Yaddith Times

one small step
harder to fill
every year


-- Ann K. Schwader

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

no winners
in cosmic pinball
Asteroid Day

https://asteroidday.org/

-- Ann K. Schwader

after the man
the shadow
Tiananmen


-- Ann K. Schwader

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

Tillinghast: A Novel by Clare Cavenagh

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The initial question behind a certain kind of horror novel is: What if it's real, after all? In the case of Clare Cavenagh's debut novel Tillinghast, that question involves the New England vampire panic of the late 18th-19th centuries. Fueled by the spread of tuberculosis ("consumption") in families, it assumed that living family members were being drained of life by their deceased loved ones. The grim folk remedy involved exhumation, dissection, and sometimes decapitation of the body. This went on until at least 1892, with the well-known Mercy Brown case in Rhode Island.

Cavenagh's vampire -- though he never speaks of himself as one -- is the Reverend Stutley Tillinghast, last survivor (by at least a century) of strict nonconforming Protestant family. Finally returned to his home in Rhode Island after decades of wandering, he is struggling with the current century and terminally depressed. In a series of confessional writings, he lists those he's killed to serve his appetite, rebukes himself for his sins, and recalls his single encounter with the woman who made him what he is. He also tries to maintain the Tillinghast Church, though he lost his faith long ago. Above all, he is deciding how to die.

As he is preparing to burn down his house (and immolate himself), however, he gets a call from an angry hotel owner in town about a sick "young relative" creating trouble and trashing her room. Will he please come collect her? Tillinghast's reluctant decision to do so propels him back toward life. The relative is one Sarah Tillinghast, who bears a strong resemblance to Tillinghast's maker. She may also be his daughter, though the chronology for this is seriously skewed and never explained.

Tillinghast's attempts to help Sarah -- whose symptoms he recognizes all too clearly -- and snippets of Sarah's own viewpoint keep the plot moving, but this novel is weighted heavily toward character. Unfortunately, both Tillinghast and Sarah have oddly muted personalities. Despite their violent actions, they seem almost ambivalent about survival.

More than a vampire novel, but not quite a literary novel, Tillinghast offers fine writing and an intriguing premise. What it did not deliver, at least for this reader, was a coherent and well-paced plot. YMMV, always, and those who prioritize detailed characterization and atmospherics may be well satisfied.

[My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with ARC in exchange for an honest review.]



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saucer tourists
rebooking for Mars
Earth Day


-- Ann K. Schwader

The venerable speculative lit mag Space & Time is turning 60 this year, and I'm happy to announce that I've got a poem in #149!

Available in both print & digital formats, S & T #149 features 6 short fiction authors and 31 poets (just in time for National Poetry Month). Editor-in-Chief is Angela Yukiro Smith, poetry editing is by Linda D. Addison. Full color cover by Kyra Starr. 88 pp.

For more information, or to order:

https://books2read.com/u/b66vA0

If you do order, my villanelle "The Martians We Won't See" is on p. 9.

sisters from the stars
our refugee status
automatic


-- Ann K. Schwader

https://www.internationalwomensday.com/

My new Lovecraftian sonnet "Yuggoth at the Rim" leads off the TOC this time in Spectral Realms No. 24 (Winter 2026). Edited by S.T. Joshi., this venerable journal of weird verse and reviews offers 135 pages of new work by the Usual Suspects & many newer poets in the field, plus two Classic Reprints, one article devoted to Clark Ashton Smith, and two reviews. Perfect-bound with color cover.

For full TOC, or to order:

https://tinyurl.com/3wk49nyr

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I chose to listen to this because I'm a multiple viewer of the movie Bladerunner. I've really enjoyed each viewing (though wasn't at all happy with its sequel), & I figured it was time to try the book. Unfortunately, the book has much less in common with Bladerunner than I'd expected. The movie is a generally well-paced, SF noir adventure. The book . . . is not.

I'd never read/listened to a full-length Philip K. Dick book before, so I suspect I wasn't prepared for his style. What I wound up experiencing was a slow-paced look at Decker's work as an android bounty hunter, his home life, & his relationship with an electronic religion which seems to provide minimal hope in a post-WW III world. The book felt like a very dated future, & the plot meandered a great deal. I did, however, find out about the electric sheep!

I'm not sure who I would recommend this to, but I'm glad to have finally experienced a Philip K. Dick novel. YMMV, definitely.



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The Glowing Hours by Leila Siddiqui

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Although loosely based upon the infamous Year Without a Summer of 1816, when Mary Shelley began her groundbreaking Frankenstein, Leila Siddiqui's dark tale is less historical fiction about Gothic writers than a full-on Gothic novel all its own. Taking its title from Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," it quickly disabuses the reader of any romantic notions about those Glowing Hours. Instead, thanks to the outsider viewpoint of the Shelleys' Indian housemaid -- a gently born Muslim heiress cast adrift in England -- the whole Shelley/Byron/Polidori dysfunction is on full display.

After a framing Prologue (chronologically an Epilogue set in 1858), Mehrunissa Begum (Mehr) begins her journey from protected resident of her uncle's household to struggling domestic servant. Soon enough, she finds herself hired by Mary Shelley and her (possible) husband Percy. Together with their infant son and Mary's half sister Claire Clairmont, they are soon off to Europe to meet with the famous poet Lord Byron.

Anyone familiar with the Romantic poets already knows this is not going to end well. Invited to stay in Byron's rented villa after their own modest cottage begins leaking from the incessant rains, the Shelleys and Mehr find themselves trapped -- literally -- by a house not so much haunted as obsessed.

As Mehr struggles to fulfill her duties, befriend Mary, and keep clear of Byron, events take on a nightmarish cast. Mehr find an unexpected ally in Polidori, Byron's young physician, but neither of them can forestall the full Gothic menu of terrors. Denied inheritances, revenants, scandalous loves, family secrets, and murders -- they're all here, woven through a plotline which sometimes struggles a little to wind up believably. There's a full measure of satisfaction when it does, though.

Readers expecting a strictly historical approach are likely to be disappointed by The Glowing Hours, but those who appreciate mystery, dread, and revisionist approaches will likely lose themselves in these pages. My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.




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