’t feel a wet tongue. Instead, a dry chill enveloped her fingers.
This can’t be happening. She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, he was still there. A second later, though, he vanished. He didn’t run into the woods and fade out of sight among the trees but blinked out of existence like a popped bubble.
Her legs wobbled, and she folded into a heap on the porch steps. Did I dream that?
She didn’t bother with the pinch test. She smelled the mountain laurel blossoms. A breeze rustled the trees and cooled her skin. The boards of the wooden steps felt rough against her thighs. “Bruno? If you’re really here, come back.”
No response, of course. After steadying herself with long, shuddering breaths, she returned to the chair and picked up her abandoned glass of tea. When she gulped a swallow of it, the tinkle of ice and the chill of the liquid flowing down her throat confirmed she was awake.
-end of excerpt-
*****
The long-time distributor of THE VAMPIRE’S CRYPT has closed its website. If you would like to read any issue of this fanzine, which contains fiction, interviews, and a detailed book review column, visit the Dropbox page below. Find information about the contents of each issue on this page of my website:
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“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter
Welcome to the March 2025 issue of my newsletter, “News from the Crypt,” and please visit Carter’s Crypt, devoted to my horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance work, especially focusing on vampires and shapeshifting beasties. If you have a particular fondness for vampires, check out the chronology of my series in the link labeled “Vanishing Breed Vampire Universe.”
Also, check out the multi-author Alien Romances Blog
To subscribe to this monthly newsletter, please e-mail me at MLCVamp@aol.com, and I will add you to the list.
For other web links of possible interest, please scroll to the end.
On February 24, N. N. Light’s Book Heaven featured my vampire romance SEALED IN BLOOD:
The excerpt below from SEALED IN BLOOD features the vampire hero’s sister, whom the hero and heroine are trying to find and rescue from a con artist cult leader who mistakenly believes she can convert him into a vampire.
This month I’m interviewing mystery and thriller author Arthur Coburn.
*****
Interview with Arthur Coburn:
What inspired you to become a writer?
My mother regaling me with tales of her life as a girl in the early 1900s.
The dramatic school assemblies I used to run.
The junior year school play in which I played the lead.
Listing to 40s radio dramas like The Great Gildersleeve, Allen’s Ally, The Fat Man, The Green Hornet, Amos ‘n’ Andy, The Falcon, The Whistler, The Lone Ranger and Sky King
As a young boy I created dramas in our living room – turning a card table on end, painting and putting up background scenery, writing lines, suspending my teddy bears on strings and reciting their lines. For 2 cents a head tickets to neighborhood kids and parents.
Being read to my mother and father.
Seeing my father perform plays in the local drama club.
I was an only child and I made up companions to have adventures with – Tagly and the little guys.
I was president to my junior class and put on comedy acts with my friend, Jack.
Putting on magic shows.
Going to the circus when it came to town
What genres do you work in?
I write mystery/thrillers.
Though I wrote a couple of short stories for Sisters in Crime that were more general – one about a house in Venice, CA on the canals; and one about a woman who remembers being abused by her uncle while he was teaching her to play golf.
I wrote an international novel about a film editor in Poland who gets involved with gypsies, Nazis and film crew people
I’m currently writing a sequel to my published novel Murder in Concrete that involves U.S. history: the amazing women pilots in WII – the WASP; the story includes threads of Nazi plots in the US in the 1930s and 1940s; and a small section about a death camp in Poland and the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial located in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.
Do you outline, “wing it,” or something in between?
I’m basically a Pantser, though I sometimes have notions of segments or elements I want to flesh out – or pursue – I may have an idea of how I plan to end the story – though sometimes the ending changes as I revise the manuscript. Years ago, I took a course from a smart Princeton grad, named John Truby, who had developed a comprehensive outline of the steps of a novel. It made total sense but I found when I wrote to the outline my story was mechanical; I was doing it by the numbers. Only by letting my unconscious tell me what to write next, do I create organic moments and stories.
I write fiction the way learn a to speak language (the way I’ve worked on French and Italian). I plunge ahead, not worrying about mistakes, knowing that I’ll improve and correct my dialogue skills as I practice.
