News Ahsoka Ahsoka Season 2 Is Still Almost a Year Away Thrawn’s campaign will continue … later By Molly Templeton | Published on May 13, 2026 Image: Disney+ Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Disney+ You want the good news or the bad news first? The bad news: Ahsoka season two isn’t coming until 2027. The good news: That’s a release window! A real live release window! Specifically, according to Deadline, season two of Ahsoka will arrive on Disney+ in “early 2027.” Which is more information than we’ve gotten on the series in a hot minute. The end of the show’s first season saw Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) and Sabine (Natasha Liu) briefly reunited with the long-missed Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi)—but then Ezra snuck onto the ship of Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen), and Ahsoka and Sabine were stuck on a really, really distant planet. They weren’t alone: one of the first season’s final shots was of Baylan Skol looking out over said planet and its interesting rock structures. His apprentice, Shin (Ivanna Sakhno), is also around somewhere. Skol was played by the late Ray Stevenson; Game of Thrones’ Rory McCann is stepping into his shoes for the second season. Deadline also notes that Admiral Akbar will show up, and Hayden Christensen will once again appear as Ahsoka’s Jedi Master, Anakin Skywalker. Everyone will be drawn into battle with Thrawn, one supposes, as the oh-so-clever admiral plots to restore the Empire. Also, if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get some more space witches. And there’s still the slight mystery of Thrawn’s right-hand man and his odd mask. While you wait for Ahsoka, might I suggest a rewatch—or watch, if you’ve not yet experienced it—of Star Wars Rebels? Yeah, it provides some backstory for Ahsoka, but it’s also simply the best.[end-mark] The post <i>Ahsoka</i> Season 2 Is Still Almost a Year Away appeared first on Reactor.

Column Science Fiction Film Club Altered States: Bad Trips, Dodgy Science, and the Untapped Depths of the Human Mind Ken Russell, an isolation tank, and some powerful hallucinogens—what could go wrong? By Kali Wallace | Published on May 13, 2026 Credit: Howard Gottfried/Warner Bros. Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Howard Gottfried/Warner Bros. Altered States (1980) Directed by Ken Russell. Written by Paddy Chayefsky (under the pseudonym Sidney Aaron). Starring William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, and Charles Haid. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve written about a movie inspired by research conducted in the 1950s at the National Institute of Mental Health, I would have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it is strange that it’s happened twice. Twice so far, that is. There may well be more NIMH-inspired films out there. Back in the mid-’50s, right around the time John B. Calhoun was starting to use rats as a way of studying population dynamics in research that would later inspire the children’s book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and subsequent Don Bluth film The Secret of NIMH (1982), another NIMH researcher was embarking on a very different sort of study that would go on to inspire a very different sort of movie. That other researcher was physician and neuroscientist John C. Lilly. If you’re thinking, “Haven’t I heard that name somewhere?” let me clear it up for you: He was the guy who gave dolphins LSD and spent years trying to prove they could learn to talk to us. As part of that research, Lilly arranged for volunteer Margaret Howe Lovatt to live in complete isolation with a bottlenose dolphin for two and a half months, an experience which is infamous in history and pop culture for other reasons. (I spent like five minutes trying to figure out if that link, which is to an article in The Atlantic, needs a content warning. Note to editor: Is this the kind of website where mainstream news articles about sexual encounters between humans and dolphins require warnings? Well, consider this a heads up, at least.) Before he became interested in dolphins, however, Lilly spent some time doing research at NIMH, looking for a way to isolate the human brain from external stimuli. What he came up with was the first isolation tank; he used himself as one of the early experimental subjects. Lilly was one of the many neuroscience researchers in the early ’60s who discovered the joys of psychoactive drugs (although he was perhaps the only one who gave psychoactive drugs to dolphins). Lilly would spend the rest of his life and career exploring the sort of metaphysical, spiritual, and pharmaceutical experiences that lead to people making sweeping claims about expanding their consciousness and reaching higher levels of awareness and all that stuff. Among Lilly’s drug-taking research counterparts in the counterculture heyday of the ’60s and ’70s was Timothy Leary, the Harvard psychologist who pioneered research into the therapeutic uses of psilocybin mushrooms. Leary became interested in mushrooms after using them during a trip to Mexico in 1960. When he returned to Harvard, he and his colleague Richard Alpert began a series of experiments into the effects of psilocybin mushrooms, using themselves, their grad students, divinity students, and prisoners as experimental subjects. Their psilocybin research at Harvard was eventually shut down after a series of controversies. The exact reasons depend on who you ask, but seemed to have included genuine concerns about shoddy research design, lack of precautions, and inappropriately pressuring students into study participation, as well as the broader political panic about drug usage that would eventually lead to psilocybin being made illegal in the U.S. with the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 and the start of the catastrophically ill-conceived War on Drugs. (The tide has shifted and the trend in many places is now toward decriminalizing psilocybin, in large part because of its therapeutic uses.) Fast-forward a few years to the mid ’70s. Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, who had just finished working on Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976), was looking around for a new movie idea. Network was a bleak satire about the deteriorating mental health of a television news anchor; it was also an unqualified success both commercially and critically and would earn Chayefsky his third Academy Award. While contemplating ideas for his next screenplay, Chayefsky became interested in the work of those controversial psychanalysts and researchers of the ’60s and ’70s, and that’s how Altered States was born. Chayefsky wrote up a treatment, then turned that treatment into a novel. The book version of Altered States was published in 1978, but it was always intended to be a precursor to the screenplay. I haven’t read the book; chime in below if you have! Chayefsky had long maintained an unusual amount of creative control for a screenwriter, which came to include agreements in which the director would not be permitted to change any of the dialogue and Chayefsky would be present on set during filming. That was the arrangement during the production of Network, and it seems to have worked, as Chayefsky and director Sidney Lumet were good friends who collaborated well. The same would not be true of Altered States. Lumet was the first director considered for Altered States, but he passed to work on something else.The first director brought on for the film was Arthur Penn, who is primarily known for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), one of the first films of the sexier, grittier, more violent, post-studio New Hollywood era. Penn was the one who cast then-unknown actor William Hurt in the lead role. But disagreements with Chayefsky led to him leaving the film. About the disagreements Penn said, “It was fine with me that Paddy had approval over the script and any changes, but for him to veto what I was doing, or to intervene in areas where he wasn’t knowledgeable or even competent, was wrong. Set and camera angles, my ass…” Penn’s annoyance was a harbinger of things to come. It’s not entirely clear how many directors were approached to take over, but it sounds like Chayefsky and producer Howard Gottfried talked to everybody and their brother about the film. Gottfried finally suggested Ken Russell, a controversial and eclectic British director known for the critically acclaimed D.H. Lawrence adaptation Women in Love (1969), the censored and banned NC-17 religious thriller The Devils (1971), and the musical Tommy (1975), based on The Who’s rock opera album of the same name. Russell had never worked in Hollywood before, but on paper he wasn’t a bad choice for a film that would feature surreal, psychedelic sequences in between long sections of heady academia-speak. However, it quickly became apparent that he and Chayefsky were not going to get along. They were at each other’s throats before the film even moved out of rehearsals, and maybe even from their very first meeting. Apparently Russell called his wife immediately after the introduction and said, “I can’t work with this man. He’s a complete egomaniac.” To which she replied: “Then you should get on just fine.” To put it bluntly, they hated each other. Chayefsky’s friends tended to blame Russell entirely for the strife on set—especially after Chayefsky’ death in 1981—but word from people on the production was more mixed. Russell claimed Chayefsky was unbearably nitpicky and meddlesome: “He didn’t like the colour of the paint on the isolation tank. Then it went on to other things. He didn’t like the lighting, then he didn’t like the machinery, then he thought I was making the actors appear drunk in a scene where they were written to be slightly tipsy in a bar.” Honestly, it sounds like they were both difficult to work with, leading to one of those classic Hollywood feuds in which big egos clash, making it everybody else’s problem. Chayefsky, who was in failing health at the time, was soon fed up. After Russell banned him from the set, he tried to get the studio to bring on another director. But the studio wasn’t about to go through that search again (possibly because dozens of directors had already said no), so Chayefsky left the production and disavowed the film. That’s why the film credits the screenplay to “Sidney Aaron,” which is Chayefsky’s first and middle name. In early 1981, shortly after the film came out, Chayefsky said, “I haven’t seen the picture and I intend to go on not seeing the picture so that when people ask me what I think about it I can tell them I haven’t seen it.” It was the last film he wrote. He died later that year. All of that drama for a film about a guy who takes so many drugs he regresses into an ape. Because that’s the plot of the movie. We’re all clear on that, yeah? I could go through a whole plot summary, but it’s really very straightforward. There under all the academic patter about human consciousness and esoteric scientific jargon and ’70s name-dropping and images of crucified seven-eyed Jesus goats, this is a movie about a man who takes so many drugs he regresses into an ape, then runs around Boston naked while being chased by wild dogs (because apparently in the ’70s Boston had roving packs of wild dogs). The guy is Eddie Jessup (William Hurt), who is basically a combination of Timothy Leary and John C. Lilly. (Leary and some of his contemporaries are mentioned by name in the movie by one of Jessup’s colleagues; I didn’t catch whether Lilly was explicitly mentioned.) Eddie wants to expand his consciousness and discover his true self, whatever that means, so he uses sensory deprivation tanks and psychoactive mushrooms to experiment on himself, much to the consternation of his wife, Emily (Blair Brown), and his colleagues Arthur and Mason (played by Bob Balaban and Charles Haid). Two cast-related fun facts: 1) Brown would later play another sensory deprivation tank-adjacent sci fi role in the excellent TV show Fringe. 