CET Writes

Arras is slipping out of the Guild's control and Cormac Patton needs Adelice to help reestablish order. However, is the price of peace too high? Can she put aside her own personal grievances and let go of her past in order to fight for mankind's future?  This final book in the Crewel World trilogy returns Ad to Arras where she will ostensibly work with Cormac in order to avoid the undoing of existence itself. However, as might be expected Patton is duplicitous, proving that there is no honor among thieves. Unfortunately, this deception not only thwarts the protagonist but also the novel’s plot. Just as she spends too much of this tale mired in the politics of this universe, stymied by her own feelings of inadequacy, and unable to jump start her forward progression, the audience is similarly quagmired in this purgatory of Adelice’s making - hoping for a salvation that is too long in coming and does little to soothe the injuries that were sustained. Unraveled   (Crew...

Book two of the Crewel   World series starts on the exhale as the  audience  realizes that not only has the protagonist's  love triangle escaped to Earth but also that Earth is not the hollow shell that they've been led to believe it to be. Having literally rent the very fabric of her existence,  Adelice is forced to acknowledge the tangled web that comprises her past and future  – finding herself constantly torn between the questionable freedom of Earth and the gilded prison of Arraras, her lover Jost and his brother Erik, as well as her extraordinary potential as a savior and as a weapon. Moreover, she comes to realize that everyone—especially those she loves the most—hides secrets  they would kill to protect. Consequently, Adelice must choose what to fight for.  Similar to its predecessor,  Altered  is extremely engaging after the initial  hundred-page  investment. Furthermore, as this story unfolds, the reader becomes i...

Sixteen-year-old Adelice Lewys has the rare ability to weave the very fabric of her world. Even though her parents have trained her to hide this gift–a treasonous act for which they pay dearly–she doesn’t escape detection. In fact, she is  abducted by the Guild  and forced to become a Spinster, one of the elite cadre of Fates who manipulate the minutiae of everyday life. Entangled in a web of deceit, Adelice must unravel the truth and navigate this dangerous realm in which maiden, matron, and crone live a half-live in Purgatory between all-powerful and powerless.  Although the plot  is  extraordinarily compelling, it ends with a cliff hanger and then arrogantly proclaims “End of Book One.” Not only does Albin assume that her debut novel will be received favorably enough that there will indeed be a complete series, but she also presumes that the reader be willing to continue reading it.    Such arrogance creates an inherent flaw in the narrative; ...

Image from tapatalk.com “Breakdown on the Starship Remembrance” is one of many texts collected in an anthology of P. Craig Russell’s work, titled Isolation and Illusion: Collected Short Stories 1977-1997 . Ironically, Lieutenant Jordon Alexander—who, from an early age, has romanticized space travel—suffers a mental breakdown while serving on the starship Remembrance where “fantasies of Venusian summers and Plutonian nights are replaced by … the ultimate inertia of routine activity” (100).  Alexander steals a shuttle pod and flees to a nearby planet where he finds solace.  Russell’s realistic black and white illustrations allow the reader to empathize with Alexander and symbolize the mind-rending dichotomy that has been his experience with space travel—the actual and the ideal.  Russell concludes with two possible endings—one in which Alexander makes his dreams come true and one in which he abandons them.  “Breakdown on the Starship Remembrance” could serve as a...

Image from amazon.co m “Voyage to the Moon” is one of many texts collected in an anthology of P. Craig Russell’s work, titled Isolation and Illusion: Collected Short Stories 1977-1997 . This is a three part tale of an Earthling who is sucked up by the moon’s gravity well and transported to its surface. Having landed in a lush forest, the adventurer stops to admire a delectable flower, and its mere scent makes him twenty years younger, foreshadowing a society where mores are the opposite of those on earth and youth is more highly prized than age. Shortly thereafter, he is discovered by the race of men who inhabit the planet. Unfortunately, they make sport of him and treat him as an oddity until he encounters a man from the sun who helps him navigate his way through this world. Russell’s simple playful lines and broad color palette render a caricatural depiction of this seventeenth century science fiction novel—with its exotic world and denizens—that complements and extends t...

Image from amazon.com “From Beyond” is one of many texts collected in an anthology of P. Craig Russell’s work, titled Isolation and Illusion: Collected Short Stories 1977-1997. An unnamed narrator recounts his tale of woe in which he returns to the home of Crawford Tillinghast after having been banished. Tillinghast has created a device that allows an individual to detect beings that are ordinarily outside of human perception—a portal to a hyper reality. Upon the narrator’s arrival, Tillinghast subjects him to the experience, and the narrator finds himself preyed upon by the Lovecraftian horrors as not only can he see but he can also be seen. Destroying the apparatus and preventing his own demise, the narrator discovers that Tillinghast has died and escaped the consequences of his actions. Contrasting realism with expressionism and a muted palette with a broad range of vibrant hues, Russell renders Tillinghast and his hyper reality more real than “reality,” leaving the narr...