Something very strange is going on in Crooked Tree State Forest in the state of Michigan. Several people are savagely attacked and killed by black bears. The Ottawa Indians suspect that an ancient legend has come to pass where the spirit of Shawonabe, an evil man has taken over the mind and body of a living person and is inciting the bears to murder. Shawonabe called "the evil one from the south," is buried somewhere in Crooked Tree State Forest, and the legend is referred to as "the bearwalk."...

This is a story that kept me reading late into the night. I also learned that pound for pound, the black bear is the strongest animal alive.

I ...would love to see this story made into a movie!

A MUST READ for any horror story, outdoor or Native American aficionado. "Crooked Tree" evokes an old Ottawa Indian legend as it explores the strange and increasingly violent behavior of some large furry woodland denizens. An evil spirit is threatening the balance of nature and the lives of local residents, and it's growing in power. Soon, it's affecting more than just the bears...

For a book set in the woods of Northern Michigan, "Crooked Tree" keeps a remarkably fast pace. And despite the pace, the character development doesn't suffer.

The book is superbly timed and is as scary as any Steven King novel I've ever read (and that includes Carrie, The Shining, Cujo and Christine). I join the ranks of Amazon.com reviewers calling for a movie adaptation. This would put any recent "horror" film to shame, and they wouldn't have to go hog-wild on the special effects budget. In fact, to any movie execs reading this and considering a screenplay (fat chance): I beg of you, please don't! If I have to watch another movie like "The Haunting" I may just poke my eyes out.

And speaking of eyes, you'll be doing double takes with people and pets for quite some time after you read this... just to be sure...

The book should also appeal to any Michiganders with ties to the North Woods or hunters in general. Readers interested in more background on the legend of the Crooked Tree should check out the book of the same name by John Couchois Wright that describes the history and legends of Michigan's Little Traverse Bay region and the Ottawa Indians.

- Reviewed by Todd V.

I read this probably 25 years ago and could not put it down. One of our sons read it and gave it to another son who could not finish it as it was just too scary for him at the age of 19 or 20. He lost it and we have been trying to find another copy for years. It was so vivid you could live it as you read. The bear breathing down your neck and the indian references were all too, too real! Not a book for someone who scares easily.

Author Charles Kipp has earned the title of Master for this truly magnificent book. With a mix of western culture, astrology, science and magick, you get an eye opening experience of pure ecstasy.

This certainly is not a step by step how-to, new age astrology guide. This is a complete book of revelations in the field of astrology that practitioners of the science itself need to experience. Leave behind all you thought you knew. Open the first page and read the introduction by Robert Anton Wilson. Then read the first page from Charles Kipp. You won't be able to put down this book once you start.

Master in his own right, Robert Anton Wilson introduces the book with his own personal experience while studying Crowley. You can see how Wilson has remained objective and open minded in his 28 years of reading and researching a man who, to this day, remains an enigmatic icon. His respect for Crowley shows clearly through the lines as he tries to explain not only who Crowley was, but why he lived his life the way he did. Although no one will ever know for sure Crowley's mindset, Wilson gives an award winning performance in presenting a fresh, very believable point of view.

Following this marvelous introduction isn't easy, but Charles Kipp is equal to the task as he takes you on an enlightened journey through astrology in a way you have never traveled before. Using Aleister Crowley as a test subject for his topic is, in a word, brilliant! Kipp calls on 30 years experience as student, practitioner and teacher of astrology to delve deeply into Crowley's life through his own writings. Intertwining them with Astrology not only makes for easy comprehension but sheer enjoyment!

Never before has such an in-depth book been written to keep the reader aware of each step; it's like taking several courses simultaneously. Kipp expands your horizons with the experience and proves that he really is the new master on the block!

For one who was reared on a steady diet of propaganda which taught that astrology was well-represented by the colorful charts, graphs, and horoscopes on the newsstand rags at the local grocery store, I had my biases. A certain cynicism usually kicked in and got in the way of my even picking up a book with the word "Astrology" in its title.

