Introduction

Every Storm Constantine fine seems to have a story about how they found themselves reading their first Storm book or going to their first Storm book signing or how they tracked down one of her more elusive publications. The following stories come from fans. Have a story? Send it to Inception!

Get Your Own
by Andra Stieghorst

Well, here it is; my horror story. It all started back in early 1994ish when I picked up Wraeththu (omnibus edition) at Barnes & Noble, and was intrigued by what I had in my little sweaty hands. (I get that way in bookstores; I think it must be from spinning this way and that way in my excitement. I was never welcome in libraries -- all that zipping about got on the librarians' nerves. Some day I'll figure out that is is just not possible to see/touch everything at once!) I had some difficulty at checkout, because I couldn't seem to let it go so the clerk could ring it up.

I snatched the bag out of her hands, and with the package clutched to my chest, I high-tailed it to my car. I drove home with it on my lap, locked myself in my room, and was enthralled from the very first word. I had never read any of Lady Storm's work, and was thrilled to discover another author I could put on my 'favorites' list. I was extremely disappointed to not find anything else. (You all know that feeling.)

Soon after, in my pottery class, I met a lady who I quickly became fast friends with. I thought she would enjoy Wraeththu as much as I, so I loaned it to her. Well, as these things happen, after a couple of years we lost contact. Now normaly when I loan a book and it doesn't come home, I throw a loud thumping fit and stomp around the house for days, but for some reason I felt comfortable with her still having Wraeththu.

A year or so later, I felt a need to reread it, but due to my not having a car and now living 30 miles from B & N, I had to wait until I could find a ride. (Pre-internet.) By the time I made it there, the Wraeththu itch was keeping me awake at night. Unfortunately it was not in stock, so I had to order it. (I know everyone in the store heard my teeth grinding.) I then had to find another ride when it came in, so it was about a month from when I first started my replacement odyssey before I again had it in my sweaty little hands.

When I finally got curled up on the couch with my book, it was like having an old friend there. I was so looking forward to my adventures with Pell and Cal and Cobweb and all the others, I was soon happily oblivious to anything else. I was about 3/4's of the way through the book when...... I turned the page and..... What???? Hey! I just read that! What's going on??? Ah.. Oh.. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! It's a misprint!!!! About 100 pages were reprinted, replacing what was supposed to be there. Double AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

Well, the end of the story is that as I am writing this, my perfect copy of Wraeththu is sitting on my lap. To all that have come to my home and asked to borrow it, I have replied, snarling just a little: "GET YOUR OWN!!!"

Tear-Stained
by Anna Sandfield

When I was 13/14 a friend got The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit in a second-hand shop free with two other books he bought. He gave it to me and I absolutely, absolutely loved it (cried all over the thing). I started looking in bookshops but couldn't find anything (I lived in a backwater) so I went back to the friendly second-hand book guy and he said he could find any book ever in print through an international book search. I waited with baited breath but he told me Storm hadn't written anything else so basically tough luck. I held on to that paperback and it was my absolute favourite book.

Then I came to university in Birmingham and happened across Andromeda and was completely elated -- they had the other two Wraeththu and more! Storm did exist after all and so I started buying up everything I could find. The old boyfriend made me give back the original tear-stained one when I bought three signed Wraeththus of my own. Then, within my first term, Storm did a signing at Andromeda proving, further, that she definitely existed. I was completely starstruck and a big sap but it was great and I could tell all my friends I'd played a game of Jenga with Storm Constantine *sighs*. At this point I'll cut it short so I don't babble on forever but I went to that signing and I think two more and have been very happy about it.

My Storm Story
(or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wraeththu)
by Aislinn

Hermetech was the first book of Storm's that I read, as an angst-ridden, confused and bad poetry-writing teen. On a whim, I picked it off the fantasy shelf in my local library. At the time, I hated the "standard fare" fantasy and sci-fi, but I hated the so-called young adult books even more. This however, judging by cover alone, seemed entirely unique and exactly the "something different" that I was looking for.

Not many writers, let alone fantasy ones, can induce me to stay up late reading a book cover-to-cover, but with Hermetech I did just that. Over the following weeks I read the Wraeththu trilogy, Burying the Shadow and became more and more obsessed with Storm's writing.

I changed high schools in my final year and suffered from being the odd-one-out or a loner. I wasn't freaky enough to hang out with the freaks, neither was I anywhere being "normal" enough to hang out with the upper echelon of the student body.

There was a girl in my art class, who was the goth-in-residence and notoriously difficult to get on with. She sat in the back of the class, chewing gum and reading goth zines. One day I sat next to her and saw she was reading an interview with Storm. I casually mentioned how I really liked her Wraeththu books. Needless to say the goth-in-residence swallowed her gum, looked at me in shock and from that day forth I was taken under her wing.

What appealed to me most about the Wraeththu was the androgyny. As someone who abhorred all the commercial trappings of being a teenage girl, neither was I keen on being a "tomboy." The Wraeththu were a marvellous discovery. I knew exactly how Swift felt as he was growing up. I think I developed a terrible crush on Cal and Seel, and possibly Cobweb too. I revelled in the decadence. I felt the same alchemical stirrings in my own body as the harlings did in theirs. It did more for me than a shelf-full of "young adult" books.

The most marvellous thing, though -- and I hope this doesn't sound awfully pretentious -- was that Storm had used my own name as one of the levels of Wraeththu. I was incredibly moved by that, which made the books even more precious to me. My goth-in-residence friend was terribly impressed by that and insisted on being known as Cobweb from that day forth. (She was also impressed at my bad-poetry and wrote some of her own that rivalled mine in sheer awfulness.)

Storm came to Sydney in April 1996. The only book of hers that I actually owned was Stalking Tender Prey. I was having heart palpitations in fright at the prospect of seeing face-to-face the woman behind these wonderful books, which had become the catalyst of so much change in my life. I half-expected her to materialise in a puff of smoke or to be carried in on a palanquin, hidden behind curtains of gauze and incense. What could I say that would convey how much I loved her books?

It was the complete lack of trappings and her niceness that proved my undoing. I was too overcome to speak and merely got my Stalking Tender Prey inscribed and scuttled out of the building as fast as I could. I passed girls and boys in all manner of exotic dress and others wearing office attire, but all were clutching well-loved copies of her books to get signed and I felt as though we were privy to a special club.

Over the next few years, I successfully tracked all her books down, under circumstances based purely on whims or sheer coincidence:

• On a Sunday drive, passing through a suburb I never visited before, we pass a second-hand bookshop. Stopping so I can investigate, I find a copy of Burying the Shadow in the window, gracefully fading in the sun.

• A discount book-store briefly opens in a vacant lot around the corner from my home, where I purchase The Monstrous Regiment.

• Visiting my parents who live in a beach-side town, I find a hardback Sign for the Sacred hidden amongst a box of economics textbooks. (A university student's secret vice perhaps?)

• A friend of a friend of a friend mentions in passing to me that another friend of a friend of a friend are selling off some their books. I contact them and acquire a hardback 1st edition Enchantments for a very modest sum. I am almost embarrassed by the ease in which I found all of her books.