#Weston Ochse

[briankeene]

Monsters of Saipan Update

As my readers and Weston Ochse’s readers know, MONSTERS OF SAIPAN was a collaborative novel the two of us were writing together. We serialized it jointly on our Patreon pages, with the intention of publishing it once the serial was finished.

With Weston’s passing yesterday, I want to give his fans an update on the status of the novel.

The plot of MONSTERS OF SAIPAN was all Weston’s, and the main characters were based on guys he had served with in various capacities over the years, both in the military and as a private defense contractor. This was a story that he wanted to tell, and I was happy to be along for the ride.

Last year, when his health was such that he couldn’t work on the book, we put it on hold (but did not tell the public why). Because the characters were so near and dear to him, I didn’t want to forge ahead, and figured I’d wait until he got better.

This year, when it slowly became clear that the fight he was engaged in was even more serious than we’d thought, we talked about MONSTERS OF SAIPAN some more. He gave me clear instructions on the remainder of the plot, etc. and I gave him my word that I’d finish the book, should the worst happen. But I also insisted that we wait and see. Weston, like Keith Richards, just seemed like an impossible fore of nature, and even in these last few weeks, I secretly expected that he might actually beat this thing.

With his passing, I will keep my word and finish the novel. I do not, however, have access to his Patreon page. And I don’t think it’s right to ask his fans to pay for access to my Patreon just so they can read the serial’s continuation. So, what I’ve decided is that I will finish the novel off Patreon, and then — with Von’s oversight and permission — we’ll sell it to a publisher, so that all of his readers have access to it.

I will need time to read back over his notes, and email and text message exchanges with me regarding the book. Once I’m in the right headspace, I’ll go back to work on it. The book was roughly halfway complete, so I am confident it will be completed by summer of 2024. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

— Brian Keene

[masonhawth0rne]

What I read in April

Each month I like to keep track of what I read and what I thought of it. I used to post these to twitter, then I tried Ko-fi for a while, but I think I'm going to post them here now.

The Stolen Heir, Holly Black ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Kintu, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Kidnapped, Diane Hoh ⭐️⭐️

Overlord, David Wood & Alan Baxter ⭐️⭐️

Child of God, Cormac McCarthy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Walking to Aldebaran, Adrian Tchaikovsky ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Redemption's Blade, Adrian Tchaikovsky ⭐️⭐️⭐️

At the Mountains of Madness, HP Lovecraft ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Initiation, Diane Hoh ⭐️⭐️

The Book of Queer Saints Anthology ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Expert System's Brother, Adrian Tchaikovsky ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Pluto's Republic, David Roochnik (nf) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Twisted Ones, T Kingfisher ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Evil Roots, Killer Tales of Botanical Gothic Anthology ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Shadow Over Innsmouth, HP Lovecraft ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Whisperer in Darkness, HP Lovecraft ⭐️⭐️

Alien: Convenant Origins, Alan Dean Foster ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Alien: Coveant, Alan Dean Foster ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Wendigo, Algernon Blackwood ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Alien III, William Gibson ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Alien: The Cold Forge, Alex White ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Republic, Plato ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Alien: Prototype, Tim Waggoner ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Alien: Isolation, Keith RA DeCandido ⭐️⭐️

A Thief in the Night, KJ Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Dialogues, Plato ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Alien: Into Charybdis, Alex White ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Alien: Infiltrator, Weston Ochse ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Percent, Jon Elofson (ss) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Aliens: Bug Hunt Anthology ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Growing Things & Other Stories, Paul Tremblay ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Babel-17, Samuel R. Delany ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lords of Uncreation, Adrian Tchaikovsky ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

nf=non-fiction ss=short story

stars awarded by vibes alone

[muthur9000]

Weston Ochse talks Alien: Infiltrator and Aliens: Fireteam - Alien Day Special

Weston Ochse talks Alien: Infiltrator and Aliens: Fireteam – Alien Day Special

Join Muthur9000 for a spoiler filled discussion about Aliens: Infiltrator and Aliens: Fireteam! Do not watch this video if you haven’t read Aliens: Infiltrator. If you want to avoid spoilers feel free to watch my interview with Weston from last year’s Alien Day You can find out more about Weston Ochse and his books at https://www.westonochse.com/ You can buy Aliens: Infiltrator at your local…

