Book Review: Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

Review By Casey Douglass

Just over three years ago, Donald Robertson’s How To Think Like A Roman Emperor released, a book that taught the reader about Stoic philosophy by way of describing the life of one of its greatest adherents: Marcus Aurelius. Donald’s latest book Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius sees him teaming up with illustrator Zé Nuno Fraga to depict the philosophical journey of Marcus Aurelius in a new, eye-catching graphic novel format.

You’ve probably heard the name of Marcus Aurelius, but you might not know much about him. Marcus was one of the most famous ancient Stoics, one that also became the most powerful man in the known world when he took up the position of Roman emperor. Even though he showed unusual promise as a truthful and remarkably wise child, Marcus still had to work hard at developing his character, living wisely, and juggling the massive demands put upon him as ruler. He wrote his own book The Meditations to help with his efforts to keep himself on course.

Marcus being advised to embody his philosophy, rather than simply appearing to live it.

Verissimus begins with Marcus on his deathbed, dying of the plague. He is being attended to by his physician, his family and his closest advisors. The very first image is of Marcus alone, in an incense clouded room. When I reached this page, I was a little startled after I realised how long I’d been looking at the scene. It seemed lonely, yet peaceful. Serious, yet expected. The ‘expected’ part solidifies as Marcus’ thinks and interacts with those who visit. He has been expecting this for so long, he has no fear of death. He sees it as a process of nature, and nothing natural needs to be feared. This is a great foreshadowing of the Stoic idea of ‘living according to nature’ and is something that we get to witness as Marcus’ life story unfolds.

Verissimus is split into fourteen sections, each touching on an important element or period in Marcus’ life. The reader gets to see him as a young child, particularly how he is tutored and raised. We get to see his love of philosophy and his aversion to becoming emperor. Once emperor, Marcus has to deal with war, plague and politics, alongside his own familial troubles and tragedies. I particularly enjoyed seeing the relationship that he had with his brother and co-emperor Lucius, as Marcus and he have such different characters, that it really helps to emphasise how different Marcus was from what was ‘normal’ for the time. Another element that I was glad to see in the graphic novel was Apollonius the Stoic’s relating of the choice of Hercules, a tale that tells of when Hercules has to choose between an easy life, or one of excellence and virtue. There are many other fascinating moments to feast your eyes upon, but I’m happy to see that the events that most surprised or stuck with me from How To Think Like A Roman Emperor made it across.

The beginning of the Hercules story. 

In the preface, Donald points out that Verissimus isn’t intended to be an introduction to Stoic philosophy, but a way to depict the ways in which Marcus Aurelius actually lived his philosophical beliefs. Donald says that his previous books, such as How To Think Like A Roman Emperor, are hopefully more apt as an introduction to Stoicism. If you are new to Stoicism or Marcus Aurelius, Verissimus is a tremendous way to begin to learn about both. If it really tickles your fancy and you want to read more in-depth information, you can then jump into How To Think Like A Roman Emperor for even more details, alongside comparisons with some aspects of modern therapy and how it sometimes uses similar approaches to the Stoics.

What about if you are coming to Verissimus after having read other Stoic works, particularly How To Think Like A Roman Emperor, such as in my own case? Will seeing Marcus’ life in graphic novel form bring anything new for you? I think that Donald sums up the power of the imagery best in his afterword. After seeing Marcus’ son Commodus depicted in visual form, Donald says that he began to view him in a somewhat different way. Donald has spent around twenty five years researching these topics. For a change of media to show him something differently in his own work... I think that’s more than a testament to the quality of the illustration and the power of Verissimus as a graphic novel. Personally, I feel that the imagery brings the life of Marcus, and various elements of Stoic philosophy, into a rich and vibrant level of clarity, and it does this in a way that’s as enjoyable as it is educational.

A Stoic lesson on indifference and our automatic reactions.

Visit the Verissimus page at this link for more information, or copy and paste the ISBN below into your book website of choice.

If you'd like to read my review of Donald's How To Think Like A Roman Emperor, you can find that at this link.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for sending me an advance review copy of the book.

Book Title: Verissimus: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius

Book Author: Donald Robertson

Book Illustrator: Zé Nuno Fraga

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

ISBN: 9781250270955

RRP: $32.50 U.S / £25 U.K (hard-cover)

Releases: 12 July 2022 U.S / 19 July 2022 U.K (hard-cover)

Dark Book Review: Creatures of Clay

Review by Casey Douglass

I must admit that I enjoy finding out how something that looks so perfect or quaint is actually quite flawed, fake, or even evil. Patrick Moody’s supernatural novel Creatures of Clay is set in one such place: Stark Falls. Stark Falls is a seemingly idyllic small town in the mid 80s, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else, and wholesome community events bring people together on the streets to celebrate whatever is going on. I’m sure that you’ll be astounded to hear that all is not actually as it seems.

The events in Creatures of Clay revolve around Quinn Katz and his two close friends Hector and Wendy. They are the “Crypt Crew” and they like nothing more than spending their time writing and illustrating horror stories, and of course, reading horror comics and watching horror movies. On the way home from a street celebration, they stumble upon a house that looks like it has been burgled. What they find inside is just the beginning of their own genuine monster mystery to solve, one that sees town members abducted, property destroyed, and one that leaves copious amounts of clay and strange foot prints as its main clue.

Setting the story in a small town like Stark Falls gives a pleasing stage for a range of characters to take part. There is a tall, scary rabbi, a bossy, deaf gossip, and a group of bullies who like nothing more than picking on the Crypt Crew. The town itself is also never far from nature, providing a number of creepy environments for the crew to explore and to chase the monster. Setting the tale in the mid 80s also gives the chance for a bit of nostalgia, such as Quinn being gifted a copy of Stephen King’s It some time before it is actually due for release.

The horror elements of the story are of the creepy, “what’s going on?” variety, rather than the more explicit depictions of gore or violence that horror often contains. I also got the sense that much of the horror was meant to be in how people interacted with each other. The Crypt Crew themselves are the “outsiders” of the tale, whether due to their preferred pastimes, their religion or their family. Many of the characters in the town are also linked by a river tragedy that occurred sometime previously, a thread that puts in an appearance a number of times during the tale.

I found Creatures of Clay to be a fun read. It seemed to flow well, and the characters come out the other side as having learned a little something about themselves, and to have grown along the way. As far as my own personal taste, I do like my horror to be a bit more visceral and somewhat bleaker, but if you’re a fan of horror that is a bit more adventure-like, I think you’ll enjoy Creatures of Clay.

I was given a review copy of this book.

Book Title: Creatures of Clay

Book Author: Patrick Moody

RRP: $14.99 Paperback / $6.92 Kindle

Publisher: DBND Publishing

Published: 24 June 2021

Book Review: How To Think Like A Roman Emperor

Review By Casey Douglass

Of all the philosophies that I’ve encountered in my life, I think that Stoicism is the one that I’ve found most intriguing and useful. Sadly, as so many of the original Stoic writings have been lost to history, anyone who wants to learn about the philosophy has to ‘Sherlock Holmes’ their way through all sorts of fragments, letters and disjointed notes, with the odd actual book thrown in for good measure. Donald Robertson’s How To Think Like A Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, brings many Stoic principles and ideas together in one book, and what’s more, gives us plenty of examples of how Marcus Aurelius himself, likely put these into action in his efforts to live a wise and virtuous life.