2) One of the Jessup’s young children, who appears only briefly, is played by Drew Barrymore in her film debut. Chayefsky spent a lot of time studying the people conducting this sort of research in the ’60s and ’70s, and it shows. The wordy, jargon-filled script does a fantastic job both capturing and lightly skewering the intense, self-important way academics too deep in their own studies talk. This is most apparent in the fact that Eddie Jessup is a complete jackass. He’s so annoying. He’s wallowing in hubris and intellectual superiority. Imagine being stuck at a party with that guy! If you’ve been to grad school, you already know what it’s like. He turns every single conversation topic back to his own research, and his research is getting high to prove he experiences a more authentic world than everybody around him. When Emily says she loves him, he responds by talking about his research. When his experience with the ritual in Mexico doesn’t grant him the life-altering revelation he’s hoping for, he throws a tantrum and blames the Indigenous people who invited him to participate. He is constantly talking to the people around him, but he never listens to anything they say. He sleeps with his students. He’s insufferable—which makes him a great character. Because he’s making all these scientifically unsound, medically unwise, and ethically questionable decisions in his purported search for the origin of human consciousness, and we want to see where it leads. His first experiences are confined to his mind, as he sees himself observing then becoming part of a primordial hominid hunt in a sort of genetic memory. Over time, those experiences begin to manifest outwardly in changes to his body and behavior even when he’s not drugged up in the isolation tank. That’s what leads to Eddie’s experiments bursting out into the real world, as he spends one wild night as an ape-man terrorizing security guards, zoo animals, and the aforementioned wild dogs of Boston. (That’s not William Hurt’s naked ass under the hairy ape makeup, incidentally. Primordial Ape Eddie is played by dancer Miguel Godreau.) How interesting one finds Altered States is, I think, somewhat dependent on one’s tolerance for engaging with the imagery of drug-induced hallucinations and the quasi-profundity of an earnest search for depth and meaning in what they offer. Those images are one element Russell and Chayefsky argued about, as Russell didn’t think it was possible to portray the nebulous, intangible things Chayefsky had written. So he went with the seven-eyed Jesus goat instead—which is, to be fair, a great image. Even so, it’s almost a relief the first time Eddie comes out of the tank with blood on his face, because it signals film is breaking out of the hallucinogenic realm and into something more tangible. The inside of one man’s mind can only carry us so far; when it turns into blood and body horror we can go a bit farther. In a 2025 essay for the Criterion Collection, film critic Jessica Kiang describes Altered States as “a dippy, delirious Rube Goldberg machine” and goes on to state the film “walks a tightrope between pretentious self-seriousness and outrageous flippancy,” two descriptions that I think are absolutely spot-in. It’s both heavily serious and completely batshit. Chayefsky and Russell may have been egomaniacs who hated each other’s guts, but the combination of the latter’s script with the former’s visual style is really something to behold. I don’t quite agree with Kiang that Altered States is “tremendously exciting” to watch, but I think it’s visually striking and charmingly weird. I also think the delirium is sometimes a bit too dippy, and the “man learns to say ‘I love you’” ending a bit too clean. (It doesn’t help that characters devolving into more primordial forms always makes me think of Star Trek: Voyager’s“Threshold” and, well, once you start thinking about “Threshold” you can’t take anything seriously.) Watching a character go to such extremes to find something he can’t even seem to articulate is interesting, but in the end, I find myself agreeing with what Emily says early on in her relationship with Eddie: “You’d sell your soul to find the great truth. Well, human life doesn’t have great truths.” It does, however, have weird movies for us to enjoy, and that’s good enough for me. What do you think of Altered States? What do you think about its version of exploring the power of human consciousness? Were there really packs of wild dogs roaming Boston in the ’70s? Next week: We’re shifting our mental gears from consciousness-expanding pharmaceuticals to mind-controlling hypnotism with Robert Wiene’s Expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. It’s over a hundred years old and in the public domain in the U.S. so you can find it online in many places, including numerous uploads on YouTube and the Internet Archive.[end-mark] The post <i>Altered States</i>: Bad Trips, Dodgy Science, and the Untapped Depths of the Human Mind appeared first on Reactor.

Books cover reveals Read the First Two Chapters of Death in Verse by Julie Lew A dark academia mystery arriving fall 2026 By Reactor | Published on May 13, 2026 Photo credit: Monte Simard Comment 0 Share New Share Photo credit: Monte Simard When Bronte Cade’s mother vanishes, the only clue she leaves behind is an invitation to a retreat for magical poets… We’re thrilled to share the cover and preview an excerpt from Julie Lew’s Death in Verse—available September 22, 2026 from Union Square & Co. The first ferry of the new term arrives in six days. Let us hope it finds you alive and well.When Bronte Cade’s mother vanishes, the only clue she leaves behind is an invitation to a retreat for magical poets. Determined to find answers, Bronte attends in her mother’s place by masquerading as the esteemed Dr. Sappho Cade.​But when Bronte arrives at the Radley School of Poetry, she finds the island abandoned—save for six other confused poets, one line of an unfinished poem, and an anonymous host who issues a chilling ultimatum through an enchanted gramophone: complete the spell, and they may return home on the next ferry. Fail, and they die.​There’s another problem: Bronte isn’t magical.​With escape impossible, the body count rising, and her mother still missing, Bronte forms a wary alliance with the infuriating yet brilliant Marlowe Fang. Together, they race to unmask their host before Bronte is exposed—or worse, the next victim.​But beneath the host’s sinister scheme lies an even more insidious plot, one decades in the making. It bleeds beyond the shores of Radley like an ink stain, and no one’s hands are clean. Least of all the people Bronte trusts most. Cover illustration by Marcel Bolivar; Design by Jill Turney CHAPTER 1 December 28, 1920 Bronte drops her tattered suitcase before the rust-speckled boat at the end of the pier. No more than a large uncovered rowboat with an engine jerry-rigged to it, it cowers before the waves engorgingthemselves on the thrashing rain. This must be it. No other boat bobs at the mercy of the raging Atlantic. No other skipper in black oilskins slouches nearby. Someone at the Radley School—which reportedly spares no expense in educating the next generation of magic-wielding poets—could have put in a little more effort when arranging tonight’s transportation to the island. The skipper extracts his cigarette from his clenched teeth and feeds it to the ink-black water. Bronte sucks in a breath as he steps toward her, the stale scent of