Silly Me.

Something profound drew me to this book and I have been thankful ever since. This highly impressive work is a benchmark for what makes for truly great reading, in my opinion. A nice coalescence between hard core science and then fanciful, poetic musings. To remain so open-minded while maintaining a well-grounded basis really gives Mr. Kipp an edge on others who have attempted similarly lofty tasks. Kipp elegantly pulls together a symphony of ideas.

Tying together such disparate topics as mysticism, astrology, psychoanalysis, history, and science - no simple task - is performed by Mr. Kipp with unique scholarship, and impeccable flair.

The rascal Aleister Crowley is rendered very human and great sympathy is aroused by Kipp's amusing characterization of Crowley's strange and at times brutal upbringing. We are compelled to understand the psychology and mythology inherent in Crowley's (and our own) universe.

Ultimately, we are brought full circle to a deep insight of the theoretical perspectives - including both critical and expansive views - necessary to establish a sense of "wholeness."

This reader was left amazed at the beauty of the language and the harmonious interplay of really cool, strange subjects.

My amazement at the fact that someone could come up with the idea for this book was superseded by the fact that the idea was so powerfully executed.

Bring us another one, Master Kipp.

After his mother dies, Travis Fisher travels to the Midwest town of Haute Montagne to live with his Aunt Liza Burack and her husband Creath. It is the Great Depression and jobs are hard to come by so Travis works for Creath at his ice plant. The Baracks have a strange but beautiful boarder named Anna living in their attic and Travis is attracted to her even though she sleeps with Creath.

Travis starts dating Nancy Wilcox who wants to help Anna escape from Creath. Anna begs Travis to take Anna to a safe place before she starts changing. With Nancy's help he succeeds, but also glimpses Anna in her other form and knows she is not human. He leaves and Nancy watches over Anna until she completes the change. Anna is also waiting for her other half before she can return to her home world, but Haute Montagne is on the verge of exploding and Travis, Nancy, Anna and her other half could get caught in the middle of vigilante justice.

A HIDDEN PLACE is a fascinating work of fantasy starring two misfits who see themselves through an alien's myopic eyes. Nancy's easy acceptance of Anna's origins and Travis's rejection of her is a reflection of the lives they lived up to this point. Anna is a complex character who can see the beauty in humanity, which is the reason Nancy is so willing to help her. Travis is also a complicated person running from a past he can't accept and a future he doesn't believe in unless he makes peace with the mother he both loved and hated.

Harriet Klausner

This book reminded me of a Dean Koontz novel but with a little more substance and without the golden retriever. Wilson asks the question, what does it mean to be human? Aliens settle in orbit around earth and ask humans if they would like to live forever. However, living forever would mean becoming something not exactly human but perhaps better. 10% of the world population, including the protagonist, decide not to take them up on their offer. The book then follows the adventures of the hero and his few companions who have also declined the aliens' "gift"

What would I do? That wasn't the only question that popped into my head when I finished this novel. It was followed by a host of others. Excellently written, Wilson made me feel good about the human species, when I thought the times could only get worse. Even reading it at 16, the novel made me feel like I was there and living. Excellent.

Why are all the best books out of print? And why didn't this man get some sort of award for this book? It was an old topic explored in an original way. I read this on a road trip from Ohio to Florida, and I will tell you, I hated when I had to take my turn driving. I could not get my mind off of this book from page one until the end. What an excellent storyteller this author is!

After reading BIOS by Wilson, I wanted to find more from him because I liked his writing. Mysterium was as good as I had hoped.

The plot was well developed and the characters were interesting. Also, as I found in BIOS, Wilson is very good at letting you get important information about the setting through the plot instead of having to explicitly describe things. I also liked that the author at least made mention at the beginning of the book about how the world that was left behind reacted to the disappearance of the town. In other similar stories I've read, I've wondered about this, but it was never addressed.

One thing that I think could have made this book better was if the author had written more about the town and the characters before the event took place. I think this would have given the reader a better idea about who the characters were before this happened to them. Something like what Stephen King did so well in The Stand.