Writing this a few days after finishing the book, I feel like I want to begin with how helpful it is that the book focussed on Marcus Aurelius and his life. Before reading How To Think Like A Roman Emperor, I’d read most of the ‘go to’ Stoic books, including Epictetus’ Discourses, Seneca’s Letters, and Marcus’ own Meditations. I’d also read some modern books on Stoicism, including Donald’s own Stoicism and the Art of Happiness. I tried to implement some of the Stoic techniques and perspectives that I encountered, into my own life, but I didn’t really feel that a great deal ‘stuck’.

The way that How To Think Like A Roman Emperor is anchored around Marcus Aurelius really seems to have provided the framework that I needed. Previously, I had a very vague idea of what Marcus Aurelius was like, besides a few notions about how good or virtuous he was meant to be. Now, thanks to Donald, I feel like I understand so much more. As an example, I didn’t realise that Marcus had an adoptive-brother and son-in-law called Lucius, and that, despite having a similar education in philosophy, they were two people who used that knowledge in vastly different ways, Lucius preferring to chase pleasure over almost anything else. This comes back so nicely to Donald’s introduction to the book.

On the last page of the introduction, Donald says that Stoicism can provide many tremendous things to your life, but warns that words on a page won’t achieve these changes, that only you can do that by putting the ideas into practise. Reading about Lucius and Marcus, their relationship and their actions, is such a fine example of this sentiment, and this leads me to other pleasing discoveries. One example is that I had no idea that the Stoics liked to hold up The Choice of Hercules as a moral fable of wisdom and virtue, in no small part due to the way that Hercules has to choose which path to take in life: that of Virtue or Vice. What seemed to make things even juicier for the Stoics, was that Hercules voluntarily chose the harder path, and had a much richer life for the effort. Epictetus tells his students that Hercules would never have become the Hercules they knew if he’d just stayed in bed!

Alongside the things that were new to me, there was also a liberal helping of Stoic ideas and techniques that I’d studied before. These included the explaining of the power that our judgements have in whether we are happy or miserable, and the usefulness of the Stoic Reserve Clause in helping us to accept that the outcomes of so many of the things we attempt aren’t wholly up to us, among many other helpful ideas. Donald also uses his psychology ‘chops’ and brings some elements of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) into things, which he says seems fitting, considering that CBT was itself inspired by Stoicism.

I really enjoyed this melding of the Stoic philosophy with the modern therapy that more people might actually be familiar with. I was taught about CBT decades before I’d even heard of Stoicism. This was during the initial treatment of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and it was nice to read a book that highlights some of the overlap between the two systems. As with many things though, the situation and the time in which you find yourself reading a book often informs what might jump out at you, or which information you might find most useful. So what did I get out of my first journey through How To Think Like A Roman Emperor?

To recap, I feel that the main thing I got out of it was having a more fleshed out idea of who Marcus Aurelius really was, and this helped me in a number of snow-balling ways. When it comes to some of the practises that entail asking yourself how someone like Marcus might respond to a situation, I now feel that I can do that with a little more insight. Before, the only Marcus that I could think of when pondering that question was Marcus Burnett, Martin Laurence’s character in the Bad Boys films. I think ‘Bad Boys Marcus’ would have just started swearing and freaking out, which doesn’t seem like a sustainable path to improving your life.

I have also adopted a number of the practises in the book, practises that I had already encountered before but had failed to follow through with. These include meditating on the day ahead when I wake in the morning, trying to be mindful during the day, and reviewing how my day went before going to sleep at night, to see how I could have responded to things in a way that is more aligned with my virtues or values. I’ve also started to become more aware of the value Stoics put in speaking plainly, describing things with less emotion and avoiding rhetoric, which in the age of social media and click-bait news stories, seems timely advice indeed. The number of occasions that I have seen something described as ‘catastrophic’ or ‘devastating’, and then see that the person saying these things is rarely directly affected by whichever event they are commenting on... It’s no wonder social media is often so febrile.

I recommend How To Think Like A Roman Emperor to anyone who would like to learn more about Stoic philosophy and/or Marcus Aurelius. My only regret is that this wasn’t the first book I read on the subject, as it really did hit the nail on the head for me. It also appears that Donald is working on a Marcus Aurelius graphic novel, which is something I’d be very interested in seeing!

Book Title: How To Think Like A Roman Emperor

Book Author: Donald Robertson

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Released: 2 April 2019

Current Price (Amazon UK): £16.32 (Hard-cover), £6.43 (Paperback). £5.83 (Kindle)

ISBN: 978-1250196620

Book Review: The Mind Workout

Review By Casey Douglass

My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder really came to a head when I was about ten years old. Thirty years later, it’s still my constant companion. Like most people tend to do, I’ve tried all manner of approaches to deal with it, from perspectives that tackle it head on, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to others that try to lessen the symptoms in various ways. Mark Freeman’s The Mind Workout: Twenty steps to improve your mental health and take charge of your life combines a variety of approaches to improve the reader’s mental health. None were wholly new to me, but Mark’s way of knitting them together seemed to come at just the right time.

A month before I purchased Mark’s book, I picked up Jonas Salzgeber’s The Little Book of Stoicism. It must be about the fifth book I’ve read on Stoicism, a philosophy that I find compelling in many ways. The aspect that really sank into my mind on reading this particular book, was the concept of treating everything that happens each day as training. The idea behind this is that it lowers the stakes of things, making them easier to accept and to deal with. Pretty much the opposite to how OCD feels, treating so many things as life and death. That really resonated with me at that moment, even though it’s something I already “knew”. I recommend The Little Book of Stoicism.

Okay, you’re probably wondering why the second paragraph of this review talks about a wholly different book to the one mentioned in the first. Am I some kind of maverick reviewer who likes wasting your time? Not at all. I mention the “everything is training” idea, as it was shortly after I read that book that I discovered Mark’s The Mind Workout. The Stoic training idea so neatly went hand in hand with what Mark writes and teaches, it was a pleasing coincidence. Here were two books telling me the same thing in slightly different ways, one in Stoic terms, the other written by someone who used to be bedevilled by his OCD too! Many years ago, I came across Mark’s Acceptance Field Guide, so his writing wasn’t unknown to me. The Mind Workout expands on the topics he raises in that book wonderfully.

One of the core elements of The Mind Workout is revealed in the very first line of the introduction: “If you don’t run, it’s not weird if you can’t run”. I also enjoy a later quote: “If you avoid sweating, eventually everything makes you sweat. If you avoid anxiety, eventually everything makes you anxious.” One of the ways that Mark teaches the reader about mental health is to draw comparisons with how we build physical fitness and strength. We wouldn’t expect to be able to walk into a gym and pick up the heaviest weights from day one. He points out that, when it comes to our mental health, we need to have this kind of mindset too. He cements this idea by pointing out that how we use our minds during the day, the normal, “inconsequential” things that we do, all build up to get us into the mental difficulties that we might struggle with down the line.