brine wrapping around her. White gnarled whiskers spill from his scarred face, his eyes buried beneath his hood. “Yer Sappho Cade?” “Yes,” Bronte stammers, swallowing back the acid creeping up her throat. The first lie, she tells her galloping heart, is the hardest. She scours the pockets of her raincoat and presents the invitation addressed to her mother, throwing in a scowl she hopes will sharpen the curve of her round cheeks and give her the world-weary air of someone much older than seventeen. The man isn’t paid enough to care. Instead, he hoists her trunk onto the back of the rickety boat before offering her a hand. Bronte refuses, lest the tremor of her own betray that she doesn’t belong any-where near an elite magical school. The thud of her landing on the deck sends a shiver down the craft. Fear tightens its fingers across her chest as she spots two other passengers on the boat’s narrow benches. More people to poke and prod at her flimsy alias. The young woman—surely no more than a handful of years older than Bronte—keeps her back to her, but the elderly gentleman flashes a half-formed smile, which she takes as invitation enough to slip into the gap beside him. As the engine sputters to life, Bronte wonders why the skipper doesn’t power his vessel by magic. A quick verse uttered before casting off would be easy enough. She supposes, at least. The craft careens into the open waters, obeying the whims of the hostile wind more than the hiccupping engine or the sea-battered skip-per. Enraged waves breach the sides and scurry across the deck, slithering up Bronte’s stockings and pooling at the bottom of her brown leather boots. What the ocean leaves untouched, the rain finds, pawing at the front of her dress and soaking everything but the suffocating dread eating away at her. Because—it wriggles into the crevices of her mind—what if this is all for nothing? What if you never see her again? Bronte yanks the collar of her coat up to cover her face—a meager defense against the storm, but it affords her the privacy to study her fellow passengers. Calm, rational thought to drown out the fearful whispers. By the scant light of the boat’s sole lantern, she spies a sliver of the other girl’s profile across from her. Her dark curly hair is pinned into a low, prudent bun that huddles beneath the shallow rim of a red cloche hat. Sharp eyes survey the horizon, though the night offers nothing but violent rain and vicious fog. Magic is fickle like the wind, or so her mother’s drivel goes. It touches whom it pleases, discriminating against no one. This dark-skinned girl before Bronte seems to prove her mother right. Even though the Consortium, self-proclaimed “enlightened” organization it is, permitted women to legally practice magic only fifty years ago. Poetry may not discriminate, but poets do. The white man beside her bounces a soggy volume of verse on his jittery knee, a leathery finger tucked in its pages to hold his place. The doddery type of academic she assumes litters Radley’s classrooms. “I see you came armed.” She nods at the book. “What kind of dinner parties do you usually attend?” The start of a laugh creases his mouth, not quite powerful enough to reach his tired eyes. “Guilty as charged. I’m Ambrose, by the way.” Bronte’s name catches in her throat. Best to wait and reveal the truth once she’s inside Radley. When it’s too late to slam the door in her face. Though she’s had the lie prepared for weeks now, her stomach still drops into free fall. “I’m Sappho.” See? The second lie’s not so bad. “Sappho.” The name trickles off Ambrose’s tongue, like he is test-ing it and matching it to her face to see if they fit. Sweat blooms in her knotted fists. If he asks what work she does for the Consortium, could she concoct something convincing? If he asks about their host, how fast would she trip over her words and confess she doesn’t even know his name because the invitation in her pocket is unsigned? “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Ambrose says at last, granting Bronte the ability to breathe once again. The girl across from them keeps her gaze fixed on the night, preferring to remain a mystery. Bronte embraces the silence that seizes the boat as the Atlantic lashes at them, its black waters as smudged and turbulent as the stormy night sky. We’ll be at the dinner party soon enough. The thought sinks inside her like a stone, dragging the tattered remains of Bronte’s composure with it. Introductions can’t be avoided. One glance at her and their host would demand an explanation. But she’d make demands too. To a room full of poets—her mother’s Consortium colleagues, her fellow faculty at Radley. What did you do to her? Her plan was born from desperation, but she has exhausted all other leads. Her inquiries are wasting away at Consortium headquarters, collecting dust in a filing cabinet or wastebasket. Her letters left unanswered. Phone calls met with dial tones or excuses. “Dr. Sappho Cade is away on a business trip,” a man’s shrill voice buzzed over the line. “For four weeks without telling her daughter?” Bronte flared up. “I’d know.” The man drew in a skeptical breath and hung up. Bronte even bit the bullet and headed to her mother’s studio apartment on the Upper West Side. She dug out the key from the bot-tom of her school satchel, discarded there months ago after Sappho insisted she take it. She wrinkled her nose as the lock clicked open, the stale air inviting her into her mother’s lair. Her home away from the real home they shared, tucked away from the bustle of city life. Her mother’s apartment adhered to the Spartan minimalism beloved by single women married to their careers. One frayed arm-chair, older than the building itself, performed the duties of an absent sofa. The pantry door squealed on its hinges to reveal no food inside. The pipes screamed as she forced the sink on, brown water voiding into the drain before anything approaching drinkable dribbled out. There was a cot for sleeping, one plate and one set of utensils for eating, a lone tin mug for drinking, and a table whose legs wobbled. On this, she found the invitation, requesting her mother’s presence at a poetry retreat and private New Year’s Eve party for the Radley School’s most distinguished faculty and alumni during winter break. Because her mother didn’t have the decency to warn her before dropping off the face of the planet, here Bronte is, risking death on this infernal boat and regretting passing over her thick woolly stockings for these ridiculous silk