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The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands
Read by Ray Panthacki
Simon & Schuster Audio, 2015
7.25 hrs
Grades 5-9


Christopher Rowe, is a lucky lad.  Plucked from the orphanage for his intellectual potential, Christopher is apprenticed to the kindly apothecary, Master Benedict Blackthorn. Despite his lowly upbringing, relayed by narrator Ray Panthacki's hint of a Cockney accent, Christopher receives training in Latin, astronomy, ciphers, potions, and other tools of the apothecary's trade. In the midst of a suspicious atmosphere following great political upheaval, a mysterious cult of murderers arises. Christopher will need all his skills and more to decode a series of clues to a dangerous plot that threatens to upset the balance of world power. Panthacki clearly defines each of The Blackthorn Key's large cast of characters, creating distinctive voices that reflect their standing in British society.  Christopher's best friend is Tom, an apprentice baker.  Like Harry Potter and Ron, they are a memorable pair, and their dialogue sounds honest and warm.   Whether in terror, danger, or mere horseplay, the listener feels the emotion in and between the characters.  The only thing that slows the pace of adventure in this gripping mystery is the occasional reading of lengthy ciphers. Print readers may well try their hand at decoding them, but for listeners, they're primarily a drag on the action. The setting is as rich as the plot in this mid-17th century adventure brought to life by veteran actor Ray Panthacki.



My review copy was provided by AudioFile Magazine.  My review of The Blackthorn Key for AudioFile Magazine (along with an audio excerpt) appears here. [http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/107274/]

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By Sarah Dry

Nearly three hundred years since his death, Isaac Newton is as much a myth as a man. The mythical Newton abounds in contradictions; he is a semi-divine genius and a mad alchemist, a somber and solitary thinker and a passionate religious heretic. Myths usually have an element of truth to them but how many Newtonian varieties are true? Here are ten of the most common, debunked or confirmed by the evidence of his own private papers, kept hidden for centuries and now freely available online.

10. Newton was a heretic who had to keep his religious beliefs secret.

True. While Newton regularly attended chapel, he abstained from taking holy orders at Trinity College. No official excuse survives, but numerous theological treatises he left make perfectly clear why he refused to become an ordained clergyman, as College fellows were normally obliged to do. Newton believed that the doctrine of the Trinity, in which the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost were given equal status, was the result of centuries of corruption of the original Christian message and therefore false. Trinity College’s most famous fellow was, in fact, an anti-Trinitarian.

9. Newton never laughed.

False, but only just. There are only two specific instances that we know of when the great man laughed. One was when a friend to whom he had lent a volume of Euclid’s Elements asked what the point of it was, ‘upon which Sir Isaac was very merry.’ (The point being that if you have to ask what the point of Euclid is, you have already missed it.) So far, so moderately funny. The second time Newton laughed was during a conversation about his theory that comets inevitably crash into the stars around which they orbit. Newton noted that this applied not just to other stars but to the Sun as well and laughed while remarking to his interlocutor John Conduitt ‘that concerns us more.’

8. Newton was an alchemist.

True. Alchemical manuscripts make up roughly one tenth of the ten million words of private writing that Newton left on his death. This archive contains very few original treatises by Newton himself, but what does remain tells us in minute detail how he assessed the credibility of mysterious authors and their work. Most are copies of other people’s writings, along with recipes, a long alchemical index and laboratory notebooks. This material puzzled and disappointed many who encountered it, such as biographer David Brewster, who lamented ‘how a mind of such power, and so nobly occupied with the abstractions of geometry, and the study of the material world, could stoop to be even the copyist of the most contemptible alchemical work, the obvious production of a fool and a knave.’ While Brewster tried to sweep Newton’s alchemy under the rug, John Maynard Keynes made a splash when he wrote provocatively that Newton was the ‘last of the magicians’ rather than the ‘first king of reason.’

7. Newton believed that life on earth (and most likely on other planets in the universe) was sustained by dust and other vital particles from the tails of comets.

True. In Book 3 of the Principia, Newton wrote extensively how the rarefied vapour in comet’s tails was eventually drawn to earth by gravity, where it was required for the ‘conservation of the sea, and fluids of the planets’ and was most likely responsible for the ‘spirit’ which makes up the ‘most subtle and useful part of our air, and so much required to sustain the life of all things with us.’

6. Newton was a self-taught genius who made his pivotal discoveries in mathematics, physics and optics alone in his childhood home of Woolsthorpe while waiting out the plague years of 1665-7.

