CR2: Book 28 Bizarre Diseases of the Mind by Richard Noll

Real life cases of rare mental illnesses? Yes, please.

Richard Noll, a clinical psychologist, has completely creeped me out. The case histories of the extremely delusional people he writes about are horrifying and I may not sleep ever again. While true that these stories follow a relatively easy-to-read narrative, the disorders themselves are nightmarish.
Sick people with exotic conditions (Erotomania, possession, multiple personality disorders, Lycanthrophy, even necrophilia) do not make for good bedtime reading, but I had a difficult time putting this down. Noll uses several clinical research reports found in professional journals and the fact that these people actually inhabit the world I live in is a scary thought indeed.

The first couple of chapters weren't too frightening. Multiple Personality Disorder and Amnesia are the concepts of bad soap opera storylines. But, then he hits with Possession. Stories of priests trying to exorcise demons from children? Roman Catholics are not afraid to get their hands dirty, believe you me.
And the "insanity is contagious"-ness of mass delusions? Don't get me started. Entire congregations of people who gather at points in time to celebrate the end of the world are one thing. But this disorder is turned on its head when you consider that people who are institutionalized together "more often than not" start sharing their conditions.

There is also a fascinating chapter on Erotomania that begins with John Hinkley's letter to Jodie Foster. It's strange to know that he had spoken to her on the phone a couple of times. What could she have said to make him think she wanted him to kill President Reagan? And the way he goes about trying to convince her he loves her is unnerving, knowing what we now know of how that turned out.

And then, Noll decides to utterly freak me out with his discourse on somnabulistic homicide. I now have to worry that I will either kill in my sleep or be killed by a sleep-walker.

If you are looking for a good read on Satanism, idiot savants, people with stigmata, real life vampirism, you could do a lot worse. I shuddered every other page.

CR2: Book 27 Thieves' World edited by Robert Aspirin

Why do I keep picking these weird books with multiple authors?

Having never read anything from the Sanctuary series, Henry thought Thieves' World would be a good place for me to start.
It is a collection of eight stories, each by a different author, who agreed going in that they would all write about this land of Sanctuary, but that details didn't necessarily have to match up. I was warned from page 1 that I may notice some inconsistencies, which I really didn't, as all of the stories are verbose to the point of being distracting.
It's a problem a lot of fantasy has- the forced made-up caste systems, the magical to-and-fro, the lack of connection with not only the events going down, but with the characters themselves. Add to that, the freedom to ignore important constants (be they from the authors not maintaining any communication with each other while writing such a history, or worse, from the paranoid characters themselves changing facts and perceptions) and suddenly, I feel like I'm scanning the story, rather than ingesting it.

I'm sure I zoned out more than once.

But there IS some good storytelling here, despite the too-wordy dialogue and complete wash of plot. It just took me longer than usual to appreciate it, and a shorter time than that to forget what made it interesting. For every story I think I liked, there were two others that made me wish I had never heard of Thieves' World.

My advice? Sentences of Death by John Brunner and The Price of Doing Business by Robert Aspirin are the best of the bunch. Skip Blood Brothers by Joe Haldeman and Myrtis by Christine DeWees altogether (they do nothing but infuriate your logical thinkings). The Gate of the Flying Knives by Poul Anderson *could have been* great, but lost its momentum.

No more Sanctuary for me.