One of the first exercises Mark gives the reader is to practise not checking their smartphone. Now this is by comparison to other things, a low stakes, low grade checking behaviour. Sure, urges are involved, habit, and uncertainty, but unless you are waiting for a ransom call linked to the kidnap of a loved one, it’s not likely to be fraught with super-strong emotions. Mark teaches that how we deal with uncertainty is the key to so much of our problem, and that by dealing with tiny uncertainties well, we can train our brain so that it might handle larger uncertainties more skilfully. Even not checking your phone when the urge arises begins this training, and after all, if you can’t handle the uncertainty of what you might be missing with a phone check, how are you going to live with some of the really “charged” uncertainties that life inevitably throws your way? This is us picking up the small weights at the gym, to start our journey towards those bigger ones at the edge of our vision.

I’ve known for a long time that once I give into an obsession and do some kind of controlling behaviour to make the anxiety go away, I’d be beset by further obsessions later. These might be related to the initial fear, or even in some wholly unrelated area, but it would still be like poking a hole in your tent in the rain, it just lets more misery through. What I didn’t do though, was to look at how the most mundane, boring actions of my day, all contributed to how I got to my current state of tizzy. Another of Mark’s exercises is something he calls “Taking a Compulsion Journey”. You sit with a bit of paper, draw a sweeping line, and write the compulsion you are struggling with at the far end. This might be endlessly scrolling down social media, wanting to keep checking the door is locked, that kind of thing. You then work your way backwards from performing the compulsion, writing down the events of the day, how you felt about them at the time, working backwards in time, maybe even all the way back to getting up in the morning.

I felt besieged by some mild compulsions one evening. I sat down and completed this exercise to see what might have fuelled my state of mind during the day. Wouldn’t you know it, I found three or four instances earlier in the day that seemed to get me to that point, moments where I checked something boring and unnecessary, moments where I was uncertain about something I’d written... Seeing the compulsion journey laid bare, I could acknowledge that it was little wonder that my mind was giving me new uncertainties to solve and battle with at the end of the day. I really appreciated the view it gave me, and it helped me to see that on the days that I managed to live with the small uncertainties, by evening, I wasn’t so frazzled.

Mark has a whole host of exercises in his book and they are all useful for peeling back the veil of how your mental health works. Another of the key points he makes is the importance of finding out which Values are most important to you and being guided by them in your life. Values are like a constant direction that you decide to move in, like saying that you want to head East with a compass and setting out in that direction. You never reach “East”, you just keep going in that direction. They are not goals, although they can be used to help form healthy, meaningful goals too. One of my guiding Values is Creativity, so I always try to ask myself if a certain action will be aligned with that Value. Mark says that it’s important to move towards the things we want in life, rather than only taking action to simply move away from the unpleasant things we don’t want, such as anxiety. He says that Values help us to deal with the tougher times, because we already know where we want to be heading, and they stop us from sliding back to what we already know, the behaviours that keep us in the cycle of struggling. This is what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is all about, and even though I’d read a few books on it, once again, Mark’s presentation really helped me.

Wow, this review is getting seriously long! I will round things off by saying that Mark’s honest descriptions of how his own mental health affected him were incredibly relatable. In the chapter Stop Checking, he describes the daily battle he had with leaving his apartment, his fears of carelessly leaving something in a dangerous state that would burn the building down. He describes his stove, the way the knobs could pop off and then you wouldn't know, when you put them on again, if it was actually set to high or low... Even to how, when trying to check if it was off, he would look at the top and assess if he could see the hob was glowing (it was electric). If it wasn’t he’d worry there might be a fault, that it might just be broken, and that something is going badly wrong inside... This goes on for a number of pages, and I felt I could have written something similar about some of the ways my own mind throws up fears, uncertainties, and the things it wants me to do to try to resolve them. You really can start out by worrying that the light is turned off, and end up thinking that you're living in a house that will burn down the moment your back is turned.

The Mind Workout is a book that I highly recommend to anyone suffering with their mental health. It isn’t just aimed at one condition, beyond the human condition and how our brains work that is. Mark also does plenty of videos on YouTube and Twitch streams, where he continues to elaborate and to explain the ways that we can start to head in the direction that we’d most like to in life. It’s also a great chance to see a wall of post-it notes that aren’t being used by an exhausted detective trying to track down a serial killer. I swear that’s how most post-its I see on screen are used these days. Mark’s have interesting mental health tidbits on them. He also loves tea, cookies and doughnuts, which always seems to lighten the tone when they are mentioned.

I’m still struggling, but I feel that more has fallen into place by reading Mark’s book and listening to his online chats. One day at a time...

Book Title: The Mind Workout: Twenty steps to improve your mental health and take charge of your life. (Released as You Are Not A Rock in the U.S/Canada).

Book Author: Mark Freeman

Publisher: Piatkus

Released: June 2017

ISBN: 978-0349414539

RRP: £13.99 Paperback / £5.99 Kindle.

Book Review: Black Shuck: The Devil’s Dog

Review by Casey Douglass

I first saw Piers Warren’s Black Shuck: The Devil’s Dog on a display table in my local Waterstones. I’ve always found tales of supernatural black dogs to be interesting, and a book with a story set in Norfolk, the county that I also live in, seemed to hold a double attraction for me. Strangely, I didn’t buy the book that day, but it stayed in my mind enough that I eventually picked it up from the Kindle store.

After a prologue in which the origin of the narrative’s own devil dog is revealed, we meet the protagonist of the tale Harry Lambert. Harry is a wildlife photographer trying to shake off calamity. His best friend is dead and his wife has deserted him. It’s with a down-trodden soul he takes himself off to Blakeney on the North Norfolk coast. He hopes that a bit of sea air and a different pace to life might give him the time he needs to rest and recuperate. Like any good horror story though, he’d have almost certainly had a far more relaxing time if he’d just stayed at home.

Harry has a booking at Tern Cottage B&B, a homely place run by Linda and Frank. Harry is touched by how at home they make him feel, and is charmed by the village itself. He gradually meets more of the residents of Blakeney, and when accompanying Frank on a fishing trip, he first hears the term “Shuck”. Frank laughingly calls a friend’s dog his “Shuck”. Frank then fills the puzzled Harry in on the legend of the ghost dog. Harry soon finds that not everyone is as open to discussing the creature however.

The story darkens further as it progresses. Blood is found on the beach, seals are being attacked by something strange, and superstition rises in the locals. Harry moves out of the B&B into a more secluded building further along the coast. The isolation this brings begins to play on his mind and he starts to see and hear strange things. The one thing that seems to give him some solace is Anna, the daughter of the wildlife warden and a woman he becomes increasingly close to as events begin to take their toll on the community.

The author handles the issue of Black Shuck itself very well. It isn’t just a standard “ghost hound” story, and there is extra variety in the phenomena that surrounds the dog and its activities. An example is the way that the dog doesn't just seem to portend the death of someone close to the witness, but actively kills or attacks at times. The bleakness of the coast and the harsh weather also lends an interesting backdrop to events. At times, the characters are as much fighting against the elements as against the dog, once they begin to understand what is going on at least.