False, though this is a tricky one. One of the main treasures that scholars have sought in Newton’s papers is evidence for his scientific genius and for the method he used to make his discoveries. It is true that Newton’s intellectual achievement dwarfed that of his contemporaries. It is also true that as a 23 year-old, Newton made stunning progress on the calculus, and on his theories of gravity and light while on a plague-induced hiatus from his undergraduate studies at Trinity College. Evidence for these discoveries exists in notebooks which he saved for the rest of his life. However, notebooks kept at roughly the same time, both during his student days and his so called annus mirabilis, also demonstrate that Newton read and took careful notes on the work of leading mathematicians and natural philosophers, and that many of his signature discoveries owe much to them.

5. Newton found secret numerological codes in the Bible.

True. Like his fellow analysts of scripture, Newton believed there were important meanings attached to the numbers found there. In one theological treatise, Newton argues that the Pope is the anti-Christ based in part on the appearance in Scripture of the number of the name of the beast, 666. In another, he expounds on the meaning of the number 7, which figures prominently in the numbers of trumpets, vials and thunders found in Revelation.

4. Newton had terrible handwriting, like all geniuses.

False. Newton’s handwriting is usually clear and easy to read. It did change somewhat throughout his life. His youthful handwriting is slightly more angular, while in his old age, he wrote in a more open and rounded hand. More challenging than deciphering his handwriting is making sense of Newton’s heavily worked-over drafts, which are crowded with deletions and additions. He also left plenty of very neat drafts, especially of his work on church history and doctrine, which some considered to be suspiciously clean, evidence, said his 19^th century cataloguers, of Newton’s having fallen in love with his own hand-writing.

3. Newton believed the earth was created in seven days.

True. Newton believed that the Earth was created in seven days, but he assumed that the duration of one revolution of the planet at the beginning of time was much slower than it is today.

2. Newton discovered universal gravitation after seeing an apple fall from a tree.

False, though Newton himself was partly responsible for this myth. Seeking to shore up his legacy at the end of his life, Newton told several people, including Voltaire and his friend William Stukeley, the story of how he had observed an apple falling from a tree while waiting out the plague in Woolsthorpe between 1665-7. (He never said it hit him on the head.) At that time Newton was struck by two key ideas—that apples fall straight to the center of the earth with no deviation and that the attractive power of the earth extends beyond the upper atmosphere. As important as they are, these insights were not sufficient to get Newton to universal gravitation. That final, stunning leap came some twenty years later, in 1685, after Edmund Halley asked Newton if he could calculate the forces responsible for an elliptical planetary orbit.

1. Newton was a virgin.

Almost certainly true. One bit of evidence comes via Voltaire, who heard it from Newton’s physician Richard Mead and wrote it up in his Letters on England, noting that unlike Descartes, Newton was ‘never sensible to any passion, was not subject to the common frailties of mankind, nor ever had any commerce with women.’ More substantively, there is Newton’s lifelong status as a self-proclaimed godly bachelor who berated his friend Locke for trying to ‘embroil’ him with women and who wrote passionately about how other godly men struggled to tame their lust.

Sarah Dry is a writer, independent scholar, and a former post-doctoral fellow at the London School of Economics. She is the author of The Newton Papers: The Strange and True Odyssey of Isaac Newton’s Manuscripts. She blogs at sarahdry.wordpress.com and tweets at @SarahDry1.

The post True or false? Ten myths about Isaac Newton appeared first on OUPblog.

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By Daniel Parker

Be honest: did you once believe that spaghetti could grow on trees? That cats needed headphones? Or that the moon was made of cheese? Actually, don’t worry about that last one; I’m still sure that’s true. However embarrassingly you may have been hoodwinked on April Fool’s Day in the past, it is incredibly unlikely that you’ll have ever been swindled by French confidence trickster Georges Pierre des Clozets, who represented a completely fictional secret Alchemy society called ‘The Asterism’. That dubious honour fell to Robert Boyle, philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, who was duped in the latter part of the 17th century.

Between 1677 and 1678 Robert Boyle became the victim of a progressive French confidence trickster from Caen called Pierre, who claimed to be the agent of a secret international society of alchemists known mysteriously as ‘The Asterism’. The leader of The Asterism was described as the ‘Patriarch of Antioch’, resident in Constantinople. Pierre claimed to be able to work as an intermediary between Robert Boyle and the head of this exclusive society, Georges du Mesnillet, who Pierre referred to as the Patriarch of Antioch. The Asterism was, allegedly, a society comprised of the leading alchemists from around the world, a society that held the secrets to the riddles that had notoriously plagued Robert Boyle throughout his career. Pierre promised that Boyle would be made a member of The Asterism and, therefore, be privy to these alchemical secrets if he followed his orders.