[beyondthecosmicvoid]

ACID FOR BLOOD

I was the first out, opened the hatch, and as I did, some of their fucking Xeno blood fell onto my hand. Must have been dripping from the ceiling. “The pain was immense. I watched as my hand just turned to liquid and fell away. I remember screaming and falling back inside the carrier. I ordered the driver to put it in reverse and get us the hell out of there. Once we were back in daylight, we got the medics to take a look. The wound had cauterized itself, which was good, but I had no hand. Gone. Just like that. From a few drips of blood. Now imagine what a whole pool of that blood will do to something—do to someone?...”

- ALIEN: INFILTRATOR by Weston Ochse

[a-skirmish-of-wit-and-lit]

Book Review: Bone Chase by Weston Ochse

For me, this was a thriller which lacked the fundamental "thrill." It was neither titillating in action nor was its psychology pulse-climbing in any anticipatory degree. If this book were a heart monitor, it would shoot a succession of flat lines across the screen from beginning to end not because it's dead to rights or anything but because it lacks the peaks of intrigue or tension that one comes to expect from a story about a professed centuries-old coverup. Ethan McCloud, an ordinary man and laid-off math teacher, receives a mysterious box in the mail one day. In it, he finds information espousing a conspiracy about giants who have supposedly roamed the earth in tandem with humanity since Biblical times. (Sounds promising, right?) After his father dies under suspicious circumstances, however, he is tasked with learning, as well as with exposing, the truth about them. Or to die trying. With his ex-girlfriend from college, Shannon "Shanny," in toe, they soon find themselves on the hunt for giant bones and on the run from two secret societies - The Six-Fingered Man and The Council of David - who are determined to keep the real history of giants lidded. Buried. The lengths these two rival factions will go to in order to preserve the secret are exacting not to mention explosive. (Pun intended.) The premise of Bone Chase, like giants themselves, had enormous potential but the narrative itself sputtered its plot, characterization, and suspense like a punctured balloon. The characters were affable enough, I suppose, but they lacked substance. Dimension. Personality. I found Ethan to be mundane to the point of boredom, Shannon "strong and courageous" to the point that she came off like a Badass Tough Girl archetype, and the tertiary characters too insipid for me to care about remembering them. The story suffered from a lack of depth overall. Readers are never afforded a sufficient explanation as to why these "bone hunters" are willingly hurling themselves headfirst into danger to unearth the whole giants-do-exist underground. Nor are we given good reason as to how or why Ethan's father became involved in particular, or why he'd pass the torch to his son after he died. Furthermore, there's little distinction between the two rival factions and what they want. Their justifications for going after bone hunters like Ethan are frail at best, non-existent at worst. Even the giants were a disappointment because the footprints they left behind made no indentation on my imagination at all. They simply...faded into obscurity. I was more than hopeful I could bask in this book's "giant awe" by the time I finished it. Instead, I'm going to have to label it a "giant yawn." Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC in exchange for my review. 1/5 stars

*You can follow me on Goodreads

[tachyonpub]

Tachyon tidbits featuring Nalo Hopkinson, Tim Powers, Brandon Sanderson, and John Picacio

The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web.

Nalo Hopkinson (photo: David Findlay), Tim Powers (Matt Gush), Brandon Sanderson ((Ceridwen via Wikimedia Commons) , and John Picacio

At B&N SCI-FI & FANTASY BLOG, Ceridwen Christensen includes Nalo Hopkinson in 13 Essential #Ownvoices Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels.

