20221120 - The Transmigration of Timothy Archer Book Review [Analysis and Summary]

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Emptiness growing, \\ expansion of consciousness, \\ experience death.

HAIKUPRAJNA - The Transmigration of Timothy Archer

https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2022/11/20221120-transmigration-of-timothy.html

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Hello readers,

Few Philip K. Dick books take place in as real-life of a setting as “The Transmigration of Timothy Archer”.

This is a religious and metaphysical science fiction story which skews to the philosophical, told from the point of view of Angel Archer between the time it took her to enter the seminar of an Edgar Barefoot; she was married to Tim’s son Jeff before the deaths of the two along with Angel’s friend, and Tim’s wife, Kirsten Lundborg, who was the mother of Bill Lundborg.

This is another book from the VALIS series, which is really good in my opinion, and which deals with topics that are personal to the author.

The story of Timothy Archer feels real, first and foremost, because of its fictionalization of real events; it is a story about death and grief and coping with the suicides of loved ones, or rather their individual intentions to die, coping via religion or spirituality as a metaphor for how to survive, as stories we tell ourselves in order to do what will avoid death.

The day of John Lennon’s murder, after she had found out she was now all alone, Angel felt guilty over having arranged Tim and Kirsten’s meeting, which, in a roundabout way, was the catalyst that led to everyone’s deaths.

When Jeff committed suicide, his father, a Bishop, was sent on a spiritual journey to prove to himself that he had experienced his son’s return from  “the other world”, knowing he was unable to prove it to others due to the necessity of belief.

Angel had made that blatant and clear to be tragic, as Tim’s search had ended in his death in the Dead Sea; what hooked me was how the narrative of the book was framed around her restlessness, how her expositioning was a distraction from her suffering, where the line between narrator and author bled often enough that one is left unsure whether they are reading real-life fact or fiction. 

Quote: ” ...there is a crucial sort of difference between pain and the narration of pain. I am telling you what happened. If there is vicarious pain in knowing, there is actual peril in not knowing. In aversion lies a colossal risk. ”

Timothy Archer sought to locate the genuine source of Christianity, which he said was hidden from the world for twenty-two hundred years. However, the Bishop was on trial for heresy, as his views differed from that of the Church; Tim’s troubles centred on translators coming across the sayings of Jesus predating Jesus by almost two hundred years, which shook the foundations of Tim’s faith, the revelation meaning that Jesus was using means that were available to the people of his time; however, the Church had failed to charge Tim and had “left him as a result even stronger than ever.” 

Tim had become obsessed with locating the Original Source and with figuring out what it was, he had grown uncontent with faith alone and needed to experience the food and drink that turned one into God Himself, like a title or a role; Tim thought God was real while Angel thought he was “not really real” in the sense that he was intangible unlike a tangible wall or stone, thus Tim’s search for proof was futile and had in fact ended in futility according to the narrator.

Angel decided to visit Edgar Barefoot’s seminar, but she reflected on the bulk of the book’s narrative to herself before entering.

Quote: “... We are all just a moment in time in forward motion.”

The heartbreaking part was how Angel had gone along with Tim and Kirsten’s madness about Jeff because she wanted to believe that her dead husband was back, she loved him and, worse, she wanted to keep in contact with the Bishop and with her friend; however, she would still feel guilty after the fact. 

Quote: “This is the famous nature of hindsight: to it everything is inevitable, since everything has already happened.”

She lost touch with Tim after Kirsten’s death, but he got back in contact to ask Angel to join him in going to the Dead Sea, which she declined because she did not want to die in the Desert. Tim was still chasing a drug for the insight he desired; he believed the anokhi mushroom was Christ, the wisdom of God, which was the only thing that--he thought--had the power to change his own fate, failing to understand that the transcendental form was the story of the anokhi.

After her first seminar, Edgar reintroduced Bill to Angel. Barefoot believed Bill was a Bodhisattva and had turned down nirvana to help others achieve it, which symbolized how Angel, unlike Tim, had accepted that transcendence, becoming comfortable in and unhindered by the world. Regardless of what really happened, Angel and Bill had the ability to summon the people they loved through their pooled memories of Tim, Kirsten and Jeff.

A haunting prophecy from 1982; quote: “It is like information theory; it is noise driving out signal. But it is noise posing as signal so you do not even recognize it as noise. The intelligence agencies call it disinformation, something the Soviet Bloc relies on heavily. If you can float enough disinformation into circulation you will totally abolish everyone's contact with reality, probably your own included.”

The ending featured a classic Philip K. Dick reality-twist, despite its otherwise real-life inspired setting, over Kirsten’s son and Tim’s transmigration, which was still grounded in doubtful reality because of Bill’s psychosis.

I saw the conflict of proof versus belief as a test for Angel Archer from God, where becoming rooted in the physical was the punishment for failure; Tim had tried to explain to Bill that it was impossible to explain Jeff’s return because belief is based on faith in one’s experience--this was proven to great effect through Bill being more pious about cars than Tim was about Christ, as Bill never needed more proof to assess any issue with his system, he had faith, the same as Angel. 

Quote: “Believing something because it’s impossible... Not ‘despite the fact that it was impossible’...”

Insanity or unintelligibility equals being out-of-touch with reality, but reality operates despite the faults of irreality; Angel viewing death as a negative was rational and sane, even if she were incorrect and Tim were right, as chasing death would get one locked up in an institution or in another cycle of rebirth. Forming an idea bound by the future would root the idea in the future, thus determining fate--but it only did so if people believed it; Timothy Archer was punished for chasing and knowing God, needing and finding proof instead of believing.

Tim’s sin was missing the mark; the phrase “God is the Book of the Universe” was used as metaphor for Tim’s futility in finding God as an object at a single place in time and space.

Thank you for reading, please share your thoughts.