In any case, I enjoyed Mysterium and would recommend it. I will continue to look for more from Wilson in the future.

This book is great. Well realized characters, a very interesting story-line that poses some interesting questions. The books ending will have you on the edge of your seat. The parallel world is brought vividly to life. My only quibble with the book was that there seemed to be so much of the story compressed into just a few pages. The book's timeline skips a few months, and some explanations. Aside from that I'd recommend this to anyone looking for something interesting and thought provoking.

I found this at a used bookstore too. I hadn't heard of Robert Charles Wilson and boy! what a good book. He writes well and the plot about an alternate universe is intriguing. I kept thinking about the Dark Tower in Stephen King's mythos. I am going to see if the local library carries other of Wilson's works. I think he's definitely going to be somebody to pursue!

I highly recommend this one. I couldn't put it down. And usuallly, I'm famous for buying cruddy books at the used bookstore. This one is a gem!

As unfortunate as it may be, books by Robert Charles Wilson are hard to come by. However, keep your eyes peeled, they're more than worth the trouble. This is the story of a small number of people with the ability to move in directions other than the traditional up-down, left-right, foward-backword motife. They are able to slip right out of this world into another. Oddly enough, each of the characters with the gift move into very different worlds. The question: why? Why to they have this power? Why is the worlds each one moves to so different? And, ultimately, why is their man in grey hunting them down?

This story goes far beyond it's plot to deal confront issues of far more importance than magic powers: family, love, creativity and, most of all, the power of the imagination.

A must read.

I simply can't believe that most of this gentleman's books are out of print. Every single one that I have read (beginning with "The Harvest") has been GREAT, including this one. A dark read, as are most of Mr. Wilson's stories, "Gypsies" is the story of the Fauve children, and their inherited ability to "visualize" other worlds, and to actually travel to them! Unfortunately, not all of these worlds are pleasant places, and the Fauve children wait too long to ask certain questions regarding the origin of their "powers"... I found this book in the library, along with a few others of Mr. Wilson's wonderful books. I hope the publisher will respond to a note I recently sent regarding re-issue of these books! I hope other fans will encourage this also! I bet Amazon.com would sell a bunch of them!

I ripped through this one on a trip across country. It's not literature but a fun story nonetheless. A man buys a cottage in the woods to recover from heartache. He slowly discovers that he's not alone in the house, but that the building is "alive" (sort of). Soon after, he finds that his home is a 4th dimensional way station to 1963 New York, a way station guarded by a paranoid cyborg from a post-holocaust future. Cool, huh?

Wilson is one of the today's best science fiction writers and "A Bridge of Years" is his most moving book. This story of a house that serves as a crossroad in time weaves together the unique romance of an unlikely couple, a reluctant soldier from the future and a mysterious caretaker from an enlightened era. Suspense and insight are expertly balanced in the three storylines. "A Bridge of Years" succeeds in pairing great characters with fascinating ideas and a love story that fits perfectly into the scenario. It's a great book for unlikely fans of science fiction as it offers more than just the usual revelations and situations.

One of the most memorable science fiction books I've read in the past decade. Wilson is both a stylist and a story-teller.

This is a fascinating science fiction anthology that centers on a small bookstore, Finders, as if that place is the vortex of the universe. Each story is well written and connects back to the bookstore, some more so than others. Three tales are new though if readers are like this reviewer they were unaware that the author had written any short stories so all the tales are new. As with his novels, Robert Charles Wilson has written an exciting book that showcase why this writer is one of the centers of the genre as short science fiction is rarely as good.

Harriet Klausner

This book is more horror than science fiction. It's very strange, very dark, and very disturbing. I can't call any of the stories "optimistic." I can call them nightmares that have made their way into print. I have never read anything like this. The
author is very imaginative. But I wonder, what kind of a mind can write stories like this?