There are some wonderfully creepy moments in the story too, things that had me scratching my head as again, they didn't seem to fit with the “whole ghost dog thing”. You begin to wonder what else is going on, but the links do become clearer later on. The climax of the book is suitably chaotic for the characters. The story, which has been slowly building with the odd moment of threat or revelation, hits the final act with a flurry of dangers. The author manages to mix claustrophobia, the elements, and the supernatural, in a “what could go wrong, will go wrong” kind of way, and I enjoyed that very much.

I enjoyed reading Black Shuck: The Devil’s Dog. It was a story set in a location that mixed peace and bleakness with warm humans and supernatural upset. I liked how these different elements fused together into a narrative that really suited the antagonist’s theme. It was also very pleasant to see places that I am familiar with named in a story. It’s rare for me to come across this local kind of feeling, the last time was in an anthology that happened to include a tale set in The Fens. You don’t need to be familiar with Norfolk to enjoy the book, but for me, it added an extra level of enjoyment. If you like slow-build supernatural horror, you should check out Black Shuck: The Devil’s Dog. Then if you are really brave, go for a long walk, alone, on a bleak windswept shore.

Book Title: Black Shuck: The Devil’s Dog

Book Author: Piers Warren

Publisher: Wildeye

Published: 2011

ISBN: 978-1905843015

Price: £5.83 (paperback) / £3.99 (Kindle) on Amazon.co.uk as of 30 Oct 2020)

Book Review: Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Review Written by Casey Douglass

Jaron Lanier, the author of Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, breathes technology. He’s attributed with first using the term “Virtual Reality” and has had a hand in many technological industries. What makes him even more interesting though, is his concern about the effects technology has on the user, what it means for how we interact with each other and how we view the world. As you might imagine, Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now focusses his gaze on the world of social media, and he has some interesting things to say about it.

The book opens with a fairly light-hearted introduction expounding the virtues of cats, their intelligence and unpredictability. He also admits that in some ways, his book is about how to be a cat, particularly when it comes to how we might use the internet. He also states that he hopes the reader will consider the issues he raises and make a decision to best suit their circumstances. This isn’t a preaching book in which the author assumes it will change your mind. He just hope it helps, which I think is a fine way to open a book.

Jaron presents his notions in the form of ten arguments, each hoping to shine a light on an aspect of social media that he thinks is problematic. When I started to write this review, I began some note-taking after finishing the book and soon found I was getting bogged down. Ten Arguments is a reasonably short book, but I found so much that I wanted to note down, I had to stop for the sake of brevity. With that in mind, I'll look at some tidbits from two of the arguments that I found particularly fascinating, but they did all contain something well worth thinking about.

Argument One is “You are losing your free will”. Jaron begins by talking about the ubiquity of the smartphone in almost everyone’s pocket, not to mention the other smart devices in our homes. He then explains how algorithms “gorge on data about you, every second” and how they correlate what you do with what everyone else is doing. He says that the algorithms don’t really understand you, but when your data is compared to the data of everyone else, things can be noticed. Maybe you listen to a certain kind of music. Maybe the data shows that other people who listen to this kind of music typically react negatively to a certain word in a headline. The chance is, when seeing that same word, you will react that way too.

Jaron goes on to explain how advertising might take advantage of this, showing you individual content that it thinks will engage, or alter, you the most. He says that, rather than being called advertising, it should be understood as “continuous behaviour modification on a titanic scale.” He explains why he thinks this is a problem with how social media websites operate, and explains how topics like addiction, punishment and reward, and “mystery” or unpredictability, keep people engaged with their feeds. He also explains how the manipulation of social emotions (or social pressure) can supply the punishment or reward needed to keep someone posting. There is yet more to his first argument but I think you get the idea.

The other argument that I wanted to talk about is argument three: Social Media is Making you into an Asshole. In this argument, Jaron points out how people who use social media a lot can display the same personality changes as junkies, gamblers and other addicts. He says that a couple of the ways this manifests in social media use is someone becoming increasingly quick to take offense or showing more aggression, to avoid being the victim themselves. Jaron then explains how he became aware of his own inner troll in the 1970s, in the early stages of the internet. He realised that he would often get into arguments with individuals or other groups, and they devolved in such a way that it became about the most petty and silly stuff. He hated how he’d ruminate on the debate between posts, and how, on the flip side, to avoid this petty stuff, he felt he had to become “fake-nice”, which was even worse. So he decided to stop using the kinds of services and sites that required this type of behaviour. Jaron says that of all the arguments in the book, this one is the one he feels the most strongly about, saying “I don’t want to be an asshole. Or a fake-nice person”.

Sadly, he observes that since social media became the behemoth that is it today, assholes are having more say in the world, and that the biggest ones get the most attention. He goes on to explain the idea of a Solitary/Pack switch in the mind, and the way that it relates to how wolves operate, being a lone-wolf or part of a pack. He then points out the similarities with our internet behaviour and mentality. He comes down on the side that, for most people, the switch should be kept in the Solitary Wolf position, as it fosters unique thinking and varied perspectives on what is happening in the world. He says that democracy fails when the switch is set to Pack. Again, this argument does contain more meat than what I’ve skimmed over here, and it all provides some tasty food for thought.

Jaron’s other arguments are just as fascinating as he touches on issues of economic dignity, politics, happiness and even spirituality. He writes about these things in a concerned, but optimistic way, circling back to why deleting your social media accounts is, in his opinion, the way to bring about the change that we need to see in the world. Did he convince me? I agree with much of what he says, but I will be staying on social media for the foreseeable future. A large part of this is that my health problems limit my life, and even though there is a lot to dislike about social media, my life without it would lose a little something. I’ve always tried to use it mindfully and minimally, and I will continue to do so. I don’t use it to get my “news”, and I have no interest in arguing with people... about anything. I post about the things I enjoy or that I created, and interact with some of the people who create the books, music and films that fill my eyes, lugs and mind. I’d just like more content in my meat-space life to complement the virtual one. But enough about me.

Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now is a book that gives you fresh stuff to think about every few pages. It’s an easy, swift read, and even if you get to the end and don’t feel inclined to leave social media, I think you will have learned or heard something that will stay with you as you move on with your algorithm-fuelled life.

Book Title: Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Book Author: Jaron Lanier

Publisher: Vintage

Released: 01 August 2019

ISBN: 9781529112405 

Current Price: £6.73 (paperback) / £5.49 (Kindle) (As of Amazon.co.uk on 19th Oct 2020)

Book Review: Predator: If It Bleeds

Review Written by Casey Douglass

I found myself in the mood for some Yautja-fueled, violent entertainment a few weeks ago, so when Titan Books’ Predator: If It Bleeds was suggested in my Amazon recommendations, it didn’t take much for me to buy it. It’s a collection of sixteen stories from some of the authors you’ll already likely be familiar with if you’ve read any of the various Alien/Predator comics and novels over the years, authors such as Tim Lebbon, John Shirley, Kevin J. Anderson, S.D Perry and Steve Perry.

Many of the tales in Predator: If It Bleeds drop the Yautja into a novel period of human history, pitting the humans of that time against the alien hunter. Other stories are set in the harsh, sci-fi future that I personally prefer, but that’s not to say that the historical ones weren’t fun. The best of these, in my opinion, came from Larry Correia and is called Three Sparks. It is set in Samurai era Japan, and it answers the question: How would a samurai fare against a Yautja warrior? I think what makes this one particularly enjoyable is the craftiness of the main character, the stubborn prejudices of the people in charge, and the way that the skirmishes with the Yautja play-out.

