THE DEEP ONES: "The Well of Stars and Shadow" by Caitlín R. Kiernan

"The Well of Stars and Shadow" by Caitlín R. Kiernan

Discussion begins September 13, 2023

First paper publication: Trilobite: The Writing of Threshold (2003).



BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?57316

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Alabaster
Alabaster: Pale Horse

ONLINE VERSIONS

https://www.baen.com/Chapters/1596060603/1596060603___2.htm

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

No online audio versions found to date.

MISCELLANY

https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitl%C3%ADn_R._Kiernan
https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Dancy_Flammarion
https://tinyurl.com/yckxey37

I enjoyed that enough that I would likely pick up a full book of Dancy if one came to hand. There's more about the origins of the character in the Alabaster preface on the Baen site.

The solution to Jube's riddle is a coffin.
(Solved by my Other Reader.)

There are two "historical" vignettes embedded in the story: The Hebbard's Mill account from the early 20th century, and the astronomical phenomenon from 1833. Are they linked? The monster has its origins in the earlier event; did it contribute to the latter?

I assumed the monster caused the "nervous whispers about the lake, blue lights seen floating above the black waters late at night" that helped cause the town's abandonment.

The meteor shower in 1833 was, naturally, the Leonids.

I too liked the story and would be happy to read more of Dancy. Her name recalls that of Camille Flammarion, astronomer, science popularizer, spiritist, and novelist.

I have read Threshold, so I was pleased to encounter Dancy again.

I believe Kiernan has expressed the wish that she could dispense with plot altogether, so I wasn't surprised that the plot was relatively slight which works in this origin tale. As usual, Kiernan is lyrical, atmospheric, and impressionistic here mixing, in sort of a Fortean way, that newspaper article and song (I assume it's "The Moon Over Alabama", but I haven't checked).

The story has a fairy tale feel with the old person living in a rural area and having truck with strange things, and, of course, there's the matter of the riddle challenge.

I thought the entity's "Why does the crow fly in the woods? What kind of bushes do rabbits sit under when the rain comes?" was something of a non sequitur. Is it fishing for a riddle it can answer?

I really appreciated Juba's remark which could stand as the quintessence of the weird tale: "Ain't everything in the world got a what and a why for the askin'."

And, of course, and again suitable for an origin story, we have the sinister implications of the entity knowing Dancy's name.