The Terrifying Weight of Immortal Obsession

Requite of the Fates by Venus Campbell 

Spoiler Warning: This post contains mild spoilers

Introduction

To be loved by a god is not a blessing. It is a consuming fire that threatens to burn away everything that makes you human — your choices, your boundaries, your very sense of self. Most of us have encountered love that felt too large, too demanding, too hungry. Now imagine that love wielded by a being for whom your entire civilization is little more than an entertaining distraction.

This is the dark heart of Requite of the Fates. I don’t romanticize divine attention. I actualize it with the full weight of its terror — the invisible touch that can’t be refused, the possessive gaze that follows you across centuries, the chilling realization that to an immortal, a human is simultaneously precious and disposable. Dionysus, the Conset who calls himself a god, does not love the way mortals love. He wants, with the absolute authority of a being who has never been told no.

What unfolds in these pages is a story about the difference between obsession and love — and why that distinction might be the most important question any of us ever answer. The book opens a wound in the romantic mythology of divine favor and refuses to let it close easily.

The Golden Cage of Divine Attention

From the very first pages of Requite of the Fates, Dionysus's presence is conceptualized not as warmth but as pressure. He observes Areadne from above, through the roof of his own temple, studying her grief and her power with the detached fascination of a collector who has spotted something rare. The language I use is deliberately suffocating — his desire is not tender, it is acquisitive. He does not ask. He calculates.

The invisible caresses in the temple sequence are among the most unsettling passages in the book, precisely because they are framed as intimacy. Areadne feels warmth, feels touch, feels something she cannot name or refuse — and the reader understands, with a slow creeping dread, that this is not romance. This is possession dressed in jasmine and candlelight. The scent of jasmine, which recurs throughout the text, becomes something double-edged: beautiful and suffocating in equal measure.

Gods in generally, and Greek gods specifically, are not romantic divine entities. They are vengeful, fickle beings who care little for the disruption and heartache their presence in the lives of humans creates. As a student of classical mythology, I felt compelled to craft my alien gods as close as possible to their original source material. That material, a product of its authors and its times, is not so flattering under the microscope of contemporary morality. And that’s okay. The debasement and dehumanization and devaluing of human beings is an important component of human history which should be understood, not erased.

We must understand the unpalatable segments of our history to understand ourselves and to grow beyond those understandings. As the god of “acts without reason”, Dionysus is the ready-made god representation of humanity’s slow yet evolving self-awareness. The subtext of an evolving civil society is a story layer I enjoyed weaving into the book.

Still, what makes Dionysus so compelling as an antagonist — and he is, at least initially, an antagonist — is that I never let him be simply monstrous. His temper shifts without warning. His tenderness is real, but it coexists with a capacity for violence that he cannot fully control. He is many actions without reason, as the text defines him, and that irrationality is not charming. It is dangerous. The book understands something that many mythological retellings shy away from: absolute power does not make love safer. It makes love catastrophic.

The Contrast of Mortal Connection

Set against the suffocating grandeur of divine obsession, the connection between Marly and Nate reads like oxygen. It is messy, resistant, and deeply human — built not on power but on the shared vulnerability of two people who are equally lost, equally afraid, and equally stubborn about admitting it.

The relationship I construct between these two characters is a love that requires negotiation. Nate cannot simply take what he wants from Marly — she pushes back, literally and figuratively, from the moment they meet. Their dynamic is grounded in the friction of two strong personalities who must choose, repeatedly and consciously, to move toward each other rather than away. There is no invisible wind bending her toward him. There is no cosmic authority compelling her compliance. There is only two people, facing the end of the world, deciding that the other person is worth the risk.

This contrast is where the book's thematic argument lives. I am not saying mortal love is perfect — Nate's early behavior is self-absorbed, and Marly's walls are formidable enough to be their own kind of barrier. But mortal love, I insist, is equal. It can be refused. It can be earned. It can be lost. And that fragility, that shared mortality, is precisely what gives it weight. A love that cannot be lost is not love. It is ownership.

The moments where Marly and Nate face genuine danger together — where neither of them has any power beyond their own courage and their trust in each other — are the emotional core of the novel. I wrote these scenes with a rawness that my divine sequences, for all their sensory richness, simply cannot replicate. Divinity dazzles. Humanity aches. And it is the ache that stays with you.