Another tale that stands out for me is Drug War by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Holly Roberds. It reacquaints us with two of the characters from Predator 2: Mike Harrigan and Garber (Adam Baldwin’s left-hand-man to Gary Busey’s Peter Keys). It takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, some years after the events of the second film. I felt it was really nice to see Harrigan and Garber cross paths again, especially in such a different setting when compared to L.A. As you might expect, another guest pops-up in their reunion, causing them both to have to face the monster of their past once again.

Of the tales set in the future, I think Jonathan Maberry’s Gameworld is my favourite. Set among “the rocks”, the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, Gameworld is a place where all kinds sketchy things can take place. In the words of the story: “If you wanted to bet on it, have sex with it, eat it, or kill it, Chiba could set it up.” (Chiba being the mastermind trillionaire who created it). The main thing Chiba has a penchant for, is fights between all manner of creatures, human, animal, and transgenic mixtures of the two. A tiger with snake jaws and puffer fish toxin being just one example. I’m sure you can guess who, or what, the hapless protagonist (not Chiba) of this tale ends up having to face. This story was such good fun.

Another future-based tale that I found a lot of enjoyment in was Kevin J. Anderson’s Indigenous Species. Set on a colony planet racked with hardship, that happens to be called Hardscrabble, the story sees the settlers struggling against the local environment and the local giant, vicious beasts called gruzzlys. These creatures are a menace to the colonists and their livestock, and, wouldn’t you know it, a certain mask-wearing, cloaking race of aliens think that the creatures make for excellent trophies. This doesn’t necessarily solve the colonists’ problem, but gives them one more thing to worry about. I loved the other-worldly setting of this story, and the double dose of being alone on a strange planet on the one hand, and alone, against various threats on top of this. A double heap of trouble, you might say.

Even though I’ve only mentioned four stories in any depth, the others were all well worth a read. The only ones that I didn’t really click with were those in settings that didn’t really interest me, but even these often managed to have something to keep me reading. I also enjoyed the stories that made good use of switching between the human and Yautja points of view, such as Steve Perry’s Rematch and S.D Perry’s Skeld’s Keep. This gives the reader an excellent insight into what’s going on in the Yautja’s alien brain, when plans go wrong, or they find themselves facing a heavy defeat.

If you fancy reading some short Predator-based tales, stories that flit through history and set some of the human world’s various warriors against the stealthy hunters, Predator: If it Bleeds is a collection of stories that you should definitely take a look at.

Book Title: Predator: If It Bleeds

Book Author: Anthology

Publisher: Titan Books

Released: 17 Oct 2017

ISBN: 9781785655401

Current Price: £7.39 (paperback) / £3.99 (Kindle) (As of Amazon.co.uk on 12th Oct 2020)

Book Review: Halloween Horror: Volume 2

Review Written by Casey Douglass

It’s that time of the year again, that time when Halloween decorations and sweets are the only thing stopping the stores going all out “Christmas manic.” I actually would prefer it if Halloween was a far bigger deal, and Christmas went and “did one”, but that’s just me. If you are a fan of spooks, pumpkins and people meeting messy ends, this book review might just hint at something nice to put into your treat bag. Just don’t let the chocolates melt onto it. DBND Publishing’s Halloween Horror: Volume 2 is an anthology of 22 tales that feature many of the elements that Halloween is known for: chocolates and sweets, tricks, and strange creatures visiting our plane of existence.

Some tales feature sinister games that end up containing a hint of truth. Others feature strange trick or treaters that aren’t quite like the others that knock on your door. Yet others feature strange time loops, ghosts, and cookies with a sinister secret. Each story is told very well and all of them set the scene in such a way that it’s clear how much the authors love Halloween. If you think the reader must surely end up with pumpkin fatigue or “trick or treat-itus”, it’s not something that I noticed myself. Even stories that may share a few elements use them to their own ends. This was great to see.

As I do with most of my reviews, I’ll highlight three or four stories that I particularly enjoyed. The first is Last Treat of the Night by Cullen Monk. Two young children return from a night of trick or treating. Their parents are preoccupied with getting them to bed before “the final one arrives”. It is then discovered that they aren’t ready for this mysterious guest, and a sequence of events results in the children being home alone, just at the moment that this ominous visitor pounds upon the door. I enjoyed this tale as it leaves a fair bit to the imagination, and it did a great job of giving me the creeps.

Trick’r Treats Himself by Daniel Hale is the next story that I loved. It features Jack reforming in his grave, returning from the Hallowed Realm to see how things are going on Halloween night. He is concerned that the “air should be frigid with goblins about their wicked work.” Things are strangely silent. His investigations lead him to find that a darker threat has settled over the nearby homes, and he decides to get to the bottom of things. This tale was enjoyable for being from the point of view of a Halloween creature, and also for the way it melded Halloween with more mundane, everyday evil. I also liked the descriptions of the goblins and what they got up to.

The Other Kids by Patrick Moody starts is as a traditional trick or treating tale but one with a nasty outcome. It opens with news clippings and statements, but when the story proper begins, it starts with some young kids, The Hilltop Crew, planning their trick or treating route for maximum efficiency. They are also preoccupied with beating “the other kids”, their mortal enemies, the kids who don't even live in the area but get brought in by cars and buses to take advantage of the sugary bounty nearby. The trouble is, this year, there are some very strange other kids around, and these aren't just a threat to the chocolate food chain, but to the lives of the people on Hilltop too. My main enjoyment from this tale came from the unsettling qualities of the “other, other kids”, and also the psychological effects that this event clearly has one of the characters.

The last story I want to mention specifically, is Final Halloween by Scott McGregor. It’s about Simon, a boy who loves Halloween, but is possibly getting a little too old to go trick or treating. He decides to visit somewhere called Orchid Woods View, a richer neighbourhood that his father always skipped when they went out in previous years. This year, Simon decides to visit, and he gets stuck in a confusing series of exchanges with the residents, the real truth of what is happening only being revealed fully at the end of the tale. I enjoyed this story for that very reason, it was a bit mind-bending but also did a great job of conveying Simon’s confusion and anger at what he thought was going on.

Halloween Horror: Volume 2 is a very enjoyable jaunt through the mental landscapes of Halloween. There are jack-o'-lanterns, costumes and candy. There is also the undead, blood and nasty tricks. It didn’t awaken in me a desire to go trick or treating, I’m not sure anything could do that. What it did do though, is leave me looking forward to Halloween this year. It has also tickled my appetite for more ghoulish Halloween horror, which I think is a fine outcome.

You can buy Halloween Horror: Volume 2 on Amazon. You can also visit DBND Publishing to see their other books. I previously reviewed Ghost Stories for Starless Nights and really enjoyed that one too.

I was given a review copy of this book.

