K.A. Ashcomb's Blog, page 36

Book Review: The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss

This is a mash-up of all those wonderful characters and stories with monsters and superhuman detectives in Victorian-era London. So we have our Jekyll and Hyde, Van Helsing, Rappaccini’s Daughter, Dr. Moreau, Sherlock Holmes, and a hint of Jack the Ripper. Still, this time there’s a strong female cast with interesting characters along with intriguing male actors. The story is about Mary Jekyll and how her mother’s death leaves her penniless, and she has to follow his father’s strange history to ...

Short Story: The Probability of Being an Automaton

It was highly unlikely that the atoms vibrated and sang when the photons hit them so I could come to be. Almost improbable, yet here I am. That probability would have been close to zero if the more significant forces in play with their gravitational fields weren’t pushed in motion. That is how it goes. But I have my doubts if such an event should have ever occurred. I follow predetermined rules, which I have no saying, making me wonder: did equations have a major part in the making of me, but mo...

Book Review: A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature’s Deep Design by Frank Wilczek

The question is, does beauty exist in nature or more so in physics? Frank Wilczek sets to prove it by looking through mathematical, physical, and philosophical theories about the world, starting from Plato and Pythagoras and ending up with his and his colleagues’ postulations about supersymmetry. I’m not sure if to give you an answer or a tip on what beauty means (there, now all of you got it instantly,) as Wilczek gives away the plot in the first pages, but I guess for the sake of tension, I le...

Short Story: Stories of Nonexistence

She passed a man who looked like he had sold his world. She stopped walking and glanced behind at the man, who sat on the bench in yesterday’s clothes and bottle covered with a brown bag. Shit, she thought, taking two more steps onward, but then turning around. She slowly made it to the man, who barely registered her walking there. There they were around the usual morning rush to work, ignored by those who heard nothing past their headphones. She clutched onto her grandpa’s old satchel when she ...

Book Review: Broken (In the Best Possible Way) by Jenny Lawson

I’m not sure where and how to review this book. If you have read Jenny Lawson’s previous books, you know they are hilariously funny stories about her life. Stories that seem unreal because who the heck has lived the life she had (she has.) Broken is a bit different. She addresses her mental health issues in this book and what kind of toll they have taken on her health and life, adding on what they and her other illnesses mean to her family. Don’t get me wrong. There are funny stories included. I...

Short Story: Chasers of Dreams

“Not that one,” she warned me. “Even a tiny piece will kill a man.”

I stepped away from the white mushroom I was about to pick. I kept my anger at bay, trying not to think about using the Destroying Angel against my mother. But if I ever did, she would make me recite the Latin name before even having such thoughts. I said aloud, “Amanita virosa.”

My mother shook her head. “We are not here for them. No client of ours wants to poison their wife, husband, or competitor for now. Look for the l...

Book Review: Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

This novella continues the Murderbot’s saga. It’s a locked-room murder mystery, where Murderbot has to work with annoying humans and a useless droid, and all it wants to do is watch Sanctuary Moon. A well-written side novel to the series. The sixth installment doesn’t really take “the plot” (I don’t think there’s one any longer) forward. It felt more like an amusing story to enjoy while waiting for the elevator to come. That’s the thing. It is that standby tune you listen to while in line to som...

Short Story: Fever

My family presumes I am dead. It is better that way. I cannot go home without putting everyone in danger. It started with a book which arrived at my house. It was supposed to be just another commission to restore, but the more work I put into the pages, the more lost I got. Hours disappeared and then days and weeks, and when I was in the present, I wasn’t sure what I had seen or heard. My sister complained when my phone calls became infrequent. That wasn’t what spooked her the most. It was the b...

Fever

My family presumes I am dead. It is better that way. I cannot go home without putting everyone in danger. It started with a book which arrived at my house. It was supposed to be just another commission to restore, but the more work I put into the pages, the more lost I got. Hours disappeared and then days and weeks, and when I was in the present, I wasn’t sure what I had seen or heard. My sister complained when my phone calls became infrequent. That wasn’t what spooked her the most. It was the b...

Short Story: Hallucinations

She pressed her hands against her ears hard. Still, the sound persisted. It was children screaming, like an echo or muffled memory. She had been hearing it for a week now. Wherever she went, there it was. She had been badly startled at the grocery store when the noise had come back. It was as if it came right behind her. Instead of finding screaming children, there had been a poor unsuspecting customer who had gotten her face full of terror. Now, she stood there on the shaking bus, trying to get...