Allen W. McLean 

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I write mindfulness meditation scifaiku and haiku poetry based on book reviews and on previews of my metaphysical stories, such as "Escape Perennial City" (available on Kindle Unlimited). Thanks to you, over 700 readers have joined us on Medium! Need followers to stay in the Medium Partner Program? Please follow us online and turn on email notifications; I'll follow you back! I have two short stories available to read, right now with no sign-up required, on Medium:

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April's latest psychedelic music videos, art and poetry is available on all streaming platforms; Electric Armchair - We Are (Official Music Video) [Feast of Fools]: [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1cTwT2uQbw ]

Electric Armchair - Living Ghosts (FULL ALBUM) : [ distrokid.com/hyperfollow/electricarmchair/living-ghosts ]

My metaphysical short story "ULTRAVIOLET" is available as an eBook on Kindle apps and devices; read right now with Kindle Unlimited : [ https://read.amazon.ca/kp/embed?asin=B0BKYQV5C4 ]

Kindle ebooks can be read on any device with a web browser at www.read.amazon.com

These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection.

20221111 - The Queen’s Gambit Book Review Analysis and Summary

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Little green pieces // strewn across the checkerboards // balance a cold war.

HAIKUPRAJNA - The Queen’s Gambit Book Review Analysis and Summary

https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2022/11/20221111-queens-gambit-book-review.html

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[Lots of spoilers ahead] 

Hello readers,

I admit, I had little interest in The Queen’s Gambit when its Netflix series was first released, but I was curious enough about chess to read the book and see what the hype was all about, and let me say, the story lives up to it.

I really enjoyed reading The Queen’s Gambit, this book was hard to put down, and the chess in the game was really fun to follow in my head.

Chess prodigy Elizabeth Harmon was an orphan at the Methuen Home in Kentucky. She learned how to play chess from the orphanage’s janitor until she was adopted by a Mrs. Wheatley. However, the plot focused on Beth learning about different coping strategies, where her talent was affected by her growing substance dependency, which explored her anxiety from the get-go as potential worries such as never being adopted.

How Beth handled these bouts of restlessness and remorse were relatable and well written in a show-instead-of-tell manner. From a very young age, Beth struggled with tranquilizer usage, because of the orphanage’s dosing of the children, which foreshadowed Beth having to decide on committing to chess and to use it as a vehicle for exploring her anxiety over the other substances she encounters during her adolescence, described as a “troubled future” during her mother’s death. However, she could deconstruct the different affects; Beth was able to visualize both stressful scenarios and imagine every chess board she studied, which forced her to focus and become absorbed in the endless abyss of her own thoughts, but this allowed her to ignore the peripheral worries of playing rooms full of people at the same time, realizing and seeing that every move was a puzzle or like a target that she had to aim and fire at with her pieces.

Throughout the book, Beth defied all the expectations of the other characters while experimenting with different methods of dispelling the hindrances to achieving serenity, or otherwise concentrating and being absorbed in a task, methods such as getting drunk, making love, Methuen’s tranquilizers loosening the tension caused by the orphanage’s Mrs. Deardorff--even Beth’s master work at chess in her countless months studying (both alone and with others) was a method of achieving mindfulness and clarity.  

She experimented as a method of dealing with the many forms of loss that she was experiencing, but she began to learn about how dependency affects one’s passions, her punishments being manifestations of their detriment to Beth’s ability to visualize chess, while her thieving habits displayed the extent she was willing to go in order to achieve her tranquility; even chess itself was first presented through Shaibel as a solitary activity which Beth had to study alone. 

While Mrs. Wheatley enabled and condoned Beth’s behaviour, Wheatley helped Beth plan to compete internationally against the world’s best players. With the help of those around her, Beth rose to the top of the US chess scene, and each location employed great and simple use of differing colours for personal aesthetics. She had to travel to Mexico, Paris and then Russia to climb the ranks of state, national and international chess in order to defeat her idols. I enjoyed how Beth knew about Benny and Borgov among many others before meeting and literally transcending them in skill. 

Though, displaying the duality of idealism, as in how it can be a hindrance and a benefit, she lost to Borgov in Mexico, where Mrs. Wheatley died soon after in their hotel room; full spoiler, but I loved how Wheatley’s and Sheibel’s deaths were rough, and how Benny’s return was great.

Beth lost to Borgov a second time in Paris; she tried her best to study and to focus on chess, but her drinking desire took over where she got so drunk that she lost a state tournament, and her ability to visualize became hindered as she suffered a downward spiral after ignoring what was causing her to suffer, burying her feelings with the serenity of chess, love and booze.

Beth handled being alone hard, and she had spiraled at the cost of her grip on her champion title. She had to learn the hard way to cope alone, where she decided to be honest with Jolene, an old friend from Methuen, and work out with her to get back into shape; what I liked about this was that Beth’s refusal of the church’s money was less a commentary on her religious stance and was more symbolic about her deciding to handle her problems herself, even in the paradoxical way of accepting help from one’s loved ones. Despite the help of her best friend, Beth ended up having to go to Russia virtually alone.

The story-beats and its themes were solid, parts of her childhood stuck with her the whole story such as being called ugly and the memory of her biological parents, but I think I wanted the Borgov match to be the climax of the story (or at least I had anticipated it to be), however the main conflict was with her dependency, and her overcoming her anxiety had acted as the story's climax while Borgov and the chess plots were mere vehicles to drive that plot forward, which highlighted the best part of the book--the way chess was shown to be another artistic and creative medium like any other form of idea.

Beth traveled to Russia to face Borgov and was able to find serenity and concentration amid her final match. She had learned to love the game that brought her the same peace that so many substances had struggled to achieve without hindrance. It came as little surprise that she managed to beat Borgov, playing the Queen’s Gambit against him, but she was able to build up the nerve to do so without aid and had overcome her anxieties to focus on the game, without distractions--including the unbeatable players that she was winning against.

Thank you for reading, please share your thoughts.

Allen W. McLean 

...

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Banner: The Cannon by Allen W. McLean

Readers can follow HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair via our emailing lists (on Medium, Patreon, LinkedIn and more) for mindfulness meditation scifaiku and haiku poetry based on book reviews and on previews of metaphysical stories such as "Escape Perennial City" (available on Kindle Unlimited); https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/follow-on-social-media.html 

As a free gift, all readers get an Amazon Kindle ebook short story every week on Free Fridays and Mondays--selection rotates every few weeks, so follow via email to collect them all! https://www.amazon.ca/Allen-W-McLean/e/B0867C5D24

Thanks to you, over 700 followers have joined us on Medium! If anyone reading this needs followers to stay in the Medium Partner Program, I am asking you to please follow me (and sign up for emails!) and I'll follow you back! My short stories "Ado the Owl" and "Hector Blake" are available to read for FREE on Medium!