Robert Charles Wilson's fictions are always a great pleasure to read: populated by heartbroken, sometimes courageous, sometimes tragic characters caught in the galactic spinning wheels not of their design, depicted in elegant, spare and caustically witty prose, and addressing heavy metaphysical questions without losing sight of human-scale sufferings and losses. I sort of regard him as Graham Greene of contemporary science fiction, a healthy antidote to all the postmodern ironies and self-congratulatory razzle-dazzle that infect fictions of every genre these days. His first collection of short stories is, if anything, sparer and tougher than his epic novels like MYSTERIUM or DARWINA. Without employing unnecessary pyrotechnics (although he does kill off all life on earth in "Infinity Divided by Infinity") or dangling his attitude in front of our noses, Wilson draws us into the realm of horrors and wonders both cosmic (like Lovecraft minus the baroque intimations of "unspeakable") and personal. Potentially dreary subjects like alien abduction ("The Observer") and mineral-based life form ("Pearl Baby") are reworked into strange and unexpected touching meditations on the nature of mystery and the human ambivalence toward it. On the other hand, the collection's intimate scope might turn off fans of BIOS and DARWINIA, the stories being firmly rooted in the physical and emotional geography of Toronto. Some may also feel that science is not "hard" enough; others may object to the author's somewhat strenuous effort to construct a "shared world" around the stories that seem to have very little in common. I for one am quite satisfied, and am eagerly looking forward to his second collection.

Long, long before the druids formed, there was (is) a race of blue people who came to earth from a distant star. They came as teachers and friends and helped those who dwelled in what is now England, to understand the Nature of Reality. Stonehenge was built as a landing platform for their ship. Stone was the only reliable, nonmagnetic material available. Decadence set in and they came no more. Thanks for your fascinating books. jamie

The premise of this novel is great. I won't waste your time repeating it here - undoubtedly you've already read about it in the other reviews here on Amazon. Suffice it to say, the premise hooked me into buying this book.

The story is less so. One of my gripes is that Wilson has the same small set of characters interact through a series of "coincidences" over two decades as the story unfolds. He explains these away as a time-related side-effect of the chronoliths. Now, I might buy this, except that he never really gives a clear explanation of what the twisted causality is that he refers to. I don't mean that I expect him to give a scientific explanation. But some examples (outside of the coincidental character interactions in the book) to illustrate his idea would lend it credence. Without this, these coincidences come across almost as laziness on the part of the author.

I have a hard time putting my finger on what else I didn't like about this book. The story moved along well and the main characters were fairly well-written. Perhaps it's the uneasiness that arose in me as the unfolding story told of a progressively bleak future for the world and the resulting degeneration of the American political scene. We Americans always seem to think of the future as better and brighter, and The Chronoliths points out that this might not always be the case.

In the end, I would like to give this story a better rating, but I can't. I might not recommend it, but on the other hand, you wouldn't be wasting your time if you chose to read it.

As many other reviewers have said, the concept of this book is very interesting. However, two things annoyed me about the book. First, there are numerous plot mistakes in the story. Stupid little things that probably won't annoy everyone but did annoy me. For example, characters don thermal protective suits in order to avoid freezing during an arrival. However, these suits don't seem to include gloves as people routinely touch freezing metal and leave skin behind. A minor oversight perhaps, but hard to believe that they would forget to include gloves. Small technical discrepencies like this abound and are distracting because they hurt the story's plausibility.

Second, the ending was not very satisfying. The end just doesn't have any real payoff. You don't cheer for the hero because he isn't very likeable. You don't really cheer for anyone. This book reminded me of Robert Silverberg's The Alien Years. Both books have a similar melancholy tone and unsatisfying endings.

I wanted to like this book but cannot heartily recommend it.

The concept of this book is brilliant and utterly original. I love scifi and this is one of the greatest ideas for a book I've come across.

With that said, however, I think the followthrough is disappointing. The book never rises to the potential offered by its concept. The story itself is promising in the beginning, but then it sort of evolves into a tepid made-for-TV movie.

Sadly, I think this is something of a habit for Robert Charles Wilson. I felt the same about Darwinia -- great concept that never is realized in the telling of the story.