Book Title: Halloween Horror: Volume 2

Book Author: Anthology

Publisher: DBND Publishing

Released: 04 Oct 2020

ISBN: 979-8687076371

Current Price: $13.99 (paperback) / $5.00 (Kindle) (As of Amazon.com on 7th Oct 2020)

Book Review: Aliens: Phalanx

Book Review: Aliens: Phalanx

Review by Casey Douglass

One of the things that drives me to stories that feature xenomorphs is that they often mix science fiction and horror. When I read the blurb for Scott Sigler’s Aliens: Phalanx, I was almost put off by the word “medieval” in the description. My first reaction was that it didn’t sound like it was for me. My love for anything starring a xenomorph eventually burst through that initial resistance, and I purchased the book. Were my own personal misgivings proven correct, or was I blown away like a face-hugger disintegrating in pulse-rifle fire? Read on to find out.

The events in Aliens: Phalanx take place on Ataegina, a rugged continent of mountains and ravines. The inhabitants have been slaughtered by black-husked ‘demons’, the survivors driven to living in subterranean mountain keeps. People don’t venture above ground often, but the ones that do, the Runners, race between the various holds to trade goods. These mainly take the form of various essential medicines, but this doesn't stop them bringing a variety of luxury items too.

The book follows Ahiliyah, a young woman who is one such runner, as she serves Lemeth Hold and tries to earn her keep. She also wants to become a warrior, but in Lemeth Hold, women aren't warriors. She runs with two others, the large framed warrior-in-training Brandun, and a weaselly little gobshite called Creen. Brandun is a warrior-in-training and is already blessed with a larger frame than is expected for someone of his age. He is also a little slow at times, which Creen loves to point out to him by calling him “dumbdun”. Creen is actually the comic-relief in many ways, coming out with many cruel words but also displaying vulgar humour in almost equal measure. It is this trio that the reader gets to know during the course of the book, how their already limited world becomes yet more dangerous, as the demons start to eradicate the last traces of humanity in Ataegina.

The societal landscape, the relationships between the various holds, plays an integral part in the pressures that fall on the dwindling people. Due to the nature of the threat from the demons outside, what doesn’t naturally grow in one hold often ends up being an urgent item for another. There are a number of illnesses that can afflict people. Imbid flowers grow abundantly in Lemeth Hold, and Imbid Soup is the cure for something called Weakling Disease. If another hold is suffering from such a disease, runners from Lemeth will trade Imbid flowers for something that they might need to treat their own hold’s different outbreak of illness. Add into this the usual way that humans become greedy, paranoid and even religious zealots, and the politics between holds becomes a true driving force, and often hindrance, to them actually working together.

When the humans clash with the demons, the weapons they have at hand are knives, spears and shields. On my first thoughts about this notion, I think I was guilty of thinking “How the hell are they going to fight them with spears?” in a “Pfft” kind attitude. It didn’t take too long to think the exact same question with a more curious “How will they?” frame of mind. Having finished the book, I didn’t realise that the answer could be so exhilarating. Just as in the films, if you go from the pulse-rifles of Aliens to the cleavers and machetes of Alien3, there’s an exhilaration to be found in that.

The holds themselves are also aptly suited to this kind of horror. The humans are trying to shut out the danger, but by doing so, they have to live claustrophobic and grim lives. They use strangely glowing water in glow-pipe plumbing to light their dark corridors, harvest plants and make use of anything that sits within their “safe” realm. When things take a turn for the worst - as you’d expect they would in a tale like this – these corridors turn from claustrophobic passageways into tunnels of death. I’m not sure what is more scary, meeting a xenomorph on open ground and seeing it dart at you from hundreds of yards away, or hearing one coming towards you along a dark tunnel. Probably the latter...

Aliens: Phalanx is a very satisfying tale. We get to see all three of the runners rise-up in their hold, fighting against prejudice, fear and politics, even sometimes against each other. They all become nicely fleshed out characters with more about them than their more obvious traits. They all grow as people too, and their relationship changes and strengthens as events unfold. It was nice to see a society that viewed the xenomorphs in a different way, as demons and semi-supernatural rather than naïve humans stumbling across them on a spaceship-based jaunt across the galaxy. The story itself escalates in a way that any xenomorph fan will enjoy, and the culmination at the end is the kind that sets the previous events in a slightly different frame, which I thoroughly appreciated. Aliens: Phalanx is a brilliant story, and I’m very glad that I decided to give it a try.

Book Title: Aliens: Phalanx

Book Author: Scott Sigler

Publisher: Titan Books

Released: 25 Feb 2020

Price: £7.99 paperback / £4.74 Kindle (currently)

ISBN: 9781789094015

Dark Book Review: Alien: Prototype

Dark Book Review: Alien: Prototype

Review by Casey Douglass

I seem to devour books set in the Alien universe faster than almost any other story. There’s just something about the bleak evil corporation mentality, the vast distances and the Xenomorph, a creature that still makes me shiver at how cool it damn well is. Titan Books has a whole host of novels that fill in gaps in the Alien chronology and they’re all well worth a read if you’re an Alien fan. Tim Waggoner’s Alien: Prototype is the latest release, and I recently treated myself to the Kindle edition with some left over Xmas money.

Alien: Prototype opens with some deep-space piracy. Tamar Prather is a spy who has been tasked with hanging around unsavoury types, the kind that attack and ransack other spacecraft. She is there because Venture, a Weyland-Yutani competitor, is always on the look out for valuable swag that can give it an edge against the other mega-corporations. And wouldn’t you know it, Tamar steals a very precious cargo. Ovoid. Glistening. You get the picture. This “prize” ends up at The Lodge, Venture’s facility on a planet called Jericho 3. The arrival of the egg precipitates events, much like one of those naughty chaos butterflies, but whipping up its own kind of dark hurricane.

The egg falls into the hands of Dr Gagnon, the stereotypical “mad scientist” type who becomes fascinated with the organism it contains. He also has no real morals holding him back from certain kinds of experiments, the kind that don’t often end well. He ends up with a Xenomorph, but there are complications. It’s not the same as the regular variety of Xeno, this one has picked up an extra ingredient in its mixture, one that makes it even deadlier than the normal kind. I know it’s a bit difficult to imagine how a creature like this could be any more dangerous. Maybe the mental image of a great white shark with a machine gun will serve here. Nope, this Xeno is far more dangerous than that!

As with any decent Alien tale, this Xeno is faced by people who are determined to stop it running amok. Zula Hendricks is an ex-Colonial Marine who has turned her hand to training a more civilian kind of security force, and it is her group of wet-behind-the-ears recruits that have to swallow their fear and face something truly dangerous, rather than the various neutered experiences they have received in their training to date. I won’t say much more as I really don’t want to spoil the sense of discovery you’ll get if you decide to read the book.

Alien: Prototype is a fun, relatively fast-paced book, with so many of the elements that I enjoy in an Alien novel. There is greed, some synthetic humans, and a bit of creature worship, along with a variety of encounters and combat situations that keep the interest. There are the typical scenes where the unaware get jumped by the Xeno, and there are scenes where the “very much aware” clash with it in desperate combat. There is some novel use of technology at times, and the “extra danger” this Xenomorph embodies is a really nice touch to add a splash of novelty to proceedings.

If you enjoyed any of the other Titan Books novels, such as Out of the Shadows or The Cold Forge, I think you’ll enjoy Alien: Prototype. If you’ve yet to dip into this series of novels, but love the Alien universe, I also think you’ll enjoy this book.