Conclusion

A love that strips away your agency is not love at all. It is a beautifully disguised cage — gilded with jasmine, perfumed with power, and locked from the outside.

Requite of the Fates earns its title precisely because it refuses to let that cage go unexamined. I ask readers to sit with the discomfort of desire that does not respect boundaries, and then I offer something radical: the possibility that the most extraordinary love available to us is the one that asks permission.

Dionysus's arc across the novel is, in its own way, a story about what it costs an immortal to learn that lesson. The transformation he undergoes — and what he must surrender to truly love rather than simply possess — is one of the book's most quietly devastating threads. It suggests that love, real love, requires the willingness to become vulnerable. Even gods, it turns out, are not exempt from that demand.

So here is the question the book leaves burning: Do you prefer your fictional romances built on equal footing, where love is chosen freely by both parties? Or do you find yourself drawn to the dark tension of a power imbalance — the dangerous pull of a love that is too large, too consuming, too divine to be entirely safe? Requite of the Fates holds space for both impulses, and then shows you the difference between what thrills and what endures. Beware the love of gods. Uncover the obsession in Requite of the Fates.

<<<<Perfect for fans of The Song of Achilles and A Touch of Darkness, this interracial time-travel romance is a Greek mythology retelling of the Theseus and the Minotaur that follows war photojournalist, Marly Broadie, surviving on grit and grief as she encounters Emissary Nate Wayne, under the control of aliens.>>>>> Order your Ebook copy TODAY!

Monsters in the Dark: Empathy and the Tragic Figure

Requite of the Fates by Venus Campbell

Spoiler Warning: This post contains mild spoilers

Introduction

What makes a monster? Is it the shape of their flesh, or the darkness of the cage we lock them in?

That question hums beneath the surface of Requite of the Fates like a low, persistent chord — the kind that settles into your chest before you realize it has moved you. My novel is many things: a time-travel romance, a mythological reimagining, a love story stretched across millennia. But threaded through all of it is something older and more unsettling than any of those genres suggest. It is a story about what happens to a soul when the world decides that soul is no longer worth saving.

Taurus — the figure history has handed down to us as the Minotaur, the beast at the center of the labyrinth — is not what you expect. And that dissonance, that gap between the monster of legend and the broken human I place in its dark maze, is where the novel's most devastating emotional work happens. This post steps into that darkness and asks what we find there.

 

The Mirror of Monstrosity

The labyrinth in Requite of the Fates is not merely a physical structure. It is a statement. Someone built it. Someone commissioned its winding corridors, its timed locks, its engineered darkness — and that someone was not a monster. The true horror of the maze is not what lives at its center. It is the civilization that decided one of its own was better hidden than healed.

Taurus's prison is described with a specificity that refuses to let the reader look away. The stale air. The absence of light. The walls that hold no echo of the world above. These are not the atmospheric trappings of a horror story — they are the deliberate conditions of erasure. A person placed in such a space long enough does not remain a person in the way the world above would recognize. And that, the story insists, is not the prisoner's failure. It is the world's. As a society, we use prison to dehumanize that which scares or disgusts us.

As such, I felt the Minotaur story was an opportunity to delve into the complexity of removing human beings from the greater society. Yes, there are important reasons to isolate individuals. But where is that line blurred in the eradication of human compassion? Are those imprisoned, monsters because of what they are or is their imprisonment what makes them monsters in our minds? These are hard social questions we grapple with. However, fictional stories are invaluable, in part, because they stimulate the social psyche in ways we consider detached from our lived experiences. We aren’t speaking about people who are imprisoned now but rather we are reading about a prisoner in mythology who must have lived thousands of years before us. The detachment is built in and thus allows our subconscious to evaluate underlying moral concerns without the direct intervention of our current social constructs. We assess our moral societal realities academically. 

What lingers longest in the imagination is a detail almost too quiet to register at first: the chalk drawings on the dirt floor of the labyrinth's center. Images scratched into the earth by hands that had nothing else to reach for. It is a desperate, aching grasp at remembered humanity — proof that even in the deepest dark, something in Taurus refused to stop being a person. I do not announce this detail with fanfare. I want it to sit there in the torchlight, and trust the reader to feel the weight of it and the overarching moral query.