I play the piano the same way – my sight reading ability is negligible. I just sit down and let my fingers find melodies and chords – either jazz style or classical. I do make mistakes, but I like discovering melodies and rhythms and chords in an ad hoc way.
What have been the major influences on your work (favorite authors or whatever)?
I’ve been influenced by working and living in foreign countries. I studied Italian, and I’ve worked on films in Italy and lived there for month. I lived and worked in Poland, where we filmed in Auschwitz Birkenau. I studied Polish for the trip. Also lived and worked in Halifax, and also in Morocco where I marveled at culture and Arabic/French language.
I’ve also done film editing in Arizona, in Los Angeles, and Skagit County in Washington. I’ve done biking trips in both Normandie and Provence. Other cultures and attitudes influenced how I think about the world.
I’ve been influenced by teachers – took a course from Tod Goldberg at UCLA – by Lynn Neri, and several courses by John Truby. I took a week-long course from Damon Suede – still have his notes.
Years ago, I read all the Agatha Christie Novels. I’ve read lots of Daniel Woodrell: Here are a couple of passages of his I love: (if I could write like this I’d quit and just savor my own prose)
REE DOLLY stood at break of day on her cold front steps and smelled coming flurries and saw meat. Meat hung from trees across the creek. The carcasses hung pale of flesh with a fatty gleam from low limbs of saplings in the side yards. Snow clouds had replaced the horizon, capped the valley darkly, and chafing wind blew so the hung meat twirled from jigging branches. Ree, brunette and sixteen, with milk skin and abrupt green eyes, stood bare-armed in a fluttering yellowed dress, face to the wind, her cheeks reddening as if smacked and smacked again. She stood tall in combat boots, scarce at the waist but plenty through the arms and shoulders, a body made for loping after needs. She smelled the frosty wet in the looming clouds, thought of her shadowed kitchen and lean cupboard, looked to the scant woodpile, shuddered.
I also love Bob Dugoni’s spare and to-the-point prose. And Donna Tart’s long novels. I’m in the process of reading and enjoying the grace of Alcott’s dialogue in Little Women, the complex emotions in Jane Austen’s novels; and the powerful scenes of Martin Cruz Smith’s The Siberian Dilemma.
Films have influenced my writing, too. I am a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, through which I get to watch dozens of foreign movies (from France, Norway, Palestine, Germany, Italy, Thailand and a score of other countries). Plus, regular US films. British crime series shows also influence me, including Vera, and Inspector Linley.
In the non-fiction realm, I loved a biography called Tomboy Bride: A Woman’s Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West. I love Robert Frost’s Haiku-like poetry.
How has your career in the film industry influenced your work as a novelist? Did you find the transition between the two fields difficult?
Working with images in film conditioned me to “see” places and people. I’m pleased with my ability to do that. I also learned about pacing from film editing. Learned I need to alternate fast and slow written scenes with quick and slow sentences, plus single words.
I got the chance to write a couple of scenes for Triumph of the Spirit, directed by Robert M. Young. And I suggested a couple of script ideas for Sam Rami when I was editing and he was directing Spiderman
From my work as a film editor, I learned you have to go over and over and over your material to make it as good as it can be.
One of my final stages of writing is to play my writing back to me from Word; that helps me to hear mistakes and also to see how the flow and pacing works.
I found the transition between film and novel writing a pleasant one – novel writing is different because you are creating rather than manipulating stories. I like being able to make up things and not always finding myself working with someone else’s material.
What would you say are the principal differences between writing screenplays and writing prose fiction?
I haven’t written a screenplay in ages, but I recall you need to fill in lots more material in a novel. Screen plays are a kind of shorthand way of writing.
What is your latest or next-forthcoming book?
My novel in progress, currently out for feedback, is a follow-up to Murder in Concrete. It has the same protagonist, Charlie, a nineteen-year-old girl, still living with her old PTSD issues, including suspicions. She sometimes imagines things that are not there.
She is pulled into a mystery about what happened to her now deceased Grandma Lottie’s best friend, from a letter written forty-plus years earlier than the 1987 time of the novel.
There are two time threads: one starting in 1936, and one in 1987. The threads intersect and interact partway through the novel. There are lots of planes and Nazis and bits of history.
I’m toying with possible titles, including “Hot Planes and Valiant Women.”
