Karen S. Wiesner: Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Ghost Prison by Joseph Delaney

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Ghost Prison by Joseph Delaney

by Karen S. Wiesner

After I finished my last writing reference, I'd started to hear about a trend going around writing circles. In direct opposition of everything I'd ever taught in my writing series about the crucial need to go deep with characters, writers were being told that it's best not to include more than basic information about main characters, not even providing last names for them--this supposedly allows readers to fill in the blanks with their own details, making the characters whatever they want them to be.

In my mind, this is a big mistake. How can character development be fluid enough to allow something like that without compromising everything vital in a story? Individual character choices directly influence outcomes. If a character isn't well defined, motives and purposes are constantly in question as well as in flux. Ultimately, characters that have no impact on readers make for a quickly forgotten story.

I want a good balance of character and plot development in the stories I'm willing to invest myself in, and I'm not getting it with most of the new stuff coming out. So I've been re-reading the books that have made it onto my keeper shelves in the past. To that end, here's another "oldies but goodies" review.

The Ghost Prison by Joseph Delaney is said to be a tangential installment of his wonderful The Last Apprentice Series (reviewed here: 

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Last+Apprentice), and it's clear by the language that it's set in the same world. Billy Calder may well have become an apprentice of the Spook John Gregory in another life, but in this story he's simply a 15-year old orphan boy who seizes the opportunity to gain independence from the Home for Unfortunate Boys by taking a job as a castle prison guard. He's given almost no training. After waking up late for his first shift, he rushes to the prison from the orphanage. His supervisor isn't pleased. Beyond that, night in the prison is anything but boring, given the number of supernatural prisoners that have to be tended to. An illness removes his boss and leaves Billy in charge, forced to take over horrifying duties he doesn't have the experience or skills to handle.

This short tale published just before Halloween in 2013 is intended for 4-7th graders, but don't let that stop you. Why should they have all the fun? This story is one that anyone who loves a good chiller will enjoy just as much as I did. Billy is a plucky Pip-like kid who doesn't give up or give in easily, even when it might be wise to just run for his life and not look back. Scott M. Fischer's black and white sketches all through the book are perfect accompaniments to the fun, suspenseful text. This is a story filled with a well-developed, brilliant personality that allows you to share directly in Billy's conflicts and root for him to triumph.

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Teens, Trekkies, and Heroic Ideal

I remember back when I was just a reader I thought authors knew everything about their worlds and how they worked.  Naturally, authors who’ve been around know a whole lot, but I’m a brand new baby author and, let me tell you, I feel pretty stupid most of the time.  Much of what I do know I learned right here on this blog, like Theme. 

Ophelia is a Trekkie.  She’s the heroine of my YA SFR, Sugar Rush.  Why is she a Trekkie?  It all comes down to Theme.  The story’s theme is Achieving the Freedom to Live.

Ophelia and her sister are obsessed with movies.  They live in a small, isolated Alaskan town.  Movies, via a massive DVD collection, and the Internet are their windows to the world.  Ophelia’s favorite movies happen to be Star Trek.  Ophelia went to a real movie theater in the big city when she was diagnosed with diabetes at age nine and her sister has never been to one. 

This brings to mind a hilarious movie starring Eddie Murphy, Daddy Daycare.  He’s an unemployed dad who opens a daycare with a friend. (I used to be a professional childcare provider, so I loved this movie.) 

After overcoming some initial bias against male childcare providers, they begin caring for a few children.  One little boy seems to speak only gibberish.  When Eddie must hire a new dad-care provider, the new employee, a Trekkie, immediately recognizes that the little boy is speaking Klingon, a fictional language from the Star Trek universe.  Very sweet, but I was most intrigued by the little boy who constantly wears a superhero costume.  He wears the costume of a superhero, because he’s working through his fear of the new daycare situation.  A superhero fears nothing, you know.  Once the little boy learns to trust his new caregivers, he takes off the costume. 

The bad guys have Ophelia cornered like an animal in Sugar Rush.  She’s a smart girl desperate to be free, but she hasn’t figured out her own strengths or how to use them.  Like the little boy wearing the superhero costume, she clutches a Captain Janeway Christmas tree ornament (her boyfriend gave it to her) at her father’s funeral in the first half of the book.  Her courage matures over the course of the story, however, and by the last battle she’s on her own.

A hero or heroic ideal helps even an adult focus and believe in themselves.  In the story, it’s not enough for Ophelia to have a perfect grade point average.  She needs to believe herself capable. 

And that is why Ophelia is a Trekkie.

Speaking of heroes, the authors of this blog helped me believe I could achieve publication too, and here I am!  A great, big, huge THANK YOU!

Kimber An