The Weight of the Blade

There is a particular kind of moral burden that fiction rarely has the courage to sit with: the burden of facing not a monster, but a broken human, and being asked to act anyway.

When the hero of Requite of the Fates descends into the labyrinth, he carries with him every expectation the myth has built — the torch, the blade, the certainty of purpose. What he finds at the center dismantles that certainty entirely. The heavy, stale air of the labyrinth's deepest chamber does not smell of danger. It smells of abandonment. And the creature waiting there does not roar. It speaks.

Because Taurus has human value, I cannot allow the violence be clean. The hero does not discover a beast to be slain. He discovers a man who has been made monstrous by years of isolation, by the slow erosion of everything that once connected him to the world above. The realization that the creature is capable of grief — that it remembers what it was, and mourns the distance between that self and what it has become — transforms the confrontation from an act of heroism into something far more complicated. Facing a monster is easy. Facing a broken human is a profound moral burden, and I cannot let my characters escape that weight.

The scene does not ask us to excuse what Taurus has done in his years of darkness. It asks us to understand how he got there. That distinction is everything. Condemnation is simple. Comprehension is the harder, more human work — and it is the work this novel demands.

Conclusion

The greatest monsters are often just tragedies the world refused to heal.

That is the quiet thesis at the heart of Requite of the Fates, and it is one that I earn through craft rather than sentiment. I don’t ask us to pity Taurus cheaply. I builds his isolation brick by brick, chalk drawing by chalk drawing, until the reader understands — viscerally, not intellectually — what it costs a soul to be discarded. The labyrinth is not a prison for a monster. It is a monument to a society's refusal to reckon with what it created.

This is the kind of storytelling that stays with you after the last page. Not because it resolves neatly, but because it refuses to. The questions I raise about empathy, about the monsters we manufacture through neglect and fear, do not dissolve when the story ends. They follow us out into the world.

Have you ever read a book that made you genuinely sympathize with the figure the story told you to fear? Step into the labyrinth and face the dark. Read Requite of the Fates.

<<<Perfect for fans of The Song of Achilles and A Touch of Darkness, this interracial time-travel romance is a Greek mythology retelling of the Theseus and the Minotaur that follows war photojournalist, Marly Broadie, surviving on grit and grief as she encounters Emissary Nate Wayne, under the control of aliens.>>> Order your Ebook PRE-RELEASE copy and read on August 11th!

Anchors in the Storm: The Power of Platonic Love in Requite of the Fates

 

Requite of the Fates by Venus Campbell 

Introduction

When the world tilts on its axis and the sky fills with unimaginable threats, romantic love might spark — but it is platonic love that keeps us tethered to the ground.

Requite of the Fates is a book that earns its complexity. Alien entities. Ancient gods. The weight of human extinction pressing down on two people who barely know each other. And yet, woven through all of that chaos, there is something quieter and more enduring: the warmth of a friend who shows up, a sibling who refuses to let you disappear into your own mythology, a companion who loves you not for what you might become but for exactly who you already are.

These are the relationships that don't get the dramatic declarations or the breathless kisses in the rain. But they are the ones that hold the story together —and hold the characters together when everything else threatens to come apart. This post is a celebration of those bonds: the platonic loves in Requite of the Fates that quietly do the most important work of all.

The Sanctuary of Sisterhood

There is a particular kind of relief that only a best friend can provide. Not the relief of a problem solved, but the relief of being truly known — of walking into a space and feeling the tension in your shoulders ease before you've even said a word.

Marly's friendship with Rowan Drevier carries exactly that quality throughout the book. Rowan's home is described with deliberate sensory care: mauve walls, reclaimed furniture worn soft with use, the scent of lavender that appears when anxiety rises and fades when it passes. It is a space that responds to Marly's emotional state as if the house itself is paying attention. That is not an accident of interior design. It is the physical expression of what Rowan's friendship means — a place where Marly does not have to perform strength she doesn't have.