What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
READ….WRITE… LET YOUR INNER WISDOM TAKE CHARGE… REWRITE…PLAY YOUR MATERIAL BACK SO YOU CAN HEAR HOW IT SOUNDS
What is the URL of your website? What about other internet presence?
Arthur Coburn Website
Instagram: @arthurcoburnauthor
Facebook: Facebook
*****
Some Books I’ve Read Lately:
SHE WALKS THESE HILLS, by Sharyn McCrumb. I’ve read this 1994 book, one of my favorites of McCrumb’s Appalachian “Ballad” novels, multiple times. I bought this trade paperback edition to get the auxiliary material collected in it. McCrumb’s new introduction delves into the inspiration, sources, and themes of the novel. The major and most prominent theme is “journeys.” The other, less obvious, is “diminishing” (e.g., the fading of traditional mountain culture). The story weaves together several plotlines: In the colonial era, when Tennessee was still the frontier, a young woman was kidnapped by Shawnees who had massacred most of her family. Months later, she escaped and trekked home for hundreds of miles through the wilderness, only to meet a tragic end upon her return. In the present, a history professor obsessed with her story decides to retrace the final part of her route, even though he has never camped or hiked before in his life. Meanwhile, an old farmer named Harm Sorley, sentenced to life for murder over thirty years earlier, escapes from prison. Suffering from brain damage that makes him unable to form or retain new memories, he doesn’t even remember his crime, thinks he’s still a young man, and sets out through the woods to find his way home, where he expects his wife and little daughter to be waiting. His wife, who divorced him long ago, married a pompous, uptight man who assumes she and her daughter (now a budding geologist) should be grateful for the secure suburban life he has bestowed on them. Another storyline involves a discontented young “hillbilly” mother living in poverty among the relatives of her neglectful, sometimes abusive husband. When her baby disappears, she claims the escaped convict must have snatched him. Continuing characters Sheriff Arrowood, Deputy LeDonne, and Martha, the dispatcher, investigate the crimes. Martha persuades the Sheriff to give her a chance at becoming a deputy, a change that stresses her romantic relationship with LeDonne. Yet another important character, a late-night radio host known as “Hank the Yank,” becomes curious about Harm’s long-ago murder case and digs into it on his own, convinced there’s more to the killing than official records reveal. The ill-prepared history professor, naturally, gets hopelessly lost in the forest, where he runs into Harm, the mother of the allegedly kidnapped baby, and eventually the ghost of the eighteenth-century woman whose journey he’s trying to replicate. At the climax, McCrumb brilliantly weaves all these threads together. Nora Bonesteel, an elderly woman with the “Sight” – a keeper of local history and lore who appears in most of the books — plays a vital role at that point. The Acknowledgments section includes a brief bibliography of historical sources. In addition, a collection of essays by McCrumb follows the text of the novel. She discusses the geography of the Appalachian mountain range, the “Serpentine Chain” that connects them to the mountains of the British Isles along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge; the transmission of folk music, customs, and tales from the Old World to the New; the functions of storytelling (define a people, describe a place, record history, transmit cultural values, entertain); magic in nature, including beliefs in fairy folk and other supernatural beings; the tradition of quilting; the Sight, as in premonitions and extrasensory perception; the “Other World” of faerie; and “Once Upon a Time, It Was Now,” about the past and present of the region and how Appalachia is perceived by outsiders. This edition of SHE WALKS THESE HILLS, signed by the author, can be purchased only on her website, http://www.sharynmccrumb.com. If you haven’t read the book before, consider springing for this trade paperback to get the fascinating bonus material.