Leave a comment with books you would like to see reviewed and I will add them to my Goodreads!!

Follow me here : www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

April's latest psychedelic music videos, art and poetry available on all streaming platforms; Electric Armchair - Living Ghosts (FULL ALBUM) : distrokid.com/hyperfollow/electricarmchair/living-ghosts

"ULTRAVIOLET" is available as an eBook through Amazon Kindle apps and devices; read right now with Kindle Unlimited : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/ultraviolet.html

Kindle ebooks can be read on any device with a web browser at www.read.amazon.com

These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection.

20221105 - The Divine Invasion Book Review Analysis and Summary

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Being asked to die // smuggling unborn saviours, // holy reunions.

#HAIKUPRAJNA - The Divine Invasion Book Review Analysis and Summary

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Hello readers,

The Divine Invasion is a Philip K. Dick book that I have wanted to write a review on for a long time now, and it will discuss spoilers including the identities of characters like Emmanuel and Zina.

The story takes place on Earth and beyond the Solar system, following Emmanuel, an impaired boy who can talk to animals, who meets a girl named Zina, who can possess animals and cease the flow of time.

I really enjoyed how the philosophy of the book was presented; The Divine Invasion is part of the VALIS series which is already heavy with deep theological philosophy, but this book managed to approach the topics closer than ever. Key characters include Elias, the present manifestation of biblical Elijah, who is taking care of Emmanuel, who was spontaneously conceived by his mother Rybys, while the boy’s assumed step-father Herb sleeps after surviving their immigration to Earth.

Also, The Divine Invasion is just brimming with the usual psychedelic themes and reality warping tropes that Philip K Dick’s diverse casts of characters tend to encounter. Conflicts revolved around Emmanuel’s wager over a game that decided the fate of the universe with an interesting spin on the idea of good versus evil, where the literary conflict of man versus nature or god was skewed into being against one’s very concept of self.

The science fiction began to bend into philosophical literature with Emmanuel’s angst over having needed to reach out to Herb in the past to assist in Emmanuel’s own birth, establishing in a satisfying way that Herb was experiencing the events leading to his cryogenesis while Emmanuel’s plot continued to move forward in the present. The political scenes of the book were kept to a minimum plot wise, at least in relation to the author’s other work, and were mixed with the book’s core spiritual themes where both the political church’s Big Noodle AI Bible hologram and the protagonist’s group believe the other’s side was the material manifestation of the Devil.

Yahweh/God as an actual un-metaphorical character in the story intervened in Herb’s life to introduce freedom via the Holy Spirit’s ability to go with one when seized, but not without Emmanuel’s child-like rage over his new believer's previous worshipped form of matter, rather than their spacetime medium or cosmic Source. Invigorated by their theophany, Herb, Rybys and Elias plot against the political church in order to smuggle the unborn saviour to Earth in Philip K. Dick’s take on the messiah’s interplanetary second coming; again, this is one of Phil’s most blatantly thick gnostic and neoplatonic tales based on his real-life exegesis. Characters’ faiths get questioned with problems such as God causing them to become sick, to suffer and to die for the greater good. Deities were displayed as personifications of the different accretional layers which Emmanuel meets as he climbed the hermetic ladder of the cosmos, from lower realm into the upper realm of Intellect with its outline of all the Forms under the ‘Lower Realm’, to undergo “the Hermetic transform” and unify with the gnostic, neoplatonic One or Hermetic Source; quoting the book,

“That which was below, his own brain, the microcosm, had become the macrocosm... I now occupy the entire universe, Emmanuel realized.”

The Divine Invasion presented “the one who brings benefit” as anyone who could overcome and transcend Forms, “when you hear the distant bells...”

Zina helping Emmanuel realize his part in the Trinity revealed far more than was stated by the narrative; Zina was Sophia, the Holy Ghost, the living Torah, Plotinus’s Intellect or Plato’s Idea or Form, which was symbolized as that which guides One back to itself, appearing as a hindrance but in practice was what transcended (or was transcended and thus transcended the One back to itself). Zina was thus the Buddhist’s Mara, who was different than Satan, as Mara was transcended during Satan’s descent; was Emmanuel the Son? Or, better said, was the Son really the messiah? Emmanuel said he was Yahweh, or the Father, but perhaps Emmanuel was the godhead reformed, unknowable and mute? More a neoplatonic sequence, rather than a trinitarian godhead, of Emmanuel, Zina, Belial; which would leave Belial or Satan as the Son. Emmanuel had created Zina who desired to be peaceful with the world rather than wrathful, to bring it flowers instead of destroying Belial and the material world (where all individuals resided, between the Intellectual and the Material) which acted as an example of the godhead working through them all.

The idea was that both real and unreal things were intoxicating, but that the real and sufferable were more important due to their necessity; Emmanuel admitted that the real was objectively worse, as in more evil than the idealistic-and-unreal, but that solidified how the idealistic-and-real was even better. When Emmanuel and Zina agreed to free all from suffering, it all led to releasing Belial, meaning that the material world had to be transcended anyway, meaning the living had to experience death in order to be free at last, stating that even Belial could be transcended. Herb’s entire plot hinged on that point, from him hearing interference from a local mountain deity named Yahweh while in cryogen sleep all the way to Emmanuel and Belial’s reality-altering wager over Herb meeting Linda Fox, his Beside-Helper. Herb agreed that Emmanuel’s vision of the Fox was the superior one, that necessity was the underpinning of reality, that suffering was because it had to be in order for there to be salvation at all.