At one point or another in our lives we do two things in our relationships: we search for sanctuary and we provide sanctuary. I’ve had to seek the sanctuary of a friends embrace, home, and family many times. I’ve tried to offer sanctuary when I could. Not always, we have trouble asking for sanctuary when we need it. That need exists because we have moments of physical or psychological exposure so often, when we feel that need for protection, we don’t vocalize it well. When my friend was living through her mother’s sickness and passing, I tried to make space for her at our house. A place where she could escape the weight of her decisions for a little. I don’t know if I helped. 

Those moments weren’t conducted to require her feedback. I only hoped I helped. And my mother, whom I lived with and who tried to guide me on how to support my friend, gave me as much advice as I could incorporate. Rowan’s home was the space I hoped I relayed to my friend when she needed refuge. It is certainly how I felt when I needed a safe space over the years. Not necessarily a tangible place but a state of calm I couldn’t find in the chaos of my life. I allowed those historical experiences to influence the friendships in this story.

What makes the friendship between Marly and Rowan so compelling on the page is its texture of history. Rowan and Marly have been through genuine darkness together — illness, loss, the particular grief of watching someone you love nearly disappear. Their bond isn't idealized. It has weight and scar tissue. And that history is precisely what makes Rowan's home feel like safety rather than just comfort. You cannot fake that kind of shelter. It has to be built over years.

The Tether of Blood and Loyalty

If Rowan's friendship represents the sanctuary Marly can return to, then the sibling and companion bonds in the book represent something different: the tether that reminds characters of who they were before the world decided they needed to be extraordinary.

Nate's sister Stacy is one of the book's most quietly powerful presences. She runs her inn with the kind of no-nonsense competence that strips away every layer of the Emissary, the movie star, the man performing his own legend. Around Stacy, Nate is just her brother — someone she can scold, advise, and see through completely. Her refusal to be impressed by his fame is not cruelty. It is one of the most loving things the book contains. She holds the version of him that existed before the aliens arrived, before the world needed saving, and she refuses to let that version be swallowed by the larger story.

There is also the protective, unwavering loyalty of Icarus — a companion whose care for Marly asks nothing in return and demands no explanation. His friendship operates on pure instinct and trust. He believes her when no one else would. He acts on her behalf at personal cost, not because he expects reciprocity, but because that is simply what love looks like when it is stripped of transaction. The book understands that this kind of love — the kind that protects without keeping score — is rarer and more precious than almost anything else.

These relationships do something specific for the narrative. They strip ego from the characters. You cannot maintain a carefully constructed persona around someone who knew you before you had one. Stacy and Icarus function as mirrors that reflect the real person back — and in a story where identity itself becomes unstable, that grounding is not a small thing. It is everything.

Protective Love That Demands Nothing in Return

The most quietly devastating emotional truth in Requite of the Fates is this: the people who love Marly most are the ones who ask the least of her.

Marly carries an enormous amount. Her mother's illness. Financial pressure. The particular loneliness of someone who has spent years being strong in war zones and then comes home to find the hardest battle waiting in a hospital room. She is a person accustomed to being the one who shows up for others — and deeply uncomfortable with being shown up for in return. The platonic relationships in this book gently, persistently refuse to let her disappear into that self-sufficiency.

I take these bonds and refuse to make them decorative. They are not background warmth. They are structural. When Marly is at her most lost — when the ground beneath her has genuinely shifted — it is not romantic love that catches her first. It is the friend who answers the phone. The sibling who sees through the performance. The companion who simply stays.

In a universe of gods, aliens, and monsters, the most powerful force is often just a friend who refuses to let you fall. That is not a small observation. It is the emotional spine of the entire book.

Conclusion

Requite of the Fates earns its grand mythology — the time travel, the ancient gods, the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. But what lingers, what makes the story feel genuinely alive, is the human-scaled love running underneath all of it. The friend who built a home that smells like lavender when you need it most. The sister who refuses to be dazzled. The companion who believed you when you couldn't believe yourself.

These are the relationships that don't require the universe to be at stake. They simply require showing up — again and again, in the ordinary and the extraordinary alike. If you have ever been held together by someone who asked nothing in return, you will recognize yourself somewhere in these pages.

Who is the anchor in your life when things get overwhelming? And what would it mean to tell them so? Celebrate the bonds that keep us human — and discover the full emotional landscape of Requite of the Fates. 