The #ownvoices hashtagseeks to remedy this experience gap, pointing out fictions about and from the identities in question. They are, in other words, stories from inside looking out. Heretofore, this hashtag has been largely used to classify young adult fiction. While I can see the pedagogical reasons for this, maybe us olds would be well served by identifying #ownvoices in narratives written for us as well. Science fiction often deals with the alien—the discovery and slow understanding of other cultures, civilizations, and peoples. As such, science fictional or fantastic fiction can be a rich canvas on which to explore the differences that already mark us, stretching our understandings and misunderstandings that much farther. For people who have been marked as other within their own lives, this fictional extremity can be the sort of alienating canvass that resonates.

To that end, here are 13 works that tell stories from the intimacy of cultural identity and the extremity of the SFFnal.

The backstory for Jamaican-born Naolo Hopkinson’s beautifully textured Midnight Robber is almost too complex to sum: a young girl, Tan-Tan, is taken by her disgraced mayor father from the Caribbean-colonized world of Toussaint to the planet’s strange, alternate-universe twin, peopled largely by criminals from Toussaint (like her father). Tan-Tan matriculates under her dad’s rough care in a place where reality is stretchy. There, creatures of Caribbean myth are real, and Tan-Tan grows into a person of lore herself—the Midnight Robber, a sort of Robin Hood who spouts the poetry of the Carib. The language of the novel is a complex patois, something you must lower yourself into slowly, even while it roils. It is a heady mix of the SFFnal and the folkloric.

Jeff Somers, also at B&N SCI-FI & FANTASY BLOG, mentions Tim Powers in 10 of the Scariest Haunted House Books Ever.

There’s something primal about a haunted house story—stories in which a structure that’s supposed to shelter you turns against you. It’s a trope that we keep returning to—this week, Netflix launched a new series based on the classic Shirley Jackson novel The Haunting of Hill House, and the results are truly terrifying (if at a bit of a remove from the book).

Medusa’s Web, by Tim Powers

When their aunt dies, orphans Scott and Madeline return to Caveat, the rotting house they were raised in. Their cousins Ariel and Claimayne still live in the old Hollywood Hills mansion, and still guard the family’s secret—that they are part of a network of old Los Angeles families that use magical, rune-like drawings known as Spiders to travel freely between 1920s Hollywood and the present day, switching bodies with people in the earlier era. Part sci-fi, part the photo at the end of Kubrick’s The Shining, the story explores addiction in ways no one else has ever tried, revving up a horrifying tale of seduction as Madeline slowly falls under the spell of Caveat and the strange, intense pleasures that the Spiders offer, even as Scott becomes increasingly desperate to get them away.

For TOR.COM, Weston Ochse list Five Books About Heroes Who Shouldn’t Babysit Your Kitten includes mentions of Brandon Sanderson’s Kaladin.

Who doesn’t like kittens? Kittens are what cats used to be before the irony of a two-legged universe got to them, making them the moody judgmental purring balls of fur they are today. Kittens are fun. Kittens are daring. Kittens are little evil feline ninjas with razor teeth and spikey claws. Kittens wake up every morning and treat the world like it’s their own personal frat house and the air is spiked with catnip. I love kittens. I also love me righteous protagonists in books and comics. So, I was wondering the other day—I’d trust these folks to save the world, but would I trust them to babysit a kitten?

Who can I trust, then? Having just read Brandon Sanderson’s book The Way of Kings about shards and monsters and bright eyes, his hero Kaladin came to mind. He was a decent warrior and a pretty solid bloke. Except of course for his deep emotional scars and his desire to protect and serve a Tinkerbell-like creature—an Honorspren named Syl. That’s sort of like a kitten, I suppose, except it flies through the air and does some magical stuff, which means it’s really nothing like a kitten. In fact, I could see that damned Spren becoming Butt-Hurt-Spren because of Kaladin’s attention on a new kitten. After all, it’s Syl’s connection to Kaladin that grounds her and makes her able to think clearly, unlike her Windspren cousins, which would definitely make the kitten a threat. One moment Kaladin is petting the kitten, listening to it purr as it rests on a cushion beside him, the next the kitten is being carried to ten thousand feet by the spren who then returns it by dropping it from an impossible height

Mia Araujo interviews John Picacio as part their Artists of Color series.