The Divine Invasion employs good use of references to James Joyce and Finnegans Wake, C.S. Lewis’s religious sci-fi, Zoroastrianism on the guilty being saved by their Beside-helper if they admit that they are guilty, and Hayyim Nahman Bialik on the Torah translated as Law being inadequate compared to the totality of God’s reality or his “highest idea”, “the living soul of the world”, which reformed itself over the ages in the form of dharma and Hermetic philosophers’ stones. The reunion of Emmanuel and Zina, him remembering that they are the same entity, himself as the transcended En Sof and Zina as the female half of the godhead that stayed on Earth was a very intriguing and gripping method of symbolizing the sephiroth of the Tree of Life, with Zina as one half of Emmanuel’s whole, as the lowest of the ten where Emmanuel was the first and highest. 

In the end, Herb’s story was about having to choose between one’s Beside-Helper (the Fox, Zina, beauty, salvation) and one’s “yetzer ha-ru” (Belial, darkness, suffering), between a real gift from God versus the illusive material world. Though, Emmanuel was a blind or impaired god, where the conflict arose solely from forgetting who was the original source, and it was dubious if Emmanuel was even the original source as he himself admitted there was a godhead that he fell from. All life, by this admission, was capable and worthy of transcendent godhood.

Thank you for reading.

Allen W. McLean

PS. Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! I updated my recent Frankenstein review with some related links, which can be found here; https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2022/10/20221020-frankenstein-book-review.html

...

Need more Bite-sized Insights to relieve your stress and suffering?

Banner: The Cannon by Allen W. McLean

Readers can follow HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair via our emailing lists (on Medium, Patreon, LinkedIn and more) for mindfulness meditation scifaiku and haiku poetry based on book reviews and on previews of metaphysical stories such as "Escape Perennial City" (available on Kindle Unlimited); https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/follow-on-social-media.html 

As a free gift, all readers get an Amazon Kindle ebook short story every week on Free Fridays and Mondays--selection rotates every few weeks, so follow via email to collect them all! https://www.amazon.ca/Allen-W-McLean/e/B0867C5D24

Thanks to you, over 500 followers have joined us on Medium! If anyone reading this needs followers to stay in the Medium Partner Program, I am asking you to please follow me (and sign up for emails!) and I'll follow you back! My short stories "Ado the Owl" and "Hector Blake" are available to read for FREE on Medium!

Leave a comment with books you would like to see reviewed and I will add them to my Goodreads!!

Always open to reading book recommendations. Looking forward to adding new friends on Goodreads and sharing what we read with each other : www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

April's latest psychedelic music videos, art and poetry available on all streaming platforms; Electric Armchair - Living Ghosts (FULL ALBUM) : distrokid.com/hyperfollow/electricarmchair/living-ghosts

"Tomothy and the Overseer of the Forest" is available as an eBook through Amazon Kindle apps and devices; read right now with Kindle Unlimited! www.haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/tomothy-and-overseer-of-forest.html

Kindle ebooks can be read on any device through one's web browser at www.read.amazon.com

These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection.

20221020 - Frankenstein Book Review Summary and Analysis 2022 [Updated with more Halloween Reviews]

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Hands around their neck, \\ witness the eternal light, \\ nature's creation.

HAIKUPRAJNA - Frankenstein Book Review 2022

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Hello readers,

In the spirit of Halloween, and because it was Mary Shelley Day a few weeks back, I did a reread of her classic gothic horror novel Frankenstein. 

Victor Frankenstein’s story about his Creature is told through the many voices of its side cast; I found that the book felt alive with how deep and well used all the characters were. Frankenstein, at its heart, is a cautionary story about creating life from death as much as it is about creating death from life; it was fascinating reading about how good intentions can cause despair, and how dreadful things can be filled with hope. 

Frankenstein's monster sought to enact revenge against the titular family over the horrors that every human they knew--even the youngest of the Frankenstein family--had inflicted on them. The Creature was a result of Victor Frankenstein's hope of metaphysical pursuits in the field of natural philosophy, where his antiquated science studies fueled his sense of discovery, whereby Frankenstein learned how to turn the old and unreal into something real and new. 

Frankenstein is framed with stories within stories; the main account occurs in the form of letters between a captain and his sister, the former of whom had listened to Victor relate his and his creation’s tales of misfortune, where we readers get to glimpse into the points of view of other characters via letters and of the monster itself, who shedded light on how they basked in the intellect of other perfected beings like their creator. These related tales take place in French-speaking Switzerland and abroad, where every person is written to be expressional by having their emotions and reactions checked minutely in a style reminiscent of romantics. In Victor’s blunted case, he feared being chased by his Creature and foreshadowed his eventual demise through his own narrative voice.

Frankenstein is in the horror genre, as in being wracked with horrible emotional baggage and fear, where the monster’s threats end up being carried out to highlight the difference between fear and anxiety, horror and thriller. In sharp contrast with the desires of his companions, who wished to lift his spirits, the fear and hatred that Victor expressed through his exposition in “normal” moments had tainted the beauty of nature for himself with his own despair.

I enjoyed the captain’s want of a friend and his finding one in Victor via their shared sympathy toward the wretchedness that their singular focuses had wrought on them both. Appealing to another's sympathetic nature is a key theme here, where Victor's silent resolve could be viewed as being devoid of sympathy and as being the ultimate cause leading to the deaths that his Creature forced Victor into experiencing, the Creature wanting Victor to live and suffer the same trials as they had, rather than outright killing Frankenstein. 

Both Frankenstein and his Creature harbour personal inner hells following their high hopes being crushed, having lost what was wanted. However, it is my belief that neither the Creature nor Frankenstein should be sympathized with, as the monster justified framing others for their murderings and Victor felt justified in hiding from revealing his creation.

Victor was afraid of being outcast like his Creature, and they both faced the same guilt over the deaths, but both were concerned for their ego and their public image, doing good to be seen as good instead of just doing good things, such as owning up to mistakes, which led to their shared desperation to be seen as respectable (evidenced by Victor's disgust over his own Creature). 

The Monster's justifications had acted like a trap, by sounding agreeable while appealing to a desire for vengeance. Choosing to agree with the Monster's spell was shown to possess Victor with suffering, which was reinforced by his beautiful natural sceneries being perceived as tainted. 