<<<Perfect for fans of The Song of Achilles and A Touch of Darkness, this interracial time-travel romance is a Greek mythology retelling of the Theseus and the Minotaur that follows war photojournalist, Marly Broadie, surviving on grit and grief as she encounters Emissary Nate Wayne, under the control of aliens.>>>

WWLI-To Desire The Stars Interwoven Lives in Ordinary Spaces

 

Interwoven Lives in Ordinary Spaces 

To Desire the Stars by Venus Campbell

The Microcosm of Earthly Existence

        The narrative’s second major vein draws us deeper into the impossible blend of cosmic intrigue and the mundane details of everyday life on Earth. Here, Campbell explores the internal landscapes of both Melissa “Lissa” Reyes and this enigmatic figure known as Dr. Jarren Graf, whose presence in the office of the Earth Microfinance Institute is as charged with subtle tension as it is with the gravity of their respective burdens. The morning routines described in this section are anything but ordinary. Lissa’s journey from the intimacy of her home environment, steeped in her own internal calendar of hopes and worries, to the structured confines of an office setting paints an evocative picture of a person caught at the crossroads of personal sentiment and professional expectation. Her early hours are marked by a quiet struggle to retain her sense of self against an inexorable tide of inner conflict.

        The moments of vulnerability, punctuated by flashbacks and fleeting memories, not only humanize her but also reinforce the universal theme of trying to maintain boundaries in a world that demands constant adaptation. Meanwhile, the enigmatic High Prince Jarren, hidden beneath the professional guise of a microfinance director, is portrayed in equally compelling detail. His internal monologue reveals an obsessive fixation on Lissa – an attraction that defies the rigid etiquette of his Lyntan upbringing while simultaneously challenging his identity as a calculated, controlled leader. Through Jarren’s eyes, we witness the delicate dance of power and desire as he navigates the labyrinthine office environment. Every gesture, every carefully measured inquiry into Lissa’s personal life is imbued with an intensity that blurs the lines between professional camaraderie and personal yearning. It is in this environment—a setting defined by outdated hierarchical norms and the steady drum of everyday bureaucracy—that the novel’s world-building shines most brightly. The juxtaposition of subtle personal cues against the backdrop of systematic organization demonstrates Campbell’s skill in making even the most prosaic settings feel vibrant and full of promise. The spilled coffee incident, far from being a simple clumsy mishap, serves as a catalyst that unravels the tightly controlled impressions that both characters attempt to maintain.

Their interactions, layered with moments of awkward tension and barely concealed attraction, reflect a deliberate and thoughtful crafting of everyday life where every detail, however small, is a thread in a much larger tapestry. Here, amid the piles of microfinance files and the hum of office machinery, the reader is invited to savor a narrative that revels in the interplay of personal passion and societal expectation.

 

Celestial Evacuations and the Confluence of Duty & Desire

 

        The thrilling third section of the book propels us into a realm of high stakes and stark realities, where cosmic landscapes and human emotions meet head-on in an exhilarating escape mission. Tasked with protecting not only himself but also those who have come to depend on him, Captain Jarren finds himself navigating a labyrinth of both external threats and internal conflicts. This portion of the narrative is a breathtaking blend of military-like precision and reflective introspection—a coexistence that serves to further highlight the dual nature of the world Campbell has so masterfully built. Set against the vast, ever-changing backdrop of dimensions. The technical directives of a daring plan intermingle with tender moments of self-reproach and reflective inner dialogue. As he leads an escape mission that has Lissa and young Jasmine in his care, every moment thrums with a palpable tension: the urgency of dockings and maneuvering through hostile territory stands in stark relief to the internal struggle he faces, marked by guilt over personal missteps and an unyielding desire to protect those who have inadvertently become part of his unconventional family. The world-building in this segment is as expansive as the cosmos itself.

        Campbell brings to life the intricacies of the Lyntan culture—the rigid caste system, the unique significance of scent as a marker of identity and destined connection, and the weight of centuries-old myths that continue to influence modern decisions. Each element is woven seamlessly into the fabric of the narrative, so much so that the reader cannot help but be drawn into the raw, almost primal pulse of a society that is at once ancient and alive. In these moments of high imagination, science fiction seamlessly coalesces with the timeless themes of leadership, responsibility, and the seemingly inevitable clash between desire and duty.