WITCHCRAFT FOR WAYWARD GIRLS, by Grady Hendrix. The mundane content of this novel, set in 1970 (aside from the epilogue), struck me as more harrowing than the supernatural component. It takes place in a home for unwed mothers, where they live in the months before giving birth, almost always surrendering their babies for adoption. Hundreds of those institutions existed in the United States between World War II and the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. As a teenager in the 1960s, I was vaguely aware of them. Until reading Hendrix’s novel, I had no idea they’d survived into the early 1970s. The protagonist arrives at the Wellwood House, many miles from home, with little idea of what to expect. Her father, who drops her off and slips away without saying goodbye, treats her coldly, his only positive statements consisting of the assurance that she’ll be able to have the baby and return to her normal life, forgetting about the entire episode. Only that way can she erase the shame she has inflicted on her family. As was usually the case with such girls, everybody except close family has been told she’s spending the time in a distant city for some non-pregnancy-related purpose. Although the staff members at Wellwood House, including the head (Miss Wellwood) and the institution’s doctor, treat the girls brusquely and often contemptuously, the place isn’t portrayed as a hellhole like a Dickensian workhouse. Nevertheless, the treatment of the inmates is chillingly dehumanizing. Any questioning of rules or even requests for information are quashed as “disrespect.” They’re assigned pseudonyms, forbidden to use their real names or discuss their backgrounds with each other. The protagonist is renamed Fern. The girls are lied to, told they won’t feel anything during labor because they’ll be unconscious throughout. They receive no preparation for childbirth, no explanation of the procedures involved. The staff claims, probably sincerely from their viewpoint, to be doing what’s best for the inmates and the babies. It soon becomes clear, though, that the pregnant girls are treated as breeders of infants for “deserving” couples who – unlike the birth mothers – have the capacity to become good parents. If a girl insists she wants to keep the baby, she runs into a Catch 22: Asking to rear her own child, despite her age, single status, and lack of resources, proves she’s neurotic and therefore unfit for motherhood. Immediately after delivery, they’re pressured to sign documents they don’t understand and often haven’t been allowed to read. As Fern says decades later, the newborn infants aren’t “surrendered”; they’re taken. The institution’s regimen is strict, sometimes harshly arbitrary. For instance, when one inmate repeatedly violates her salt restriction, the doctor removes salt from the menu altogether. He enforces highly restrictive weight-gain limits – which I recall vividly from my own first two pregnancies, standards now recognized as not only unrealistic but hazardous to health. Yet, ironically from today’s perspective, the girls aren’t forbidden to smoke. In accordance with the tendency of that period to dismiss morning sickness as psychosomatic, he withholds medication for a patient’s debilitating nausea. Everything changes when the bookmobile librarian, Miss Parcae (a name any fan of classical mythology will recognize as ominous), surreptitiously lends Fern a book titled HOW TO BE A GROOVY WITCH. At first Fern and her companions don’t take the guidebook seriously. When they experiment with a spell to inflict their friend’s uncontrollable vomiting on the doctor, though, it succeeds beyond their wildest imaginings. Spontaneous, inexplicable changes happen to the manual, turning its spells stronger and darker. A gruesome body-horror revenge on Miss Wellwood confirms that the magic is both real and dangerous. But can it have any significant impact beyond petty retribution? Can magic change the system confining and oppressing the girls? For instance, is there any way they can save the youngest member of their group and her unborn baby from being handed over to the clergyman who’s been raping her for years? As always, magic has a price. Miss Parcae and her coven have plans for Fern that violate her free will even more than the coercive “surrender” of her child. The sociopolitical background of 1970, the heartrending personal plights of the individual girls, and the mind-blowing magic weave together to create a deeply emotional story. I wouldn’t exactly say this novel has a happy ending; some losses and scars can’t be healed. The promise to unwed mothers of getting on with their lives, as if pregnancy and birth form a minor episode easily relegated to the past, proves to be another lie. Fern’s epilogue set fifty-four years later, though, provides a satisfying resolution with a sense of peace attained at last. An afterword by the author adds historical context along with his personal angle on the issues with which the story grapples. In my opinion, Hendrix’s THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES is one of the best vampire novels in recent years, and this new book is equally gripping and horrifying.