To me, the most interesting aspect of Frankenstein is the Creature's own poetic comparisons with God's creations of Adam and Satan. The Creature desired an Eve and to return to their metaphorical Eden of forested nature away from humankind (the very same natural scenery that Victor grew to be unable to witness). The use of the name Prometheus was, in my opinion, for the monster learning from his creator (and from others like their creator), along with Frankenstein stealing life from God or nature and being eternally punished by and for his creation, acting as a parable for something bad enough to be worthy of being punished over. Through his master work, Victor knew he was playing God with creation. 

Frankenstein details how one’s unchecked creation affects others and how those effects affect oneself. Frankenstein's monster was a philosophical Daemon, a personified Other, overviewing and passing judgement on humanity while transcending from nature to the civilized as a beast who learned to be human. However, the Creature's eloquence and Victor's aspirations were corrupted, where the products still worked but had spelled wretchedness for their creator. 

Thank you for reading.

Allen W. McLean

PS. You can read my previous Frankenstein review here;

https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2020/12/20201214-frankenstein.html

PPS.

Happy Halloween!

Here is a list of spooky reads that I have reviewed:

. Black Cat (2019) : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2022/10/20221027-black-cat-2019-comic-book.html

. Frankenstein : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2022/10/20221020-frankenstein-book-review.html

. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2022/10/20221007-alices-adventures-in.html

. The Legend of Sleepy Hallow : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2022/02/20220202-review-legend-of-sleepy-hollow.html

. Howl's Moving Castle : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2021/12/20211229-review-howls-moving-castle.html

The Wendigo : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2021/03/20210319-review-wendigo.html 

Bloodborne comics : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2022/06/20220614-bloodborne-comic-book-summary.html

Coraline : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2021/12/20211201-review-coraline.html

Beowulf : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2020/12/20201220-beowulf.html

The Island of Doctor Moreau : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2020/12/20201222-island-of-doctor-moreau.html

Check out some stories that I have written for and around Inktober and Halloween:

Sprout : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2021/10/20211031-happy-halloween-nanowrimo.html

Ado the Owl : https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2022/10/20221027-ado-owl-official-tell-story.html 

Fishing for Caribou : https://read.amazon.ca/kp/embed?asin=B09MDR2JGP 

Also, ULTRAVIOLET is available to read on Kindle : https://read.amazon.ca/kp/embed?asin=B0BKYQV5C4

An official announcement will be revealed soon.

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

...

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Readers can follow HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair via our emailing lists (on Medium, Patreon, LinkedIn and more) for mindfulness meditation scifaiku and haiku poetry based on book reviews and on previews of metaphysical stories such as "Escape Perennial City" (available on Kindle Unlimited); as a free gift, all readers get an Amazon Kindle ebook short story every week on Free Fridays--selection rotates every few weeks, so follow via email to collect them all! https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/follow-on-social-media.html 

Thanks to you, over 500 followers have joined us on Medium! If anyone reading this needs followers to stay in the Medium Partner Program, I am asking you to please follow me (and sign up for emails!) and I'll follow you back! My short story "Hector Blake" is available to read for FREE on Medium!

Leave a comment with books you would like to see reviewed and I will add them to my Goodreads!!

Always open to reading book recommendations. Looking forward to adding new friends on Goodreads, to share what we read with each other: www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

Have been looking for other free kindle books to read, ones that are only free for a day or so, so if you have an ebook on Kindle feel free to share them and I'll download!

April's latest psychedelic music videos, art and poetry is available on all streaming platforms.

Electric Armchair - Living Ghosts (FULL ALBUM): distrokid.com/hyperfollow/electricarmchair/living-ghosts

"Tomothy and the Overseer of the Forest" is available as an eBook through Amazon Kindle apps and devices; read right now with Kindle Unlimited! www.haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/tomothy-and-overseer-of-forest.html

Kindle ebooks can be read on any device through one's web browser at www.read.amazon.com

These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection.

20221007 - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Book Review Analysis 2022

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Croquet flamingos, \\ "But what did the Dormouse say?" \\ Biting his teacup.

HAIKUPRAJNA - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Book Review 2022

...

Hello readers,

Had sat down for a reread of 'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll on Mad Hatter Day (10/06). In my opinion, Wonderland is best experienced with the same child-like point of view as Alice has while meeting its inhabitants.

She is accompanied throughout the entire book by its cast of animals and the many followers of the Queen of Hearts. Each exhibited manners of varying degrees of politeness, depending on how mad they were, and, rest assured, they are all madder than children in some manner or another. Yet, the madness lies in the wisdom that Alice distills, such as how little girls are a kind of serpent.

'Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland' is an example of nonsense literature, where it balances many literary elements to evoke imagery, with speeches that create silly and enjoyable visuals via homophones, like ‘not’ and ‘knot’ or ‘tale’ and ‘tail’.

While the setting is set in the fantasy genre, I really enjoyed the few elements of magical realism that were included, which helped ground Alice’s adventures and portray them in a relatable manner. Wonderland was described, by the Cheshire Cat, as a place for people who have gone mad. Instead of focusing on dry politics, the cast satires language itself with the political topics being used as content only, highlighting the narrative perspective of a child.

Poetry featured within the tale are largely based upon others, further absorbing the satire in literary nonsense.

Alice fell into Wonderland by chasing the White Rabbit, by chasing something irreal that caught her curiosity. Today, the idiom “down the rabbit hole” is synonymous with fixation and hyperfocus. When the story was written, however, the idiom had yet to exist, while the other metaphors within the book are portrayed in a literal way for Alice and the Wonderland creatures to experience.

The metaphors that do stay metaphorical are instead parodied in both speech and execution, solidifying the playful imagery techniques.

Despite this, some key lessons are shown, such as how promising to give everyone prizes had caused everyone to look to Alice for what they now expected.

All the while, Alice asked questions in order to understand the nonsensical world that she found herself to be in. Alice continued to experiment and to try eating or drinking new things despite their effects. Despite shrinking and growing, she held onto the wisdom that she managed to root out from the others’ madness. Most of what Alice encounters appears as nonsense, at first. However, whenever she discovered or assigned an effect to something, the cause and the effect became consistent or otherwise recallable. 

Upon returning home from Wonderland, we readers are told that adults look to childhood for inspiration in the manner of Alice’s adventure. One’s childhood is described as “a far-off land”, as Alice stumbling through Wonderland.

