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Catfish Lullaby by AC Wise

Impressions

Not quite reviews, I talk about books I read and enjoyed.

Caleb is a young black boy without a mother who lives on the edge of the swamp in the town of Lewis, down by the Bayou. When he is a boy, he discovers his neighbor’s house on fire and helps to save the girl who set the fire.

It turns out that all is not well in the town of Lewis.

Cere was born to destroy the world. Her father, a sorcerer and erstwhile preacher, was bound and determine to murder a man/spirit/creature/monster named Catfish John. The best way to destroy something bigger than the world was to destroy the world, Archie Royce figured, so according to his daughter he shaped her to do the job.

She was not as keen on it as Archie may have hoped.

In the beginning of the book, Caleb was a boy, trying to piece together truth and fiction, and the definition a monster.

By the end of the book, he has taken his father’s place as Sheriff of Lewis, just in time for the horrors of his childhood, and Cere, to return.

At 110 pages, Catfish Lullaby is a terrorized run through the swamps and out the other side of humanity, where we can see who the monsters are and what they leave behind when their good intentions get twisted by their mission. The world building is strong enough to smell the swamp water without getting bogged down (sorry) in environment. The story is satisfying and solid, and leaves me wanting to hear more about Caleb’s co-worker Rose’s war stories in a future publication.

Catfish Lullaby is available now on the publisher’s site or you can preorder it on Amazon for a September release.

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Day 556: Stairways to heaven

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 556:

I’m practicing building staircases up steep hills, like the one to the south, so that I know how to handle them when I get to the big mountain.

It’s important to build something that won’t just become a giant mud slip zone, or a knot of roots with ankle-breakers in between, or something with loose stones that will slip out of place and take me with it down the side of a mountain.

Plus, I have a ton of leftover stone, and my ability to give a duck about whether I’m spotted died a violent death when I realized that a few days ago I passed 550 days here, which is ridiculous.

SOMEBODY GET ME OFF THIS ROCK.

So yes, climbing  small mountains in practice for big ones, putting stairs down, lighting torches at the top.

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Day 555: sauce

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 555:

I miss barbecue sauce.

I wish I’d learned how to cook before landing on this rock.

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Day 554: practicing on cushions

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 554:

I’m practicing my sewing on making cushions that I can see if I’ve gotten this gut-string right yet. It’s also kind of nice to think I can make something to sit on other than the bed that isn’t literally rock hard.

I’ve got a ton of wood available to make furniture from, and I’m thinking a chair might be nice.

I think this was the kind of stuff my ancestors did over the winter, but so far there’s still no sign of a season change, so unless there’s an extremely long orbit on this rock, it’s not tilted at an angle and the seasons are determined by the latitude and the elevation.

Which would explain the snow on the mountains that are virtually in my backyard, anyway…

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Day 553: making thread

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 553:

I’m trying to make good thread. Most of the “thread” that I’ve made for sewing the mattresses together and things like that have been strips of ducken skin or similar, but it can be challenging to cut the strips thin enough to make them convenient to sew with.

So I’m experimenting with trying to dry ducken intestine to use as a smaller, smoother sewing medium, but so far I suck at it. Either it’s so dried that it’s brittle or it’s not dried enough and it’s kind of gross within a day or two.

So still experimenting. Smellily.