THE GIRLS WHO WENT AWAY, by Ann Fessler. This 2006 nonfiction book was one of Hendrix’s principal sources for WITCHCRAFT FOR WAYWARD GIRLS. Reading Fessler’s meticulously researched work immediately after Hendrix’s novel reveals how much historical reality he drew upon. Each chapter alternates historical and sociological background information by the author with retrospective first-person narratives by women who “went away” to homes for unwed mothers – run by the National Florence Crittenton Mission and the Roman Catholic Church, among other institutions – and surrendered their babies for adoption. In the framing introduction and conclusion, Fessler lends a further personal touch to the topic with her perspective on her own experience as an adoptee from that period. I was surprised to learn that originally most institutions for single, pregnant girls and women focused on giving them resources and skills to rear their children themselves. A radical shift occurred during the 1940s, after which residents of homes for unwed mothers were automatically expected to give up their newborns for adoption. Interestingly, Black families and communities, rather than routinely sending pregnant girls to “homes,” more often provided support to help young mothers keep their infants. In the post-World-War II institutions, as portrayed in Hendrix’s novel, the inmates were shamed, assumed to be neurotic and/or sexually promiscuous. Little or nothing, of course, was said to condemn the boys and men co-responsible for the pregnancies. Some of the young women eventually went on to marry the fathers of their children. Most, at least in Fessler’s sample population, did not. A few, interviewed decades later, reported their stays in the “homes” as positive experiences and were in fact glad to surrender their babies to married couples, who could give children stable families, and move on with their lives. Most, however, did not feel that way. The loss of their babies, often perceived as forced upon them, resulted in lifelong trauma, even if hidden. Often their “shameful” past was concealed from the children they later bore within marriage and even from some of the women’s husbands. Although I grew up in that era, I still found it hard, while reading this book, to wrap my head around the lengths to which families went to conceal their daughters’ “disgrace.” From a contemporary perspective, I can’t help looking back and thinking, “Good grief, why on Earth did they care?” Of course, for an unmarried teenager, dealing with pregnancy and motherhood would have been (as it still is) a terribly difficult plight. But to act as if having it revealed would practically be a fate worse than death? In short, every facet of Hendrix’s story except the supernatural element is based on true history within living memory. Fessler’s book would make fascinating reading for anyone interested in that history from a sociological or personal perspective.
THE SECRET LIFE OF THE UNIVERSE, by astrobiologist Nathalie A. Cabrol. The author, director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute, has worked on multiple unmanned space exploration programs. Reflections on her own experiences in that field enhance her in-depth analysis of the subject. Published in 2023, the book contains information about discoveries nearly as up-to-date as a reader could hope for. After two introductory chapters about Earth and the origins of living organisms here, she lays out the basic conditions for life as we know it — mainly a temperature range where liquid water exists, the presence of certain vital elements, and particular levels of gravity and atmospheric pressure. Ideal geological and meteorological conditions also contribute to the probability that life could develop and survive. Detailed analyses of Venus and Mars explore whether living creatures, if only on the microbial level, could exist there. Other possibilities are some of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moons, since organic molecules and liquid water have been discovered on them. More surprisingly, Cabrol proposes possible environments for organic evolution on dwarf planets and even Mercury and our moon. Later chapters plunge into more speculative discussions of life that might exist on planets of other stars. She delves into the Drake formula (how statistically likely are extrasolar biospheres, intelligence, and civilizations?) and the Fermi Paradox (if other advanced civilizations exist in the universe, where is everybody?). Of course, the problem with determining the likelihood of some of the factors involved is that we have a sample of only one, our own world. There’s a chapter on the active search for life throughout the galaxy, especially the SETI project. The author also considers the broad issues of the definition of life and whether artificial intelligence could qualify. In my opinion, however, the question of “What is life?” would have fit better at the beginning than the end. I also wonder why terrestrial “extremophile” organisms aren’t covered in depth instead of being hardly mentioned. Their evolution and survival in conditions that would kill most creatures would shed further light on environments that might support life on other planets. The endnotes direct the reader to the resources the author drew upon. Her treatment of the various topics is so extensive and deep, however, even sometimes getting rather technical with discussions of organic and inorganic chemistry, that a writer wanting to use this work as background for creating alien lifeforms would hardly need to look elsewhere.
For my recommendations of “must read” classic and modern vampire fiction, explore the Realm of the Vampires:
Realm of the Vampires
*****
Excerpt from SEALED IN BLOOD:
No light seeped through the locked shutters–the sole comfort of Laura’s imprisonment. Nevertheless, she knew when day sank to dusk. When her part of the earth turned away from the sun, her heartbeat and respiration quickened, stirring the sluggish blood in her veins. Her frozen limbs thawed to mere chill, and she awoke.