The most striking aspect of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is her whimsy and ambivalence toward the effects of things by her focusing on its causes, which allowed Alice to create meaning from nonsense. Alice manifested this nonsense by rejecting the inherent lessons or morals of the stories of Wonderland in favour of her own interpretations. The Queen using fear to manipulate her subjects, the same edible causing two different effects and Alice dispelling an entire court by believing them to be nothing but a pack of cards all highlights how choosing the effects of a cause based on one’s (versus another’s) wilful intent alone is able to overcome any situation.

Thank you for reading.

Allen W. McLean

PS. You can read my two other (shorter, two years old now!) "Alice" themed reviews below;

https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2020/12/20201217-alices-adventures-in-wonderland.html

https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/2020/12/20201219-through-looking-glass.html

...

Need more Bite-sized Insights to relieve your stress and suffering?

Banner: The Cannon by Allen W. McLean

Readers can follow HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair via our emailing lists (on Medium, Patreon, LinkedIn and more) for mindfulness meditation scifaiku and haiku poetry based on book reviews and on previews of metaphysical stories such as "Escape Perennial City" (available on Kindle Unlimited); as a free gift, all readers get an Amazon Kindle ebook short story every week on Free Fridays--selection rotates every few weeks, so follow via email to collect them all! https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/follow-on-social-media.html 

Thanks to you, over 500 followers have joined us on Medium! If anyone reading this needs followers to stay in the Medium Partner Program, I am asking you to please follow me (and sign up for emails!) and I'll follow you back! My short story "Hector Blake" is available to read for FREE on Medium!

Leave a comment with books you would like to see reviewed and I will add them to my Goodreads!!

Always open to reading book recommendations. Looking forward to adding new friends on Goodreads, to share what we read with each other: www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

Have been looking for other free kindle books to read, ones that are only free for a day or so, so if you have an ebook on Kindle feel free to share them and I'll download!

April's latest psychedelic music videos, art and poetry is available on all streaming platforms.

Electric Armchair - Living Ghosts (FULL ALBUM): distrokid.com/hyperfollow/electricarmchair/living-ghosts

"Tomothy and the Overseer of the Forest" is available as an eBook through Amazon Kindle apps and devices; read right now with Kindle Unlimited! www.haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/tomothy-and-overseer-of-forest.html

Kindle ebooks can be read on any device through one's web browser at www.read.amazon.com

These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection.

20221005 - The Superior Spider-Man (2013) Comic Book Review

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The die is cast, trapped, \\ caught in superior webs \\ woven by eight limbs. 

HAIKUPRAJNA - The Superior Spider-Man (2013) Comic Book Review

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Hello readers,

I could talk about Superior Spider-Man all day; Dan Slott understood Peter Parker and was able to define him well.

Otto Octavius, having taken control of his nemesis, set out to do everything that Peter avoided so to prove that Otto's way was Superior, from going overboard against bullies to chumming it up with Mayor J. Jonah Jameson over their mutual distaste for Spidey. The bullying cycle casting Otto being rude to his henchmen and rogues in the same sympathetic light as Peter, with Spider-Man being Otto’s insurmountable antagonist, was an interesting development. Otto was desperate to hide behind the mask. Despite seeing his classic Doc Ock persona as his true self, unlike someone other than Peter like Miles or Miguel who saw Spider-Man as their identity, Otto proved that he, too, could be Spider-Man. 

Peter’s few appearances were gold, Ghost Peter was a vestige of his love for MJ and his family which all came together to force Otto to do good.

Further conflicts Otto faced pitted him against the likes of antihero Cardiac, and the original Hobgoblin who was selling villain identities as franchises (Crime Master's among others, even his own to Phil Urich, the nephew of Daily Bugle's Ben Urich) which tied in nicely with the Goblin storyline.

Enjoyed seeing Miguel O'Hara remembering Peter among the other 2099 crossovers, which include the transition to Alchemax from Horizon Labs through Liz Allan, Normie Osborn and the Spider-Man 2099 Stone family. Peter's identity and Otto's victory over him was also played around with during plots featuring Agent Venom Flash Thompson, Wraith Yuri Wantanabe, Green Goblin Norman Osborn and Carlie Cooper, some of whom realizing they are unable to account for Spider-Man’s identity following Spider-Island.

It was funny when Otto tried to explain to MJ and the Avengers that Peter was taken over by Venom, where they asked each other if anyone bought the ruse.

The best part was Otto realizing he was unable to bleed Peter and Spider-Man together like Otto and Doc Ock, understanding, while dating Anna Maria, why Peter kept his lives separate, as Otto had never before been on the other side of the equation of love-interest-in-danger. Otto was superior, but that allowed Norman Osborn to take advantage of a Spider-Man who was too reliant on this superiority (as in the gadgets instead of relying on his philosophy). The contrast between Otto’s materialism, his needing the invaluable equipment, versus Peter’s being able to go with nothing at all, including building himself up from only a few memories, was refreshing and a good reminder of what makes his comics special. What took Otto months to prepare was undone by Osborn, and took Peter less than a day to suffer and prove how he was the superior Spider-Man.

Residual effects of this run include Otto’s achievements being known as Peter's, symbolized by the rise and fall of Parker Industries.

I had read Superior Spider-Man as it was being released, and I remember the online backlash from leaked photos of the Dying Wish prelude, which featured a fantastic twist that made me reread the issue. The Ben Urich annual by Christos Gage was phenomenal. The Age of Ultron tie-in was cool, too.

The part with Peter's Horizon co-workers dealing with the chronotons, fabric of time, which acted like film strips burning away into the page’s bleed had taken some getting used to, but I appreciate the artstyle. The ending also did feel rushed, and Peter versus Norman was short, but there are future Superior stories to fill the void while the Osborn plot continued through the Amazing Spider-Man’s relaunch.

In the end, this series was about how Peter was the Superior Spider-Man compared to Otto. Everything that defined Spider-Man was met with the antithesis and described as Superior. Ghost Peter was the idea of Spider-Man, which Otto embodied, but which took back control because Otto was failing to live up to it. Otto having to recall Peter’s memories to succeed where he was failing was what brought Peter back. I thought Otto failing to remember anything outside of the skimmed portions of Peter’s highlights was an awesome flex for longtime readers from the writer, where even these seeds were shown to be enough for the idea to grow into the full and authentic hero.