        As Jarren paces within the sparse confines of his office during the moments before critical maneuvers, his inner monologue provides us with a window into his turbulent psyche. His recollections—evoking the mythic tales of his childhood, the stringent cultural dictates of Lynta, and the present dangers that threaten to overwhelm him—are written with an honesty that is both disarming and captivating. Through these reflections, Campbell does not simply present an action-driven escape mission; she layers it with the emotional complexity of a man who is at once a tender, conflicted soul and a determined, tactical leader. In bridging the vastness of space with the intimacy of personal struggle, this section exemplifies the novel’s overarching theme: the wondrous art of world-building that makes every moment, every decision, and every heartbeat resonate with significance.

Conclusion

In To Desire the Stars, Venus Campbell achieves a remarkable balancing act that spans the grand and the intimate, the interstellar and the deeply personal. The novel’s meticulously crafted settings—from the ancient, ritual-laden corridors of Lynta to the familiar yet tension-laden offices of Earth—are not mere backdrops but active, integral elements that drive the narrative forward. Through lush descriptions and carefully interwoven character experiences, Campbell invites us to ponder how the weight of tradition, duty, and longing can shape lives, decisions, and entire civilizations. The book’s immersive world-building is a masterclass in evoking diverse atmospheres, where every single detail, whether it is the haunting farewell of a royal scion or the awkward spill of coffee in a crowded urban locale, serves to illustrate the powerful interplay between cosmic destiny and human vulnerability. This dual narrative approach not only enriches our understanding of the characters’ personal struggles but also reinforces the notion that even in the midst of epic, space-faring quests, the subtleties of everyday life hold profound meaning.

Ultimately, the journey depicted in To Desire the Stars is one that transcends the boundaries of worlds and genres. It challenges us to consider that amid all the chaos and complexity of the universe, our most significant battles are often those waged within our own hearts. As we close the final pages and reflect on the tale of High Prince Jarren Graf and Melissa “Lissa” Reyes, we are reminded that the allure of the stars is not solely about the mysteries of space—it’s equally about the beauty, fragility, and resilience of the human spirit. In the art of interstellar world-building, Campbell finds a canvas that speaks to us all, inviting us to desire not just the stars, but a deeper, more connected understanding of our own lives.

Nova Rocks Good

I like emotional things and Nova Rocks is very emotional.

Nova tells a story that she wrote. Her story's point of view is a nice touch to this book. I liked it.

It's about a girl named Nova who loves to shop at a mall named Mallorama and she has a sister named Venus. There is a library in the Mallorama where Nova works for extra credit at school.

At home, Nova does ballet but she loves to play the guitar. Her mom thinks that Nova likes ballet but she really doesn't. Nova's tries to tell her mom that she doesn't like ballet anymore, but she is afraid that her mom's feelings will be hurt. Instead Nova wants to ask her mom for guitar lessons, but won't.

This book is good because it wasn't too short and it's about a girl who I can relate to. I liked when Nova finally tells her mom about not liking ballet. That part created a really good picture in my head. I also liked the part when Nova and Yumi were giggling on the floor. The author, Tea Emesse, uses unusual and interesting words to describe this scene.

Nova Rocks is a good book. Nova Rocks is interesting, weird and sometimes sad. Someone said Nova Rocks is "Laugh Out Loud Funny". I agree~
Tea Emesse's, Nova Rocks gets 3 1/2 PAGES!
By Rowan
(Age 9)

What's Lost: The Book of TIme

It took me fifteen pages of frustration to start wondering what editor thought to acquire The Book of Time by Guillaume Prevost. As it turned out, the book does improve over time. But luckily for for me, my initial frustration at the writer's stale prose, elucidated something: this book is a translation. Not to say that is the key to why I didn't like the Book of Time, but it may explain a few certain things that I think got lost in translation- excuse the pun.

The Book of Time, by Guillaume Prevost, is about one boy, Sam, whose father occasionally goes missing after the death of his wife . Fourteen year old Sam is on a mission to discover his father's whereabouts, when he stumbles upon a small stone sculpture and is accidentally transferred to Colm Cille, some part of merry old U.K. What ensues are scenes of laughable disbelief and discomfort as Sam comes to grips with the fact that he is no longer in modern day Canada.