Woke to stomach-wrenching hunger and burning thirst. She uncurled herself from the sheepskin rug and stumbled to the bathroom. Several times, she refilled and drained the plastic cup. The tepid water soothed her throat momentarily, with no promise of true quenching. She grimaced at her reflection in the mirror. Why hadn’t Don removed that, if he no longer trusted her with glass? And what did he think she could do with broken glass that her own teeth and claws couldn’t manage?
She raked fingers through her tangled red hair. Finding the comb and brush to groom herself seemed like too much trouble in her low-energy condition. Her mouth tasted like a slaughterhouse floor. She’d used up the tube of toothpaste several days ago, and she wouldn’t stoop to ask Don for anything.
Dragging herself back into the bedroom, she huddled on the coffin lid. Her amusement at Don’s bizarre notion of furniture had long since worn out; she thought of the thing as simply a convenient seat.
The idea of rooting in the closet for a book she hadn’t read didn’t inspire her. Hugging her cramp-racked stomach, she felt herself drifting into a half-doze. How could she be drowsy after a full day of sleep? She gave her tousled head an irritable shake. How long had she been locked in here, anyway, with no proper nourishment and no companion besides her jailer? She began counting on her fingers–
The scrape of the key snapped her awake. Damn, she’d fallen asleep again! She sprang to her feet, feeling the hair bristle at the back of her neck.
Don stepped through the door, leveling the revolver at her.
That gun again–as if his fear of her weren’t obvious enough without it. Not only did he stink of fear, it shouted in the way he clutched the silver cross at his throat. She looked forward to disabusing him of that superstition by ripping the thing off his neck–but not as long as he had the .38 pointed at her breast.
“How’d you sleep today, Laura? Enjoying your reducing diet?” His voice quavered with anger as well as fear.
“Must you come bothering me like this every night? If you aren’t going to let me out, just stay away.”
“That’s no way to talk to your host–and I’ve got news you’ll want to hear.”
“I doubt it.” Fixing her eyes on his, she strove to draw him in, seduce him with her gaze.
Well-practiced at this game, he stubbornly stared at her chest instead. “That sneaky little son of a bitch–” He sounded hoarse with the effort of stifling his anger. “The pictures–I was right about them.”
In spite of herself, Laura pricked up her ears at this remark. “Brewster?”
“You got it. I trusted him, the little snake!” Don’s aura smoldered with resentment. Still, to Laura’s disappointment, he didn’t forget to avoid her eyes. “He had one of those miniature cameras, it looks like. Anyway, like the paper said, he claimed he had photos of a winged alien. Had to be you at the Sabbat–what else?
Laura felt a twinge of alarm. “You aren’t sure? Didn’t you get the prints?”
“Hell, I tried,” Don said with an acid grin. “Somebody else got there before me.”
At that, her stomach churned with more than hunger. “Someone else has them? Who?”
“I think I know. I’ll get them back, don’t worry. Think I wouldn’t take good care of my prize monster?”
She gritted her teeth to hold back the retort that leaped to mind; she couldn’t let him goad her.
He went on. “I have to go easy, though. When I leaned on Brewster to find out where the pictures were, he put up a fight, and things got out of hand.”
It took a second for his meaning to penetrate Laura’s abused brain. “You killed him!”
He shrugged. “Don’t sweat it. It was an accident, and I heard the cops chalked it up to a burglary.”
Her heart racing, she said, “You can’t be sure they’ll stick to that.” Did this development necessarily threaten her? In a way it offered hope, for if Don were arrested, she’d be found and liberated. On the other hand, Don’s exposure might carry the risk of someone else learning her secret.
His right hand trembled; no doubt his fingers ached from gripping the hilt of the gun. “I didn’t really come down here to talk about that. You know what I’m here for. Have you changed your mind?”
“The answer is the same as last night and the night before,” she said. “It won’t change. What you’re asking for just isn’t possible.” Wouldn’t he ever believe that simple truth? Perhaps she should pretend to give in, go along with his delusion. Maybe that piece of trickery would win her freedom. She couldn’t shift position too abruptly, though. “Why not forget about it and start up the Black Masses again? Your friends must be wondering what’s happened.”
-end-
*****
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“Beast” wishes until next time—
Margaret L. Carter