There were a few problems with this. Firstly, The Asterism was an entirely fictional society made up by Pierre. Secondly, Georges du Mesnillet was not the Patriarch of Antioch (nor was there ever a French Patriarch of Antioch). Georges du Mesnillet was just an old acquaintance of Pierre’s. And thirdly, many of the alchemical secrets Pierre promised to impart were chemically impossible. Of course, Robert Boyle wasn’t to know any of this. Pierre expertly played on Robert Boyle’s obsessive fascination with alchemy, and toyed with Boyle’s perception of what was plausible and, more importantly, what was implausible. At one point during their correspondence, Pierre even managed to convince Boyle that one of the Chinese members of the society based in France had grown a fully formed homunculus in a jar.

So how did Pierre manage to successfully dupe the otherwise incredibly intelligent Robert Boyle?

As well as making a good personal impression on Boyle when the two met in early 1677 – Pierre is alluded to as the ‘illustrious stranger’ and ‘foreign virtuoso’ in Boyle’s An Historical Account of a Degradation of Gold by an Anti-Elixir – the French conman manipulated leading European periodicals to corroborate his fanciful tale. For instance, the stories Pierre told Boyle, such as the Patriarch of Antioch working towards the “reunification of the Greek and Latin Churches”, were backed up in France’s Mercure Galant and Holland’s Haerlemse Courant. The latter was published by Haarlem printer Abraham Casteleyn and it had an excellent reputation for reliability, and for acquiring sensitive international information ahead of its rivals. We also know that Robert Boyle read this publication during the years that Pierre fed ‘information’ to the publishers, and that Boyle was an irenic Christian, so these stories would have appealed to him and helped him believe the lies Pierre was telling him. The artifice of Pierre was such that he made Boyle trust him implicitly.

In early 1678 Robert Boyle was promised by Pierre that a triple-locked chest containing the alchemical secrets of The Asterism would be delivered to him as his membership had been approved by the (pseudo) Patriarch of Antioch. It was at this point that Pierre’s letters to Boyle started to dry up. Pierre’s silence was only punctuated by his bizarre excuse that the delays were due to a freak canon accident that had resulted in him breaking his lower jaw bone and losing part of his forehead. Needless to say, this triggered Boyle’s long overdue scepticism, and soon he found out the embarrassing nature of his correspondence with Pierre and the fictional society of The Asterism.

This embarrassing episode did not just impact on Robert Boyle’s pride, but his bank balance too. Pierre, and the fictional Patriarch of Antioch, swindled Robert Boyle to the tune of several hundred pounds worth of gifts. Amongst many other things, here are a few items Robert Boyle sent Pierre, on the ‘request’ of the Patriarch of Antioch: a telescope, assay balances, a globe, one hundred glass vials, jackets of fine fabric, eight rods of gold-coloured moiré, and a chiming clock over three feet tall. The only gift that we can be sure Boyle received in return, based on the correspondence between them, was a basket of fruits and cheeses. I think it’s fairly obvious who came out on top of that exchange.

Pierre used the gifts and money he had received from Robert Boyle, and numerous other victims throughout the 1670’s, to purchase an extravagant estate in Bretteville in the spring of 1680. While building and planting on the site, Pierre became ill with inflammation of the lung and died in May 1680. His family inherited the estate and the missive that announced his death summed up his mysterious existence perfectly: “Such was the end of this man, whose character had been so little known, and after his death we know even less than when he was alive”.

This article was written by Daniel Parker, Publicity Assistant at OUP, with the help and guidance of the Electronic Enlightenment team. Electronic Enlightenment currently has 13 letters from Georges Pierre Des Clozets to Robert Boyle written in French, along with their English translations. Electronic Enlightenment is a scholarly research project of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, and is available exclusively from Oxford University Press. It is the most wide-ranging online collection of edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the Americas, and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th century.

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Image credit: Robert Boyle by Johann Kerseboom via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Georges Pierre des Clozets: the 17th century conman appeared first on OUPblog.