ones she deemed festive. Who is she trying to please, anyway? Surely not a party of pompous poets. The boat crests a wave and crashes back into the murky abyss. Bronte clutches the bench to remain seated, a prayer passing through gritted teeth. Let this be for something. Please. She doesn’t know what else to do if tonight leads to yet another dead end. Where else to look for her mother. The acid in her belly churns, clawing for a way out. Please let me find her. Craggy cliffs pierce the fog, and the girl across from Bronte stiff-ens as Baron Rock’s pine-dotted silhouette emerges from the night’s shroud. A hint of ash tinges the storm-laden air, a residue of magic Bronte is well familiar with. The musty smell has forever coated her mother’s clothes. Panic surges against her rib cage. For goodness’ sake, she’s less than three hours from home, not in some foreign realm. No matter what the Consortium would have her believe. What better way to study poetry than by isolating yourself on a remote island for eight years? Something to that effect appears in every advertisement for the school. Not that Radley needs much advertising. The rate at which it funnels graduates into coveted Consortium positions ensures thousands of applications flood the school every year. But what would Bronte know of that? Normies never touched Baron Rock’s shores. Never crossed Radley’s threshold. Fast approaching the weathered dock on the desolate beach that leads to her mother’s broken dreams for her, Bronte wonders if she should turn and run back to her own life. Chapter 2 Bronte jumps to the dock and squints through the rain-laced fog at the monstrous outline of the mansion perched on the island’s highest cliff. Its lights extinguished, she’s barely able to carve out its silhouette from the storm and shadow around it. No one seems tohave told the place it’s about to host a party. A string of fairy lights, their weak glow winking in sporadic spasms, twists up the thread-thin staircase leading to the school’s entrance. In all honesty, Bronte expected a little more fanfare. To be a smidge more impressed, considering her mother’s endless praise of Radley. The skipper tosses their trunks onto the soaked sand, the boat’s motor still whirring as if it might need to make a quick escape. “When will you return?” Bronte yells above the roaring waves. She has no intention of spending a single second longer than necessary here. He shrugs. “You’re the last boat of the night.” “But you will be back?” Bronte’s mysterious travel companion shouts. The boat merely slips back into the fog. “Fantastic.” The girl’s vexed sigh mirrors Bronte’s. “A true Radley welcome.” The trail of steps crawling up the scraggly cliff fades into the gloom above them and sets Bronte’s head spinning. She grimaces at her frayed suitcase with its finicky handle. Ambrose catches her gaze. “I’m sure there’s staff inside to help.” In lieu of an absent handrail, he grasps the side of the cliff as he begins the ascent. “How I did not miss this climb.” Setting her suitcase down, Bronte digs her fingernails into the rock face, muddy rain streaking down her hands. Answers better await her at the top of these hellish stairs. After the first few creaky, slippery steps, her calves cramp and sweat drenches the inside of her coat, despite the bite of the December storm. If she had been warned of her mother’s imminent disappearance and the physical exertion required to find her, she would have scrapped her physics textbooks and run a lap or two to prepare. How do hundreds of students come up and down these stairs each semester and not get swept into the ocean? The school no doubt prided itself on its natural, “unrefined” setting inspiring heaps of magical verses, while demoting safety to the bottom of its priorities. Bronte tries to imagine her mother climbing, sweating, and holding on to jagged rocks for dear life as she probes the darkness before her for the next step. She can’t. Her mother knows these stairs and the house stooped above them well. Certainly better than the home she ditched Bronte in. Mom can be home by New Year’s. She goads herself to take the next step, and then the next. As long as you scale this cliff. Ahead, Ambrose’s shape vanishes from view, and Bronte realizes he’s reached the top. The promise of relief spurs her burning legs faster. The stairs at last give way to slick mud snaking a treacherous path to Radley. Hanging, unlit lanterns squeal in the wind on either side of the school’s massive arched door. Bronte catches the flash of worry on Ambrose’s face, but it disappears in an instant. “You don’t think this is a—” She breaks off. What does she think it is? A joke? A trap? Laid for her missing mother, who was smart enough to steer clear of Baron Rock, so it ensnared her foolish daughter instead? She could picture her mother shaking her head. Darling, whatever did you think you could do? “Is one of you the host?” A sandy?haired man stomps from around the side of the school, hunkering beneath the tweed jacket he holds above his head. “We’re guests,” Ambrose replies. “Is someone from Radley here?” Rain spatters the man’s gold-rimmed spectacles, but Bronte can feel his glare. “The place is deserted and cold as a tomb.” He darts beneath an eave of the house and shakes his sopping coat. “A fuse blew, and of course only I knew where the box was. Honestly, I bet they were all lying so I’d have to do all the work.” The man frowns at her. His brown argyle vest, dripping wet trousers, and mud-speckled oxfords screech, I am a poet and therefore better than you. No, Bronte prods herself. Until someone tells the group otherwise, she, too, can write magic. Her disguise as a competent poet, as her mother, might be the one thing keeping her ragged nerves stitched together. Calm, rational thought. Her mother’s reprimand washes away some of the fear. “There must be an explanation inside.” Her boots squelch in the muck as she approaches Radley’s front door. The man snorts but follows Bronte and her traveling companions. “No one else could find anything, but sure, take a stab at it.” The door leaps open at Bronte’s timid push, shepherding them into an entryway bedecked in dark wood paneling and a blood-red rug spilled across the waxed floor. A chill grips Bronte, settling into her bones. Two poets bicker in urgent whispers at the foot of a giant stair-case. They glance up as the front door bangs shut. The ill-tempered man steps around Bronte with a sniff. “Lights are working.” “Thank you, Percy,” one of the duo, a boy