3). When did you first fall in love with art, and realize that you wanted to pursue it as a career? Did your parents approve or disapprove?

I can't remember not loving it. Comic books are amongst my earliest memories, dating back to first grade. When I was a kid, I don't think I let my mother take a grocery trip without me buying a comic off the spinner rack. Back then, my friend Eddie Moody had this tattered hardcover book called The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer. It featured the original first-issue origin stories of Superman, Batman, The Human Torch, The Flash, The Spectre, Captain America, and so on. I couldn't get enough of that book. Comics led to Star Trek, led to Star Wars, led to more sf/f films and magazines. I've always loved anything related to science fiction and fantasy.

Fast forward to college -- I did a semester in Europe during my third year of architecture school. The first stop of the trip was in London, and one day, I played hooky from the rest of the group and went to Gosh! Comics -- back when it used to be across from the British Museum. The shop owner saw me looking at a poster rack containing original comics art. I stopped cold when I saw a page of original Dave McKean art from Arkham Asylum. There were several more in there, and he took out the pages and let me spread them out on the floor. I just stared at them for a very long time. There was ink, graphite, acrylic and layers of collage everywhere. It was a revelation. At the time I had been discovering graphic novels like Violent Cases and Watchmen -- and the more I kept visiting museums across Europe, the more I knew architecture was not enough for me.

I got my degree and started working as an intern architect out of school, but by night, I wrote, drew, and self-published my own comics stories. Those comics led a publisher called Mojo Press to ask if I would be interested in doing cover art for a Michael Moorcock book. Doing that job was the hook that changed my life. I fell in love with the business and with the process of being a cover illustrator, and my days in the architecture biz were officially numbered. I started living, eating, breathing the business of illustration and kept working to score art jobs, building my portfolio in my off-hours. Five years later, I went full-time as a science fiction / fantasy cover illustrator and I've never looked back.

[comiccrusaders]

REVIEW: DC House of Horror #1

REVIEW: DC House of Horror #1

October brings cooler weather, pumpkin everything, colorful trees, and by the end of the month, blood curdling tales of terror. DC has gotten in on the shenanigans this year with DC House of Horror #1, which brings us eight delicious stories to frighten and delight. Similar to most annual editions, some of the included material is wonderful, but not all tales left me longing for more. Eight…

[weirdletter]

Weird Tales #364, edited by Jonathan Maberry, Weird Tales Inc., November 2020. Cover art by Lynne Hansen, info: weirdtales.com.

Evil space plants, lecherous dragons and the mysteries of the vampire haunt the pages of Weird Tales #364. Weird Tales continues it's 97 year commitment to bringing readers prophetic tales of dark fantasy, cosmic horror, supernatural revenge, and the sorcery of terror. Since 1923.

Contents: “Too Late Now” by Seanan McGuire “Ellende” by Gregory Frost “Hats” by Joe R. Lansdale “Lightning Lizzie” by Marie Whittaker   “Last Days” by Dacre Stoker and Leverett Butts “The Beguiled Grave” by Marguerite Reed   “The Last War” by Linda Addison (Poetry) “To the Marrow” by Rena Mason   “Feathers” by Tim Waggoner   “Trailer Park Nightmare” by Gabrielle Faust   “No One Survives the Beach” by Weston Ochse “The Good Wife” by Lee Murray   “The Canal” by Alessandro Manzetti (Poetry)

[theamazingstories]

Review: Pop the Clutch from Dark Moon Books

Review: Pop the Clutch from Dark Moon Books

A true throwback in genre fiction, Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly Monsters, and Hot Rod Horror transports readers back in time to a culture adored by those who lived it and celebrated by those who followed.

Readers will find a varied blend of wild tales from the spooky occult to the bizarre and unexplained, all set in the 1950’s. A time when drive-in movies and soda joints were the…

[nettirw]

GAK

We recently lost an artist, a friend, an exemplary role model of human kindness. Gak will forever be with us, his work hanging on walls, filling the pages of books, some of his art even tattooed onto skin. His life will always be remembered because he always made ours a little better.