To say the first 1/3 of this book was a bad attempt at pulling the reader in with formulaic false starts, may be a bit steep but warrants consideration. It must be noted, however, that the beginning is not at all reflective of the middle and end of the story. That's a good thing. The story doesn't really pick up until Sam gets to Egypt where the description is vivid and the world and characters come to life as you read.

What I meant by writing something got lost (or I hope I meant) in translation, is the depth of emotion from the main character. Sam is starving and only his stomach growls. He isn't irritated. He isn't thinking about food constantly. It would have been interesting for the writer to have Sam respond more wholistically to the situations he was faced with. It's possible that, as the words were taken from their french origin, all those lovely adjectives and adverbs got lost. I can only guess, but I will give the author the benefit of the doubt, here.

What I do put at the doorstep of the author, is the extreme coincidences of the plot. OK- I'll write off Sam's unquestioning acceptance of his situations as more missing adjectives. Still, even kids question coincidence, espeically so many recurring coincidences. How much more excited I would have been, had the author shaped his main character to be inquisitive about all the unusual coincidences. Well, a story once published... I guess.

Needless to say, I suggest borrowing this book from the library. Guillaume Prevost's Book of Time gets no more than 2 PAGES.

How the Seems Seem (3 and 1/2 of 5 pages)

I often avoid reading books of collaboration as a rule. In fact, as of three weeks ago I had yet to read a book which I felt showcased the creative perks of multi-authored stories. But as I was given a copy of The Seems and asked to read it for review, it seemed the Powers That Be wanted me to give multi- authored books another chance.



The Seems is a young adult (YA) novel about a twelve year old boy (Becker) who stumbles upon a "fantastic" job opportunity to keep the world a better place-- literally. Six months after filling out a job application for the "best job in the world" young Becker is recruited to work in the world that maintains our own. This world, "The Seems" is run like a big conglomerate corporation with its various departments such as the Department of Time, the Human Resources Department, and ultimately the Department of Sleep. These and other departments function as a whole with an executive branch and all, to fabricate every experience of our world, from the smell of eggs and toast in the morning to the snores coming out of our mouths at night and the beautiful sunsets in between.



But on occasion, something happens, an anomaly that makes this "seemless" system hiccup: A Glitch. In the movie "Matrix" they called this anomaly "The One", aka Neo. Well Neo isn't the world's liberator in this story. The Glitch is an ugly son of a bug who lives to create havoc and chaos in both worlds. The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, the many years of the Depression, your insomnia two nights ago? You have the Glitch to blame for that.



Which is where our hero comes in. Twelve year old, Becker Drane is a human trained in locating and fixing hiccups in the Seems. Written as if he were 36 not 12, Becker doesn't remind me at all of my years as a youth. His perceptions of the world reflect none of the innocence that is at the heart of any YA character. For all intensive purposes, Becker Drane is a man stuck in a twelve-year-old's body.



What is wonderfully attractive about this book is the world of the Seems. Hulme and Wexler have built a kid's fantasy world, where the most important jobs can be given to those that are often written off as inexperienced or worse, ignorant: children. YA's will love imagining all the various silly tools the hero uses in his travels and will feel the rush of adrenaline as Becker is kidnapped by Bed Bugs and forced to live out his greatest nightmare. Unfortunately, our YA's may also miss out on major chunks of subtle humor used to add complexity to the book such as jabs at the white collar industry that sends out standardized job applicant "Thank you" letters or footnotes that sound like well-written Mike Meyers lines in "Shrek" and its sequels. What works in the movies, comes up lacking in books partly because only one person at a time can fully enjoy a book. Reading a story is not a communal activity. My laughs as I read from one page to the next are not contagious to my daughter who has no idea of the pictures in my head. The humor one gets from books can not be transferred from those that know to those that don't.



Ultimately, however, the Seems is a well written and creative, if not completely original piece of YA fiction which, like the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" or "Donnie Darko" may create its own unique following of readers as the years go by. 3 1/2 PAGES for the Seems by John Hulme and Michael Wexler.