sporting thick spectacles that enlarge his eyes like an owl’s, says. “Are you three more guests?” Beside Bronte, Ambrose nods. “No party, I see.” The two both shake their heads. Their eyes roam about the room in the same methodical manner before finding their way back to one another that Bronte assumes they must be related, or at least close. But while the owlish boy is robust and assured, his friend is not, with a lean, angular face, crowned by an explosive shock of shoulder-length black hair. “Perhaps we’ve been forgotten?” Ambrose extracts his damp invitation from his jacket pocket, his brows furrowing as he scans it. “Radley wouldn’t forget us,” peevish Percy retorts, offended on the school’s behalf. “It does seem unlikely,” a calm voice agrees. An elderly white lady with silver-streaked chestnut hair, half-moon glasses, and a pink shawl draped over her shoulders enters from an adjoining room. The quintessential grandma, Bronte thinks. “I have a fire going in the common room,” the woman adds. “I thought we could use a good defrost.” “So we just make ourselves at home?” The mysterious girl from the boat eyes the school warily. “Something’s off, and we should get the hell out of here.” “Ah,” Ambrose sighs, “but didn’t the skipper say we were the last boat?” Calm, rational thought. Calm, rational thought. Bronte breathes the reminder in and out. “I guess we’re stuck here and should decide what we’re going to do,” the owlish poet says matter-of-factly, though his fingers toying with the cuffs of his shirtsleeves betray his nerves. The elderly woman nods. “We could at least see if there’s dinner.Nothing good can be decided on empty stomachs.” As the lone stranger to the school, Bronte lags behind, following the swarm down the main hallway. Newfangled electric bulbs nestled in wall sconces light their path, flaunting the deep pockets of Radley’s funding. Bronte’s own normie school is still penny pinching to con-vert their two-room schoolhouse to electricity one day. Ambrose breaks the oppressive silence by clearing his throat. “I’m Ambrose Hurst. Class of… well, too many years ago to admit without a blush.” Behind him, Percy straightens his posture and turns to face the group, chin hoisted high. “Percy Barrett. Consortium auditor. Main branch.” A cocktail of hope and fear gurgles in Bronte’s stomach at the mention of her mother’s office. “Agatha Plath.” The elderly lady continues the chain of introductions. “A former nurse now enjoying retirement.” The owl-eyed poet jumps in next. “Eliot Fang. I’m also an auditor but in District Three.” Bronte tries to recall the district map in her mother’s home office. If she’s not mistaken, that’s out in the countryside. While Percy at headquarters would deal with the poetry-related offenses of spell writers in primarily corporate and governmental positions, Eliot must mainly investigate farmers’ illegal uses of magic. “Didn’t realize they hired you lot now,” Percy mutters. “First colored people, and now Orientals. Who’s next?” He wilts under the scathing glare of Eliot’s companion. “Not saying it’s a bad thing. Just pretty damn open-minded of the Consortium.” Eliot’s friend arches a scornful brow but doesn’t continue the introductions. As Ambrose leads them through the bowels of Radley, all eyes hover on the mysterious poet Bronte traveled with. The girl sighs. “Freya Blake. Not one of the colored people blessed to be chosen by our open-minded Consortium. I don’t practice magic.” A doddery old man, a pompous braggart, a retired nurse, a spell writer supervising farmers, and now a nonpracticing poet. Are these people truly all of Radley’s top graduates? Everyone looks to Bronte next. She gulps. Whenever she imagined this night, she anticipated revealing her true identity, begging for help, and then promptly leaving with the knowledge of where her mother is or how to find her. But these drafty corridors and darkened rooms they pass don’t seem to promise much in the way of help or hospitality. Something sinister coats the school’s musty air. Or maybe she’s searching the shadows for monsters where there are none. Don’t reveal yourself until you know the game you’re playing. “I’m Cade.” At least this first part is not a lie. She scans the smug disdain stamped on Percy’s face for a reaction. “Sappho Cade.” He blinks but turns away. “Sappho Cade.” The sharp eyes of Eliot’s friend devour her. “Now, that is interesting.” Bronte stiffens, waiting for her mask to be yanked off. Though she assumed pouty Percy would do the yanking, not whoever this pompous poet is. “And this,” Eliot interrupts Bronte’s staring contest with his companion, “is my twin. Marlowe. A Consortium researcher. District Three as well.” Bronte snorts, imagining Marlowe supervising the verses of farmers. She must have been louder than intended, for Marlowe’s glare scrapes over her. “I should add,” Eliot rushes in, “to avoid any awkward apologies, they identify as neither a man nor woman.” “Pretty damned open-minded,” Percy reminds them in an arrogant whisper as they shuffle into the dining hall. “Yes, thank you.” Marlowe cuts through the tension with a dry laugh. “Thank you for avoiding any and all awkwardness there, El.” Eliot claps to hurry the conversation along. “Look, dinner!” A feast welcomes them, laid out in a buffet style along the hall, a cavernous room filled with rows of long tables with bench seating. The “nonpracticing” poet, Freya, hangs back in the doorway. “No host, no party, but there’s dinner?” Marlowe leans against the wall as Percy elbows past Agatha to grab a plate. “Let Percy stuff himself first, and we’ll see if he kicks it.” “Come on, Mar.” Eliot taps his twin’s shoulder. “Play nice.” Marlowe’s gaze pivots back to Bronte, so she scrambles to the back of the line to create space between them. She fills her plate with mashed potatoes and roast beef. Steam still spirals from the silver serving dishes, as if the feast was set out by their gracious host mere moments ago. Though upon closer inspection, she notices words etched into the metal: Thou, sun, are half as happy as we…Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties beTo warm the world, that’s done in warming us. “Clever use of Donne.” Eliot chuckles beside her. “Doubt he imagined his poetry would be used to warm some overcooked beef.” She might normally find Eliot’s dogged happiness grating, but given their situation, it soothes her. If someone could laugh at their predicament, then it couldn’t be dire. It’s an added bonus that the cheerier Eliot is, the grumpier