Thank you for reading.

Allen W. McLean

PS. Check out more Spider-Man reviews:

https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/search/label/Spider-Man

...

Need more Bite-sized Insights to relieve your stress and suffering?

Banner: The Cannon by Allen W. McLean

Readers can follow HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair via our emailing lists (on Medium, Patreon, LinkedIn and more) for mindfulness meditation scifaiku and haiku poetry based on book reviews and on previews of metaphysical stories such as "Escape Perennial City" (available on Kindle Unlimited); as a free gift, all readers get an Amazon Kindle ebook short story every week on Free Fridays--selection rotates every few weeks, so follow via email to collect them all! https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/follow-on-social-media.html 

Thanks to you, over 500 followers have joined us on Medium! If anyone reading this needs followers to stay in the Medium Partner Program, I am asking you to please follow me (and sign up for emails!) and I'll follow you back!

Leave a comment with books you would like to see reviewed and I will add them to my Goodreads!!

Always open to reading book recommendations. Looking forward to adding new friends on Goodreads, to share what we read with each other: www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

Have been looking for other free kindle books to read, ones that are only free for a day or so, so if you have an ebook on Kindle feel free to share them and I'll download!

April's latest psychedelic music videos, art and poetry is available on all streaming platforms.

Electric Armchair - Living Ghosts (FULL ALBUM): distrokid.com/hyperfollow/electricarmchair/living-ghosts

"Tomothy and the Overseer of the Forest" is available as an eBook through Amazon Kindle apps and devices; read right now with Kindle Unlimited! www.haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/tomothy-and-overseer-of-forest.html

Kindle ebooks can be read on any device through one's web browser at www.read.amazon.com

These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection.

20220927 - Radio Free Albemuth Book Review

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A pink-orange light, // blinding insight from above, // alien gospel.

HAIKUPRAJNA - Radio Free Albemuth Book Review 

...

Hello readers,

Radio Free Albemuth is the first attempt by Philip K. Dick to deal with his exegesis in fiction, which would become a fantastic series of books based around his story VALIS. In this book, Nicholas Brady tells his sci-fi author friend Phil about the dreams he has about a communist conspiracy party called Aramchek and a satellite named “Vast Active Living Intelligence System A”, the later of which Nick and Phil believed to be Nick’s future self helping him, but we come to learn is really a low-level ‘AI voice’ from the universal group-mind.

Through VALIS, Nick meets Saddasa Sylvia, who was born with the name Aramchek, and who knew that Ferris F. Fremont had become the US President through effortless political sabotage and that the current totalitarian regime was really a hostile takeover; later on, one could imply that VALIS had assisted Ferris with the greater good in mind. Nicolas was literally being beamed this information in the form of pink-orange light that even his wife Rachel could see and verify.

The novel is only really gripping when one digs into the religious philosophy a bit; Nick was experiencing a microcosmic version of what may happen during instrumentality, with two minds instead of multiple, where the individual had to read in sequence the information that was beamed all at once; Philip K. Dick was taking the metaphors of the Bible in a literal light during his then-modern times.

Unlike Horselover Fat in the later VALIS novel, Philip K. Dick masked his experience through the character of Nicholas Brady and a fictionalized American Berkeley and Orange County, featuring the classic sci-fi twisting of real-life politics one expects from his other novels. According to Nick’s dreams, VALIS was working through alternate histories and parallel universes in order to disrupt the media and its government agents, melding all of his best tropes.

I liked how the point-of-view of the narrative bleeds between Nick’s and the fictional Phil’s through the Radio Free Albemuth’s three parts, something that later books lean right into. 

Despite this list of pros, the book does have its cons due to its nature. Characters are prone to making assumptions that are just told to be true. Narrators indulge in long-winded rambles (this, however, is remedied through masked anxiety in Timothy Archer) and employ excessive metaphors, where the dramatic exposition is often only thematic with good wisdom hiding in the rough.

Here is the quick and dirty of it; the Roman Empire had only changed faces and its hierarchical rules still existed through Ferris, while VALIS fought against the hindering forces of the black iron prison through a plan spanning over multiple thousands of years into the past and future. Ferris symbolized events such as Phil being burglarized, having drugs planted in his home, the forced spying on friends and compulsory questionnaires. VALIS stood for rebelling against literal impossible odds, where one knew one would experience actual failure, but doing good anyway because the alien satellite would invade one’s mind and enact exactly what was needed to do for what it wanted to do. 

Radio Free Albemuth is heavy with Gnostic themes, but also universal idealistic messages, really the entire story could be seen as an American group-mind protecting itself in an abstract way. 

A quote from the book; “To an infant, when its parents leave the room they cease to be. But as he grows older he understands differently. They are there whether or not he can see them or touch them or hear their voices. It is an early lesson. But sometimes perhaps not completely learned.”

The necessity of suffering is highlighted as well, where the good can always be taken from the bad, that the work must always be done; mindlessness versus mindfulness, where leaving oneself defenseless to even minor threats is akin to sloth.

This sci-fi book managed to be one of the scariest stories I have ever read or will write about and it is not even in the horror genre; it is evident that the book is fictional, but the subject matter and the events taking place should be perceived as real to at least the author. Perhaps I am just a philosophy-kook, a paranoid and anxious believer of our literary history, but Philip K. Dick’s exegesis shakes me to my core, and the stories based on his experience continue to disturb my foundation to this day. Power equates to fear, and that is the force that fights against the universe itself. Though, it has a message of hope and for that reason the books of the VALIS series are among my favorite pieces of literature.

Thank you for reading.

Allen W. McLean 

P.S.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGHJ7FM9

P.P.S. The page for "Together in Forever" has been updated with information about its book: https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/together-in-forever.html

...

Need more Bite-sized Insights to relieve your stress and suffering?

