Half-Witch: a novel - Hardcover

Schoffstall, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1618731408 ISBN 13: 9781618731401

Publisher: Big Mouth House, 2018

Synopsis

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In the world in which Lizbet Lenz lives, the sun still goes around the earth, God speaks directly to his worshippers, goblins haunt every cellar and witches lurk in the forests. Disaster strikes when Lizbet's father Gerhard, a charming scoundrel, is thrown into a dungeon by the tyrant Hengest Wolftrow. To free him, Lizbet must cross the Montagnes du Monde, globe-girdling mountains that reach to the sky, a journey no one has ever survived, and retrieve a mysterious book.

Lizbet is desperate, and the only one who can help her is the unpleasant and sarcastic witch girl Strix. As the two girls journey through the mountains and into the lands of wonder beyond, on the run from goblins, powerful witches, and human criminals, Lizbet discovers, to her horror, that Strix's magic is turning Lizbet into a witch, too. Meanwhile, a revolution in Heaven is brewing.

About this title

From the Author

From the Author

"There is one aspect of the novel that I have had personal involvement with, in a way. A recurrent event in this novel is human bodies being unalterably changed, including mutilation, amputation, replacement of body parts with prosthetics, destruction and remaking, etc. I am now retired, but I worked for decades as an emergency physician. In the ER, physical injury to the body, 'trauma', is a common problem. I've seen and treated a great many patients with trauma, have thought about it a lot. Trauma has an emotional effect on individuals, beyond the aspects of physical injury and pain. That emotional effect is often out of proportion with the injury. I suspect this is is related to our inner image of the 'self'. We conceive our selves to be defined in part by our physical body as we normally experience it. Injury to the body represents not just pain, disfigurement or disability, but a damage to our image of our self on a metaphysical or ontologic level. This profound unease with physical injury is something with immense emotional resonance in many people, and something I want to tap into.

At the same time, body change of a different sort can mean growth. Throughout childhood and adolescence, our bodies are constantly changing as we grow, constantly being destroyed and remade, and that change is necessary if we are to become adults. But even this positive change causes uneasiness. The distress of adolescents with the changes in their bodies is well-recognized.

In Half-Witch, body change, destruction and remaking, represents... many things, which I will let the reader figure out on their own.”

About the Author

John Schoffstall has published short fiction in Asimov's, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, Strange Horizons, and other venues, and was a Grand Prize winner of the Writers of the Future award. He is a physician, and once practiced Emergency Medicine. Now he follows Candide's advice and tends his own garden. He lives in the Philadelphia area. He has a website at www.johnschoffstall.com.

About this edition

• Publisher: Big Mouth House
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1618731408
• ISBN 13: 9781618731401
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 300