his gloomy twin grows, proof that families operate in weird ways. One person can look upon the world and see rainbows and sunbeams, the other graves and goblins. One person can weave magic in verse, but her daughter could be ordinary. Normal. “Here’s something.” Ambrose’s voice pulls Bronte’s attention across the room to where he and Freya hunch over a cabinet, on which looms a massive gramophone. “There’s a record inside.” The older woman—Agatha, if Bronte remembers correctly—sets her plate down to join Ambrose and Freya’s examination. “Should we play it?” “Music is at least better than this entire conversation,” Percy grunts from one of the tables between bites of beef. Ambrose rotates the machine’s crank, and the needle falls into place. Nothing happens at first. Then a buzz of static pops and circles the room as the record plays. “Good evening, distinguished alumni of the Radley School of Poetry.” The greeting erupts in a low growl, something filtered over the voice to distort it and strip it of humanity. “You must forgive me for not being present to welcome you myself. I do hope dinner meets your satisfaction.” “What the hell?” Percy slurs, his mouth full of potato. What the hell indeed. Bronte abandons her plate, stepping closer to the gramophone so she doesn’t miss a single warped word. Static swirls for a few beats. “I am sure the seven of you have a few pressing questions.” “You bet your ass,” Percy snorts. “Please,” Ambrose scolds. “There are ladies present.” “Quite simply, you have been invited under false pretenses.” “Shocker,” Percy grumbles, sulking as curt shushes are thrown his way. “You must forgive my ruse. I summoned you here because I need your help. A spell has come into my possession of which I only have the first line. You will find it tucked among your napkins at the dining table.” Marlowe strides to the table and rips apart a napkin. A small card of stiff creamy paper flutters out. “You have until the beginning of term to complete the poem and deliver the spell. Even a simple quatrain will do, as long as it produces the desired effect. If you do this, you will have my eternal thanks.” “This is illegal!” Percy cries, and Bronte’s not sure if he means their host luring them to Radley or the plea for help writing a poem without his beloved Consortium’s knowledge or authorization. “If you do not…” The scratchy voice hesitates. “Well, I’m afraid you can’t leave until you do. The first ferry of the new term arrives in six days. Let us hope it finds you alive and well.” A crack of static and then silence. “That was cryptic as hell,” Percy mutters. Freya’s nails dig into the cabinet beneath the gramophone. “That was a threat.” Nobody has anything to add, so Ambrose shrugs. Bronte notices Marlowe’s gaze is still locked on the card from the napkin. “What’s the stanza?” They look up at her, then scan each occupant of the room. “Go on,” Eliot prods. Marlowe clears their throat. “On evening tide, my love departs to sea.” Buy the Book Death in Verse Julie Lew Buy Book Death in Verse Julie Lew Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Julie Lew loves all things fantasy and horror, the darker and queerer the better. Death in Verse is her debut young adult novel, and she is also the author of adult gothic horror, The Wives of Herrick Hall. When she’s not writing books about the magical and the monstrous, she’s likely exploring the Pacific Northwest with her partner, or playing endless games of fetch with her chihuahua-terrier pup, Kody. You can find her online at julielew.com or on Instagram @julielew. The post Read the First Two Chapters of <i>Death in Verse</i> by Julie Lew appeared first on Reactor.

Books reading recommendations Split Perspective: Seven Uniquely Memorable Books With Multiple Narrators Works that weave a variety of viewpoints into strange and unforgettable stories… By Sam Reader | Published on May 13, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share There’s always more than one side to the story, especially in fiction. In a medium that’s rife with unreliable narrators, weird hallucinations and dream sequences, and further elements of the odd and absurd, a single perspective can get kind of… distorted. Luckily, in the realm of fiction, we don’t need to limit ourselves to just one perspective or a single unreliable narrator. We can have two, or three, or a number of different viewpoints added to the mix, and there’s never a story that couldn’t be made better by having more unreliable narrators—just look at Rashomon. In that spirit, here’s a by no means complete list of seven books that show the reader just how freeing a change in viewpoint (or multiple changes in viewpoint) can be. Light by M. John Harrison An epic of space-dwelling gods, quantum physics, living human-spaceship hybrids, and unorthodox methods of divination, Light follows three protagonists as they’re each drawn into the plans of an entity known as The Shrander. While the three strands of the story start out fairly different (paranoid cosmic horror-thriller, New Wave-era space-opera, seriocomic adventure), elements from one will suddenly pop up in another, or weird cross-chatter will jump across lines. As a whole, this novel is a lean, beautiful, dark existential work, especially as the three protagonists are drawn into the center of their universe and their worlds are shown to be a bit more intertwined than it seemed at first glance. Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker In Southern Japan, in a small house at the bottom of a grove of sword ferns, Sen and Lee see each other. Lee, a recent murderer with a sedative addiction and total amnesia about the night he killed his roommate, sees Sen in the yard. Centuries earlier, Sen, the daughter of a disgraced samurai, sees Lee looking out of what should be her bedroom. This confusing event in their lives is only the start of strange occurrences around the house in the sword ferns—nightmares, hallucinations, the strange way the house breathes, doors to nowhere, and rooms that are bigger on the inside. The mystery Sen and Lee share in the white house is a curious one, but it grows more unnerving by degrees, with each flip in perspective deepening the ever-mounting dread. Negative Space by B.R. Yeager Life in a small town is a special kind of hell for the teenagers of Negative Space. The local drug of choice causes horrifying visions and has ties to the occult. There’s a mysterious rash of suicides foretold by the local internet message board. The normal suburban