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Alchemy is the seemingly miraculous power or process of change in form, appearance or nature.
In writing, dramatic action that transmutes the character at depth over time magically produces thematic significance -- the gold.
Spend the 1st quarter, the Beginning, of a story gathering and showing the ingredients of the experiment.
In the Middle, apply heat in the form of outer and inner forces to test, challenge and hinder. Antagonists work well. As the energy blazes ever higher, keep an eye on the character.
In the final quarter of the story, the End, the Climax reveals the final transformation as the protagonist emerges changed at depth. The conclusion left behind form the meaning of the story. The act of writing becomes the miraculous act of alchemy at the exact moment of thematic significance.
To familiarize yourself with the Universal Story and the basic plot terms in the above blog post:

1) Read The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master (The companion workbook is coming this summer and available for pre-order now ~~ The Plot Whisperer Workbook: Step-by-step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories)

2) Watch the Plot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay? on YouTube. A directory of all the steps to the series is to the right of this post. 27-step tutorial on Youtube
3 Watch the Monday Morning Plot Book Group Series on YouTube. A directory the book examples and plot elements discussed is to the left of this post.


For additional tips and information about the Universal S

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If Tonto learned one thing in college, it was that all my professors were only good for infusing skepticism into the blood of the civilized world. They made it disreputable to believe in the actual existence of anything that could not be tested in crucibles or demonstrated by critical reasoning. I, on the other hand, contended that through creative chemistry, and by transmutation of the elements of the baser metals; I could create an elixir that would render me immortal. It didn’t quite work out as I had planned, but with a little marketing, I am now promoting it as caffeine enhanced malt liquor on college campuses.

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Here's a wonderful piece on one of our favorite history blogs, Wonders and Marvels, by the authors of THE BOOK OF ENGLISH MAGIC on alchemy. Philip Carr-Gomm and Sir Richard Heygate discuss this theme from their book here:

There is something enduringly romantic about the image of the alchemist in their laboratory. It is no wonder that J.K.Rowling said “I’ve never wanted to be a witch, but an alchemist, now that’s a different matter.” Alchemy emerged into recorded history in Alexandria, in the West, and in China and India, in the East, at about the same time: the fourth to the third century BC. No one is sure whether this happened independently, or whether it first arose in one part of the world and was then carried by travellers to the other, which would certainly have been possible, since the Silk Route was already in operation.

...

By the sixteenth century alchemy was flourishing in England, and although most alchemists were male, one of the most unusual and talented women in England’s history – Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke – maintained an alchemical laboratory, assisted by Sir Walter Raleigh’s half-brother Adrian Gilbert, who also created an elaborate magical garden in the grounds.

Mary Sidney is remarkable for being one of the few women whose names appear in the history of alchemy in England and, indeed, the world. She was also the first English woman to achieve a significant literary reputation.

Go here to read the article in its entirety, and to enter to win a copy of THE BOOK OF ENGLISH MAGIC!



And here's a clip from Monty Python about witches. Just because.

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Fury of the Venom Legion Page One Color Print only in the LadyStar Gift Shop!

“That’s what I’m talking about! The Ajan Warriors came to PLAY!”

“Talitha-chan knows how to read Fury of the Venom Legion from the first page.”

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“Okay now we’re all pretty sure the character in this story is the same person that’s in our new color webcomic but we’re not sure sure yet. This is called the Plot Against the Vicereine, and it’s a preview from the upcoming third book in the Ajan Warriors Series called Call of the Huntress. Here’s Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.”

“I hope she’s nice to us, too.”

Fury of the Venom Legion Page One Color Print only in the LadyStar Gift Shop!

Plot Against the Vicereine Part One

Ruthless designs are being drawn against a Gacenar noble by a deadly band of vicious assassins. Who are they and why do they plot against the Vicereine? Can she escape their evil plan?

Plot Against the Vicereine Part Two

Who is the Vicereine Reina and why does she confront the merchants of Prince Branven Square? What power does she possess?

Plot Against the Vicereine Part Three

The maimed assassin Kenesh, the Scaled One, seeks a weapon to use against the Vicereine, and recruits a henchman. The stage is set.

Plot Against the Vicereine Part Four

The Scaled One waits in the shadows for a chance to steal the Vicereine’s chains, but even his poisoned blade may not be enough to defeat a Scribe Arcanist.

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In honor of the International Alchemy Conference (in Vegas, baby, Vegas!) I'm going to ask you to list your favorite alchemists in children's literature. There is, of course, the obvious choice of Nicholas Flamel from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as well as a couple other books to boot. My personal favorite may well be the alchemist found in The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly. And it has nothing to do with the fact that we have the Newbery medal for that book in a drawer somewhere here at Donnell. Doesn't hurt, mind you, but it doesn't help.

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