Mistletoe is a plant of deep winter, in that as an evergreen it is most easily seen when it’s deciduous host trees are bare of leaves, so the next few weeks are crucial if you want to see mistletoe. Spotting mistletoe in summer with trees in full leaf is a much more of challenging prospect..more…
The first week of December has now become widely accepted as National Mistletoe Week, a week of education and celebration about the plant Mistletoe. It is no surprise then that Jean Dark’s short piece “How to See Mistletoe” has been published in the 2012 Earth Pathways Diary as the text for this week, the first week of December.
It also feels apt at this point in time to republish this blog posting from February this year, called Walks With Mistletoe.
Mistletoe is a plant of deep winter, in that as an evergreen it is most easily seen when it’s deciduous host trees are bare of leaves, so the next few months are crucial if you want to see mistletoe. Spotting mistletoe in summer with trees in full leaf is a much more of challenging prospect…more...
Steve Moore’s Somnium is a rare and affecting novel where all is not as it seems…finally completed five years ago, drawn from decades of detailed personal dream diaries, the book was published by Mark Pilkington’s Strange Attractor Press …the plot-line is a compelling mobius strip, without formal chapters. As layers of story within story, dream within dream, book within book are built up and burnished, the hard outlines between author, writer and fictional character meld and coalesce…for me, Moore’s prose is exquisite and alluring, swelling with subtlety and suggestion, and it will bear repeated reading.
“May not the stars be plucked and set into a sparkling crown? The tails of comets wove into a scarf that trails all sequinated through the sky?” (from Somnium by Steve Moore)
I say, the curling smoke-ring arabesques of dream-webs may be retted, carded and spun into black thread words on the white virgin sheets of a book. Only to unfurl and unravel again, speechlessly settling inside the moonlight of my imagination. Steve Moore’s novel tells me this much, at least, is possible.
A full version of Jean Dark’s review of Somnium by Steve Moore is printed here and in the Summer 2012 edition of Pentacle Magazine.
Other Book reviews by Jean Dark may be found here
Jean Dark
13th August 2012
Steve Moore’s Somnium is a rare and affecting novel where all is not as it seems…finally completed five years ago, drawn from decades of detailed personal dream diaries, the book was published by Mark Pilkington’s Strange Attractor Press …the plot-line is a compelling mobius strip, without formal chapters. As layers of story within story, dream within dream, book within book are built up and burnished, the hard outlines between author, writer and fictional character meld and coalesce…for me, Moore’s prose is exquisite and alluring, swelling with subtlety and suggestion, and it will bear repeated reading.
“May not the stars be plucked and set into a sparkling crown? The tails of comets wove into a scarf that trails all sequinated through the sky?” (from Somnium by Steve Moore)
I say, the curling smoke-ring arabesques of dream-webs may be retted, carded and spun into black thread words on the white virgin sheets of a book. Only to unfurl and unravel again, speechlessly settling inside the moonlight of my imagination. Steve Moore’s novel tells me this much, at least, is possible.
A full version of Jean Dark’s review of Somnium by Steve Moore is printed in the latest copy of Pentacle Magazine.
Other Book reviews by Jean Dark may be found here
Jean Dark
13th August 2012
Dice & Dysfunctionality by Fay Knight
Published 2010 by Shield Crest Publications
The Role-Player/Pagan crossover is a well known phenomena (See Ann Finnin’s The Forge of Tubal Cain for a real life example) and this debut novel by Fay Knight mines that rich seam with surrealism, dark humour and panache.
The wonderful opening line “Kevin already knew he was going to die” immediately catapults us into the skewed world of the “Dice-Tossers”, as one long-suffering girlfriend describes them.
From there the rapid-fire plot loops and swirls and sweeps unrelentingly through all manner of strange shenanigans; UFOs, swoopy bat-like things lurking in the dark, goth clubs, a lost weekend in Whitby, an Old Dear packing a pistol fired up with the vision of a local tele-evangelist as the anti-christ.
And there’s dragon-porn too. A collection of hand drawn images which “go a bit further than Giger’s artwork” become empowered and manifested by an unspecified and possibly accidental Austin Osman Spare Zos-Kia style sex magic ritual. Knight’s writing leaves everything to the imagination and my mind kept flinging up lurid images from vintage science fantasy paperback covers. Not to mention more terrifying dragon-on-dragon variants.
The book is seamlessly written, and the dialogue is particularly witty and sharp-tongued. Characters seem to emerge progressively, realistically as well-rounded, but not always sympathetic, individuals from the initial homogeneity of a role-player clique. At least, some of them do, one or two remain repellently unfathomable, shady strange secretive huddled and whispering in the corner.
This is an enjoyable read for anyone with an interest in paganism or gaming, you’ll recognise many of the characters among your friends. It would also be an ideal yule gift for any sigil-wielding, dragon-loving dice-tossers you may know.
Better still, give a copy to their girlfriend, who’ll undoubtedly snigger knowingly.
Jean Dark
August 2011
Bella Basura online 