malaise, depression, and boredom is supplemented with not just drugs and low-level mayhem, but ritualistic behavior, occult practices, and a variety of other disturbing things. While Negative Space is horrifying for many of the disturbing incidents that occur, it’s the unflinching look at mental illness, the mute acceptance of the horrors around the characters, and the growing sense that even if the three teenage narrators leave the town physically, they’re never really going to leave it behind that truly make this a disturbing work. The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May by Mark Z. Danielewski Danielewski, most famous for House of Leaves, returns once again to experimental territory with a sprawling, metafictional work that begins when a little girl finds a stray cat. This strange meeting is the nexus of a web of bizarre events and individuals that include a government conspiracy, a game designer, criminals, a detective, a taxi driver, and aliens. Each viewpoint character in Danielewski’s story has their own textual quirks and color, making it easy to see where the narratives connect, even if it’s disorienting to try and figure out who’s saying what at first. As a whole, it’s a distinct, if disconcerting work. A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie Fifteen years after Logen Ninefingers wandered off into the sunset, Abercrombie returns to the world of his First Law Trilogy in the midst of its industrial revolution, only to reveal that even with massive seismic change, there’s the same amount of scheming, war, murders, and people terminally out of their depth decades after the events of the earlier books. Beginning with a dire prophecy, A Little Hatred sees a new ultranationalist force attempting to wrest control of the North and introduces a new upper-class twit attempting to get involved with politics, a prophetess cursed with horrifying visions, an ambitious and canny socialite, and further memorable characters emerging from the woodwork. While the secret war between the mages might have ended, and science has started to replace their work, Abercrombie’s grim vision of the world shows that the same powers and corruption keep reinforcing their stranglehold. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay Once upon a time, a grieving king wielding destructive and powerful magic erased the province of Tigana entirely from maps and memory out of revenge. Twenty years later, that king, Brandin, and his bitter rival Alberico are tyrants locked in conflict over the Peninsula, a fantasy region similar to Renaissance Italy. Into this age of conflict come a variety of assassins, traveling musicians, and resistance fighters, all driven by a single idea: a memory of a place that no longer exists. Kay’s epic uses its multiple viewpoints well, offering more complex motives for his antagonists and protagonists alike and giving a vast romantic fantasy setting some needed depth. The Vegetarian by Han Kang A curious body horror story comprised of three novellas from three separate points of view, The Vegetarian details what happens when Yeong-hye, driven by nightmares of blood, decides to stop eating meat. This simple act of agency drastically alters her home life and appearance, but in a sign of things to come, Yeong-hye’s only presence in the narrative is to narrate her horrifying internal monologue. Quickly, the narrative turns into a struggle for agency and self-definition, with Yeong-hye’s family and friends loudly offering their unsolicited opinions on vegetarianism, trying to force her to put things back to normal, and doing everything they can except for actuallyhelping Yeong-hye, as her inner monologue grows more and more disturbing. It’s a grim, grotesque satire on autonomy where the most nightmarish images aren’t relegated to actual nightmares. Of course, no list can truly be complete, especially with only seven entries, so please feel free to put your own favorite multi-viewpoint books in the comments and get the discussion rolling.[end-mark] The post Split Perspective: Seven Uniquely Memorable Books With Multiple Narrators appeared first on Reactor.

News Wildwood Wildwood Trailer Uncovers the Dark Fantasy Hidden in Portland’s Woods They’re really good woods, I promise By Molly Templeton | Published on May 13, 2026 Image: Laika Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Laika Despite having read Colin Meloy’s Wildwood, and having watched every snippet of video Laika has released about their next animated film, it didn’t occur to me until just now that the story is kind of a sister story to Labyrinth. (Which also recalls Maurice Sendak’s Outside Over There; we do love to steal little siblings in stories!) Except it’s no sexy David Bowie spiriting away the little brother of Prue McKeel, but a murder of crows. (An extremely believable bit of wild magic for Portland, where the story is set.) But still: Prue has to venture into a world unlike the one she knows—and yet not so far away—to get her little brother back. En route, she will meet all kinds of characters and animals, and make her way to a castle of sorts. In this case the castle is Portland’s Pittock Mansion, recreated by hand. This teaser trailer is so very Portland that one might wonder if the tourism board had a hand in it: the iconic St. John’s Bridge! The waterfront in cherry blossom season! The area around the Saturday Market! I won’t harp on it, but that’s a pretty long bike ride for a kid with her baby brother in tow. Not that I’m complaining. Wildwood is a very Portland story: it shares its name with the Wildwood Trail, nearly 30 miles of beautiful hiking through two of our biggest parks. The novel transforms Forest Park into a place even more magical than it already is—and not without its share of dangers. The voice cast includes Carey Mulligan, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Awkwafina, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Amandla Stenberg, Jemaine Clement, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Waits, and Richard E. Grant. The movie is directed by Travis Knight (Bumblebee) from a screenplay by Chris Butler (Kubo and the Two Strings). These are also the men responsible for the upcoming Masters of the Universe live-action film. This is a bit perplexing—one film looks so very much better than the other—but people do contain multitudes. Wildwood is in theaters on October 23.[end-mark] The post <i>Wildwood</i> Trailer Uncovers the Dark Fantasy Hidden in Portland’s Woods appeared first on Reactor.