(Alien: Prototype takes place between the Alien: Isolation book and the Aliens: Resistance comic series.)

Book Title: Alien: Prototype

Book Author: Tim Waggoner

Publisher: Titan Books
Published: October 2019

ISBN: 9781789090918

RRP: $8.99 (paperback)

Book Review: The Imposter Cure

Book Review: The Imposter Cure

Review by Casey Douglass

I’m a sucker for the self-help genre. I sometimes fantasize that my tombstone could say “Self-help this!” in my darker moments. I think it comes from struggling with my mental and physical health, and always wanting to try to get some kind of fresh perspective on life that might help me feel better. Imposter Syndrome is a topic that has somehow passed me by. Until, that is, I flicked through Dr Jessamy Hibberd’s The Imposter Cure in Waterstones one day. I saw mention of the way that freelancers can be prone to it, because of the nature of how they have to “bid” or “win” jobs. With a rush of hope I thought it might help me to find out more, and a month later here I am, writing this review.

If you are anything like I was, you might know that imposter syndrome is a fear of being found out as not being as “good” or capable as others might think you to be. While that’s true, as with most things, there are far more layers to unpick than just this simple understanding. The Imposter Cure does this in a gentle, friendly way, the opening few sections paving the way for a self-compassionate look into something that our minds can still struggle to accept. We have all sorts of beliefs about how feeling like an imposter can keep us humble, safe or alert, and stay ignorant to the ways it’s actually harming our lives. Imposter syndrome is also more common than we might think, and a lot of people might be affected by it at different times in their lives.

The first section that clicked with me described the five competence types that someone might fall into. These are: the perfectionist, the natural genius, the soloist, the expert and the superwoman/man. Someone’s competence type dictates how they will experience failure-related shame and the mindset that they are likely to take into tackling tasks. This might be the Perfectionist’s approach of feeling strongly that there is the right or wrong way to do something, or the Expert’s desire to know everything about something before they start. I found it very helpful to see the categories I fell into, many of which I would have put down to a “simple” lack of self-confidence before reading this book.

I’m a fan of diagrams with labels showing how our thoughts, actions and emotions create spirals of mental health, whether it's feeling bad about something or feeling better. Maybe it’s from my days of having Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for my OCD, or maybe I just like things being defined and laid bare. Either way, The Imposter Cure features a number of these diagrams, showing the cycles that reinforce or undermine our feelings of competence. This got a thumbs up from me. The book also looks at why we might be prone to feeling those imposter feelings, looking at our personality traits and past experiences and how they might have laid the foundation for feeling so conflicted about success. One example is someone who might be very gifted at school, always performing well, but only being given praise when they perform “above and beyond” their usual highest standards. It doesn’t take much thought to see why this might set that person up for not really appreciating their successes going forward.

This is one of the most important messages that The Imposter Cure carries, that people who suffer from imposter syndrome don’t internalize their successes in the way a non-sufferer might, their beliefs and mind-set minimising what they’ve done and laying their success at the door of luck, good timing or just working hard, which “anyone” can do. The Imposter Cure challenges these beliefs and mental filtering, picking apart the Luck Myth and the way that the coping strategies we use harm us more than help us.

Dr Hibberd calls these coping strategies the Imposter Twins, and they are Overworking and Avoidance. They are two sides of the same imposter coin, a coin that shouldn’t really be legal tender if you ask me. Each coping strategy is broken down into how it might manifest, what drives it and why it’s actually harmful. Tidbits that I found useful in this area were the explanation of why having success doesn’t end the cycle of overworking, and why the fantasizing about doing less creative, more menial work, is just an avoidance strategy rather than a deep seated belief that I’m not cut out for what I want to do. I also took solace in the notion that sometimes life requires a certain level of “bluffing”, something that I feel really averse to doing most of the time, even in the most minor of ways.

The Imposter Cure also covers other areas that interplay with the core issue. Besides working through ways to address your beliefs about what success means to you and your view about yourself, it gives advice about how to handle social media, anxiety and low mood, as well as to address confidence issues. These sections are brief and useful, but if it’s the first time a reader encounters some of the concepts, I’d recommend buying a book about them in their own right. That’s not a criticism, just a thought that occurred to me as the topics arose. A good starting point though.

Did reading The Imposter Cure help me? Yes. It emphasizes that you need to put time and effort into the techniques and information it provides, and I did. Ironically, part of my mind is saying “Did you put enough in? Did you really?” and that just goes to show what a pest imposter syndrome can be. By reading the book, I gleaned some nice insights into something that previously, I had little awareness of. I think it will take time, thought and another reading to really dive into the stuff that is going on in my head. The book is certainly no magic cure and it doesn't claim to be one. It feels promising though, and sometimes a bit of hope is a rare thing to find.

Book Title: The Imposter Cure

Book Author: Dr Jessamy Hibberd

Publisher: Octopus

ISBN-13: 9781783253326

Published: 13th June 2019

RRP: Paperback £12.99

Battle Quest Book Playthrough – Caves of Fury - Part 3

Battle Quest Book Playthrough – Caves of Fury - Part 3

By Casey Douglass

Welcome to Part 3 of my adventure through the Caves of Fury, a Battle Quest book where turning to certain pages means you can control the path of your treasure-seeking barbarian warrior. If you are joining the series late, part 1 can be found at this link, with other links finally bringing you back to this instalment, once you’ve brushed up on the tale so far. I’m good like that.

Part 2 ended in a prison of stalactites and ‘mites, with my barbarian beheading a monster and lifting his first piece of treasure: a lovely glittering diamond. It helped put his run-in with the crotchety old wizard who’d scorched his chest into perspective at least. Finally, he has something to show for his labours, beyond his wounds and feeling knackered. Let’s see how his tale continues...

In a turn up for the unlikely, our plucky barbarian finds himself at the edge of an underground swamp. It smells of rot and decay, and its main feature seems to be a massive lake, its surface algae-covered and perfectly calm. It seems to share a few elements with the watery cave in which a certain hobbit meets a certain Gollum, but there’s more greenery and less fishezes, at least, that are visible. The other difference are the stepping stones that stretch across the lake, appearing to go all the way to the other side.

Seeing no other route, I step onto the first stepping stone, waiting for something evil to grab my ankle and pull me down into the water. Not even a ripple! I step onto the next, and the next. It’s all going very well isn’t it? It’s as I get to the tenth stepping stone that it all starts to go wrong. A shriek sounds behind me on the shore that I’d just departed. The fright almost sends me into the water, which at this stage, I have no idea how deep it is or what’s in there.

Carefully, I turn and see an irate goblin waving his arms, shouting at me that if I step on the next stone, I'll drown! He says that every tenth stone is a trap and that I should jump straight over it to the next one! Now, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know how tricky these goblins can be. For a start, they hate anyone taller than them, which is pretty much everyone. Another factor is that they lie more often than they tell the truth, but when they do tell the truth, the disbelieving of it usually leads to disaster anyway. You can’t win is what I’m saying.