Readers can follow HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair via our emailing lists (on Medium, Patreon, LinkedIn and more) for mindfulness meditation scifaiku and haiku poetry based on book reviews and on previews of metaphysical stories such as "Escape Perennial City" (available on Kindle Unlimited); as a free gift, all readers get an Amazon Kindle ebook short story every week on Free Fridays--selection rotates every few weeks, so follow via email to collect them all! https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/follow-on-social-media.html 

Thanks to you, over 500 followers have joined us on Medium! If anyone reading this needs followers to stay in the Medium Partner Program, I am asking you to please follow me (and sign up for emails!) and I'll follow you back!

Leave a comment with books you would like to see reviewed and I will add them to my Goodreads!!

Always open to reading book recommendations. Looking forward to adding new friends on Goodreads, to share what we read with each other: www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

Have been looking for other free kindle books to read, ones that are only free for a day or so, so if you have an ebook on Kindle feel free to share them and I'll download!

April's latest psychedelic music videos, art and poetry is available on all streaming platforms.

Electric Armchair - Living Ghosts (FULL ALBUM): distrokid.com/hyperfollow/electricarmchair/living-ghosts

"Together in Forever" is available in eBook, paperback and hardcover through Amazon Kindle apps and devices; read right now with Kindle Unlimited! https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/together-in-forever.html

Kindle ebooks can be read on any device through one's web browser at www.read.amazon.com

These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection. 

20220915 - Amazing Fantasy Issue 1000 Comic Book Review

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Swing by just in time, \\ relieve the worlds of burden, \\ on strands of the web.

HAIKUPRAJNA - Amazing Fantasy Issue 1000 Comic Book Review

...

Hello readers,

Amazing Fantasy issue 1000 spins nine individual stories from a variety of creative teams. I wanted to pick favorites and find something to gripe about, but the writing is solid throughout this celebratory milestone issue. Dan Slott's story choked me up, and the rest were sweet and showcased why Spider-Man's the best of the best.

Before digging deeper into the stories, will shout out the impressive job from the art and Virtual Calligraphy teams; Terry and Rachel Dodson are as awesome as always; Ryan Stegman, JP Mayer and Sonia Oback bringing Venom and Superior vibes; Olivier Coipel and Matthew Wilson brought charm to the Bugle and its employees; with everyone else that I am forgetting to mention, I believe anyone will find the work here enjoyable.

Ask anyone and they will say the best part about Spider-Man is how he never gives in and always does the right thing, despite the consequences, in the name of responsibility. Each of the nine one-shots displays a different type of conflict that Peter Parker is known for overcoming. Instead of pummeling Spidey with nine back to back enemies, readers get to see him cope with the loss of Gwen while saving others, to see him direct the wayward, and even get to see Spidey struggle to enjoy an ice cream. Fans are also treated with some cool original villain-vs-hero action scenes and the ole question "What does it mean to be Spider-man?"

Over the past sixty (60!) years, Marvel has been telling us that everyone can "be Spider-Man". All it takes is the solemn vow to use one's abilities, natural or otherwise, for the greater good. As much as some readers may complain of his relationships stagnating, Peter Parker has grown with his audience over the past six decades into a deep and relatable hero known the world-over. 

(Picture: "Sinister 60th" from Amazing Fantasy 1000.)

Here are the stories in order of most enjoyed;

... Sinister 60th - Dan Slott

... Just Some Guy - Anthony Falcone and Michael Cho

... You Get It - Jonathan Hickman 

... Slaves of the Witch-Queen - Kurt Busiek

... With Great Power... - Neil Gaiman

... Along Came a Rhino... - Mike Pasciullo

... Spider-Man VS. Conspiriton - Armando Iannucci

... The Kid's Got a Good Eye - Rainbow Rowell

... In The Flesh - Ho Che Anderson

Each story is top tier. Seeing Peter and MJ at sixty years old was fantastic; Spidey telling a grunt that they matter was superb; the Council of Spider-Man was amazing. The rest were just as spectacular, from the Amazing Fantasy 15 throwback to tributes to Steve Ditko and Mike Pasciullo.

Been a lifelong fan of the web-headed Avenger. April and I sleep next to a poster board of Goblin and Spidey from the first Raimi film and we collect figures (like Marvel Legends) and the trade paperbacks that we find. I always get excited when comics reach a milestone like this, it is especially exciting when one gets to live alongside the releases. Amazing Fantasy 1000 was a delightful treat for this Spider-Man fanboy; now to wait in anticipation for Amazing Spider-Man 950 and 1000!

Thank you for reading.

Allen W. McLean 

...(Updated below 221003)

...

Need more Bite-sized Insights to relieve your stress and suffering?

Readers can follow HaikuPrajna and Electric Armchair via our emailing lists (on Medium, Patreon, LinkedIn and more) for mindfulness meditation scifaiku and haiku poetry based on book reviews and on previews of metaphysical stories such as "Escape Perennial City" (available on Kindle Unlimited); as a free gift, all readers get an Amazon Kindle ebook short story every week on Free Fridays--selection rotates every few weeks, so follow via email to collect them all! https://haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/follow-on-social-media.html 

Thanks to you, over 500 followers have joined us on Medium! If anyone reading this needs followers to stay in the Medium Partner Program, I am asking you to please follow me (and sign up for emails!) and I'll follow you back!

Leave a comment with books you would like to see reviewed and I will add them to my Goodreads!!

Always open to reading book recommendations. Looking forward to adding new friends on Goodreads, to share what we read with each other: www.goodreads.com/author/show/19557396.Allen_W_McLean

Have been looking for other free kindle books to read, ones that are only free for a day or so, so if you have an ebook on Kindle feel free to share them and I'll download!

April's latest psychedelic music videos, art and poetry is available on all streaming platforms.

Electric Armchair - Living Ghosts (FULL ALBUM): distrokid.com/hyperfollow/electricarmchair/living-ghosts

"Tomothy and the Overseer of the Forest" is available as an eBook through Amazon Kindle apps and devices; read right now with Kindle Unlimited! www.haikuprajna.blogspot.com/p/tomothy-and-overseer-of-forest.html

Kindle ebooks can be read on any device through one's web browser at www.read.amazon.com

These poems will be collected in future editions of the HaikuPrajna Collection.