Below are the illustrations he created for The Library of the Dead, one of his final projects. We had future…

[michaelpatrickhicks]

Review: DC House of Horror #1

My rating: 5 of 5 stars After reading five less-than-stellar Halloween-centric anthologies over the last few weeks, plus a hugely disappointing and long-awaited epic novel, I was feeling a bit burnt out on anthologies and prose in general. The time had come to catch up on some comics in the hopes of breaking out of my reading slump, and the title that most appealed to me just so happened to be -- wait for it! -- another anthology. But, fuck it. This is a comic book anthology, and only 80 pages at that (i.e. a quick read, plus a different format). I had high hopes going in, and this thing fucking delivered, giving me exactly what I had wanted in the wake of lingering disappointment and failure from previous anthologies. Working from plots by Keith Giffen, eight horror authors have assembled to script, and in some cases completely flip the script on, DC's most famous characters, putting them through the filter of various horror genre staples. We've got psychotic killers, ghosts, a slam-bang creature feature, and more in these eerie comics and tales to astonish. BUMP IN THE NIGHT by Edward Lee Edward Lee kicks off this anthology in grand fashion, delivering a Superman story that’s quite a far cry from the traditional big blue Boy Scout mainstay of DC lore. Howard Porter’s art serves this alien invasion story pretty well. It’s a bit rough looking and nicely suited for the dark night ahead at the Kent farm. This was a perfect way to open up this House of Horrors, and also serves as a nice warning to readers that these stories will most definitely not be your typical takes on DC Comics superhero icons. 5/5 stars MAN'S WORLD by Mary SanGiovanni Mary SanGiovanni scripts a magnificent and powerful Wonder Woman in a violent story of possession. It’s quick and dirty, and I loved the heck out of it. 'Nuff said. 5/5 stars CRAZY FOR YOU by Bryan Smith & Brian Keene Bryan Smith and Brian Keene pen a fun ol’ story of snapped sanity and a whole lotta murder. Bryan Smith needs to write more Harley Quinn, be it in-continuity or more horror, I don’t care, just get him to do more with this psycho gal. Kyle Baker’s art is a bit more roughly sketched than I usually care for, though, but I think it serves the story nicely, giving illustration to a man's frenetic mind. Good, good stuff right here. 4/5 stars LAST LAUGH by Nick Cutter Nick Cutter writing a Vincent Price-like Batman? Oh sweet baby Jesus, fuck yes. Here, Cutter tackles the psychology of a man dressed like a bat, perpetually chasing a crazy killer clown. Rags Morales does a great job illustrating this descent into madness, and I dug the little touches he and colorist Lovern Kindzierski added to show the differences between the characters viewpoints. 4/5 stars BLACKEST DAY by Brian Keene Brian Keene blazes hell with the Justice League as they square off against an apocalyptic outbreak on Earth while trapped in their Watchtower moon base. It’s a fun, fast-paced story with plenty of carnage. Scott Kolins does a good job with the art duties, and there’s a good amount of guts spilled under his pencils. I've also got a particular hankering from some Keene-written Constantine now, because how awesome would that be? (The answer, by the way, is very. Hint, hint, DC Comics!) 4/5 stars STRAY ARROW by Ronald Malfi In the DC Rebirth, Green Arrow is a self-described Social Justice Warrior. Under Malfi's hand, he's a cold blood pscyho killer, in a city that drives its inhabitants insane. I had expected so much more from this pairing between author and superhero, and I think it could have been a lot better if the story’s femme fatale had gotten more room for development. The premise is dynamite, and I wish there had been more room to deliver on some of the story elements it hints at. Still, it's worth it for the wildly different spin on these familiar faces. 3/5 stars UNMASKED by Wrath James White Holy shit, y'all. A serial killer and a giant monster are tearing apart Gotham in Wrath James White’s story. From the story's opening narration about a victim who has been degloved, I knew I was going to be right at home here. There’s a lot of craziness jammed into a handful of pages, and artist Tom Raney really knocks it out of the park with his delivery of the script's biggest shocker scene. God damn, I loved this one! 5/5 stars THE POSSESSION OF BILLY BATSON by Weston Ochse Words have power and, in Weston Ochse’s script, one word in particular haunts Billy Batson. Howard Chaykin depicts 1970s New York and a punk-rocker-styled Batson with flair, keeping the story’s keyword in both the background, and front and center. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of depth to the story and it ends pretty abruptly. I must admit, though, I am not very familiar with the character in question here, which may have hindered my enjoyment a bit. The saving grace for me was the period-setting and how well rendered it was by Chaykin. 3/5 stars Although I didn't flat-out love every story in DC House of Horror #1, I found all of them to make for a fun reading, and the ones that I loved, I loved deeply. Keene and Company put some truly wonderful and unexpected twists on DC Comics staples, bringing in oodles of darkness, morbidity, and depravity (or at least as much DC has allowed them to get away with. I would absolutely love to see House of Horror continue as a Mature Readers or Vertigo title.). For sheer entertainment value alone, and the consistency of goods delivered throughout,, this one gets a five-star from me. This is the most flat-out fun read of October. View all my reviews