I try to reason things out. Firstly, every tenth stone being a trap seems a bit arbitrary to me. Why not the seventh or fourteenth? Then again, I can understand why letting someone walk on nine stones might build their confidence enough to not be so careful for the tenth. Also, why more than one trapped stone? It doesn’t sound like the person who made the trap is particularly confident that it will achieve its goal first time around. Another thing, if the goblin is trying to get me into a trap, what kind of trap would need me to actually jump on it to trigger, rather than merely stepping on it? His having to shout at me isn’t a very efficient way to catch out the unwary. Consider me very wary!

The book gives me the option of using a trance spell to wheedle the truth out of his nasty goblin mind, but I don’t have one, and even if I did, I’d imagine his brain is full of yucky goblin pornography and strange, secret perversions. Another thought occurs to me. Why should he shout at me at all, as I would have been bound to step on the trapped stone anyway? It’s a bad situation. I decide to trust him, but vow to myself to wring his scrawny neck if things go badly, and if I later get the chance. I make the leap over stepping stone ten.

I’ve almost landed on stone number eleven when it recedes out of sight under the murky water! I plunge into the lake, the weeds and other growth starting to pull me down as they attach to my body. The book tells me that I lose One Strength. Fucking great... another one down! As I splutter and struggle for air, I reflect on how, if I’d not jumped, I’d probably have been able to stop myself from falling in. Bastard goblin!

Through the glugging of the water in my ears, I hear laughter and see a small raft coming towards me, the grinning face of the goblin looming into view. He pokes me with his paddle and teases it just out of reach, enjoying the spectacle. An idea flashes across my mind, something that might get me out of this. I yell that I’m one of Cragcliff’s bodyguards and that I’ve lost my way. The look of fear that washes over his face is a beautiful thing to behold, well, if your concept of beauty looks like a constipated goblin-face. Then it happens, the thing that I should have predicted. He wants to know the password.

I’d sigh if I wasn’t struggling for air. The book gives me three options as usual, and as usual, I choose the middle one: GARLON. (Sadly, Googling the meaning of GARLON didn’t return any humorous or naughty double entendres as to its meaning, I guess I got lucky with the other password attempt in part two). Wouldn’t you know it, it was the wrong password, yet again! It’s a pity that there wasn’t an option to whisper the password, and when he leaned in closer to hear me, drag him in with me!

The goblin swears at me and calls me a dog as the water drags me below the surface one last time. The little idiot doesn’t realise what I’m doing though. I have a palm to the underside of his raft and slowly pull myself underwater to the opposite side, feeling the clutching strands of vegetation unwind from my legs as I go. I ever so carefully pull myself up and clear of the lake, trying not to tip the rickety thing too much and alert him to my presence. The little thug is too busy craning his neck over the other side, trying to see if I’ve drowned yet. I see red and give him a mighty shove, sending him not just overboard but well beyond the row of stepping stones too.

He squeals like a flying pig that isn’t quite sure why it’s flying. He then squeals like a pig that’s fallen in a lake and can’t swim. Can pigs swim? (Google: Yes they can!) Weariness claims me and I collapse to the deck of the raft. I smile at the sounds the goblin is making and wish him a slow death. The book tells me that the struggle to keep afloat and to not drown has cost me another Strength. I have only two left now. It’s not looking good. On the plus side, my scorched chest feels soothed by the water. I just hope it doesn’t pick up a nasty infection from the algae. It would be just my luck after all. My last thoughts are two in number: I’m not choosing the bloody middle option for passwords or paths any more, and secondly, I really wish I’d strangled that goblin, just like I’d wanted to. I pass out.

That’s where I’ll leave this session, my barbarian unconscious and floating on a small raft in the middle of an underground swamp with a drowning goblin nearby. If this was a TV series, the camera would slowly be pulling up to show more and more of what's around him, which knowing my adventurer’s luck, would be a host of strange creatures circling in for the kill. The music to accompany this would be slow and synth-based, maybe a single deep tone wavering with menace. I quite like the sound of that actually.

***

If you enjoyed reading about my adventure so far, join me again soon for Part Four of my delve into the Caves of Fury, coming out next weekend.

Dark Book Review: The Other Side of the Mirror

Dark Book Review: The Other Side of the Mirror

Review By Casey Douglass

The Other Side of the Mirror is the noir tale of Detective Carl Duggan and his duties in a depraved city. As you might expect, it starts with a body being discovered: a pregnant nineteen-year-old woman found washed up on the banks of the river. It’s not long before other dead bodies are found in other locations, their demise causing much head-scratching for the Detective. If this wasn’t enough, someone also appears to be killing gay men, which adds an extra touch of menace to the already foreboding city.

The first thing that I noticed upon beginning The Other Side of the Mirror, was the appeal of the location it is set in. Not that I’d want to go to a city like that, but the seedy, corrupt bleakness just sets in, even from the very first pages. The river Styx runs through the city, splitting it into two parts: the East and West. The West side is wealthy, the East side run-down and poor. “Poor filth and rich filth, separated by an expanse of ebony water.” The river itself gained its nickname from the number of bodies that have been pulled out of it. A nice touch. Definitely more intriguing than “The River Shopping Trolley” or “Condom Estuary”.

Carl lives on the East side but events see him having to cross the East and West-linking Steel Gate Bridge a number of times, hating it every time he does. He views the East side as more honest in its depravity, and that the West side is just “crime with a more expensive price-tag”. Much like in the real world, money paves the way for a variety of averted eyes and sins being washed away. I enjoyed the split in locations and the parallels to other ‘split’ elements in the story. As much as I enjoyed the city though, and the seeming perpetual snow and ice it was cloaked in, I did get slightly tired of the “Once you come to the city it doesn’t let you leave” vibe. But only slightly.

Carl, as a protagonist, is a Detective not afraid to bend the rules, in no small part due to him being one of only a few who aren’t in someone’s back-pocket, which is ironic if you think about it. He has a decent heart, but doesn’t hold back when violence is needed. He also treats the victims and witnesses of crime with respect, which is more than some of the others do. He balances a lot of spinning plates but ultimately, I think, is ready to let them fall. As the story progresses, things ramp up, and he becomes more disgusted with the city and its residents than ever before.

The denizens of the city are an interesting bunch, from a swashbuckling gang of rich psychopaths to a religious hit-man, but not all residents are steeped in violence. Some are just trying to get by, doing the best that they can in whatever job they are lucky enough to have. Pimping, prostitution and drugs are common, and homelessness too. If people are sometimes up shit creak without a paddle, these unfortunates aren’t even in a boat, and are struggling to keep their mouths above the brown sludge that they are bobbing along in.

As far as the narrative, I enjoyed it. There was enough happening to keep me happily rolling along with events. The chapters are, for the most part, short and punchy, and when things begin to intertwine, a few pennies dropped in my mind. There were things I guessed, others that I didn’t see coming, and the ending I kind of guessed but was only half right, which is a result that I am more than happy with.

The Other Side of the Mirror is an enjoyable noir murder mystery, set in a flavourful location and peppered with degenerate characters and struggling innocents. The action is swift and brutal, the consequences seeding more discontent in an already dire city. If you enjoy noir thrillers in settings like this, you should certainly consider giving this book a closer look.

I was given a review copy of this book.

Book Title: The Other Side of the Mirror

Book Author: Lex H. Jones

Publisher: Hellbound Books