[graphicpolicy]

DC House of Horror #1

Keith Giffen, Brian Keene, Weston Ochse (A) Rags Morales, Bilquis Evely, Howard Porter, Scott Kolins, Dale Eaglesham (CA) Michael William Kaluta RATED T+ In Shops: Oct 25, 2017 SRP: $9.99

An all-new, all-creepy one-shot set in the DC Universe-just in time for Halloween! Martha Kent fights for her life against a creature from a spacecraft that lands in front of her farmhouse. A young woman is possessed by the spirit of a murderous Amazon warrior. The last surviving member of the Justice League faces down a horror beyond imagining. All these and more are what happens when the most exciting new voices in contemporary horror fiction are paired with the talents of some of the greatest artists in the DC firmament! And if that isn’t enough to scare you, there’s Keith Giffen, too.

#gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

DC House of Horror #1 preview. An all-new, all-creepy one-shot in time for Halloween! #comics DC House of Horror #1 Keith Giffen, Brian Keene, Weston Ochse (A) Rags Morales, Bilquis Evely, Howard Porter, Scott Kolins, Dale Eaglesham (CA) Michael William Kaluta…

[muthur9000]

Weston Ochse talks Alien: Infiltrator and Aliens: Fireteam - Alien Day Special

Weston Ochse talks Alien: Infiltrator and Aliens: Fireteam – Alien Day Special

Join Muthur9000 for a spoiler filled discussion about Aliens: Infiltrator and Aliens: Fireteam! Do not watch this video if you haven’t read Aliens: Infiltrator. If you want to avoid spoilers feel free to watch my interview with Weston from last year’s Alien Day You can find out more about Weston Ochse and his books at https://www.westonochse.com/ You can buy Aliens: Infiltrator at your local…

[beyondthecosmicvoid]

THE PATHOGEN ON the XENO CYCLE

Hypothesis #1: The pathogen, when irradiated and injected into the Ovomorph, will positively affect the Xenomorph morphology. Hypothesis #2: The pathogen, when irradiated and injected into the human host, will adversely affect the Xenomorph morphology.

- ALIENS: INFILTRATOR by Weston Ochse

[morbidloren]

It’s alive! Tales of Nightmares went on sale today. My newest book collects stories by Alison J McKenzie, Angel Leigh McCoy, Bill Bodden, E.S. Magill, Jennifer Brozek, Lisa Morton, Yvonne Navarro, and Weston Ochse. Need a chill to cool off your summer? I’ve got you covered! https://www.instagram.com/p/CgCojIGp3FC/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[paulsemel]

While this is a good time to look for magic in the world, I like to find it in books...in which people weaponize it [insert evil laugh here]. Which brings me to my exclusive interview with Weston Ochse, author of the military fantasy novel "A Hole In The World." 📖🧙🪄