Éric Desmarais 
The Pocket Library template was made by @thebookishanimator_, and I thought it would be fun to make character editions of it! Here are Tommy and Carter’s Pocket Libraries.
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 1985 film The Black Cauldron.
The story is a cautionary tale in adapting a book. I haven’t read the book so there are a lot of sections that either make no sense or give the viewer the feeling that they should have done homework before watching.
Score: 0
There is no backstory to any of the characters. She says she’s a princess but then the villain mentions she’s a scullery maid? Why does the bard have a magical harp? Why is the pig farmer boy being raised by knockoff merlin? Is the villain undead or just a monster? … nothing is explained.
I did quite like the little furry Gollum and the characters are likeable and consistant. They have acceptable arcs, but there just seems to be too much missing.
Score: 0.5
There are some nice peices of dialogue and some that make no sense at all. It’s mostly, again, because this was adapted from a series of books.
Score: 0.5
The animation was beautiful but inconsistant. Items disapeared and reappeared, characters changed sizes, backgrounds flickered.
The music was pretty epic.
Score: 0.5
Everyone kinda enjoyed it. It’s one of those movies that could have been great but was bogged down by too much lore that we didn’t get to see.
Score: 0.5
Not the worst Disney movie in existence, but it’s a missed opportunity to showcase a great story by cutting out any context.
Final Score: 2 Stars out of 5
Hello Readers and Writers,
Don’t write alone. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you don’t need any help at all.
Everyone needs a little help. Bouncing a story idea off a friend or even just Rubber duck debugging can be a huge help.
But beyond that, it’s important to find your people, or community. As much drama as there can be in writing communities (Oh so much the drama!) the excitement and love of the craft is great to help motivate you.
I know I’m a better author for being around certain people.
Now when I say find your community, I don’t mean necessarily people who are writing the same things. Sometimes writers can be very precious about what they write. (Do not ask a high-fantasy writer about urban-fantasy or spicy-fantasy. Yikes.)
No find yourself some people who are open, kind, and willing to listen.
That’s my best advice for writers. Get a friend or a duck.*
Stay safe and be kind,
Éric
*Friends and ducks may include pets, family, and random people on the bus.
Hello Readers,
Both Parasomnia and Everdome’s Ebooks are available on JenEric Coffee’s store. They’re the same price as on the major sites but you save the tax and support an author directly.
At the Aux-Anges institute, nestled in the woods outside of North Bay, they study and treat parasomnias, or sleep disorders. Ashley suffers from night terrors, Terrance sleepwalks, Kiri sleep-eats, and Paul sets fires; they are there for treatment. Adelaide took the job as a counselor to discover why she still has an imaginary friend. When they discover the secret hideout of an old club called the Dreamers, they are shocked to find that the five of them are connected through more than just the Institute.
Will YOU be Everdome’s next hero?
S.M. Ardwur’s epic ten novel series and the world’s biggest MMORPG is a world fractured by a magical disaster and saved from destruction by a brave king and mad wizard. It is now formed of twelve floating continents with magical domes protecting them.
For thirteen lucky contestants, when a man dressed as a knight offers them the opportunity to visit their favourite fantasy world as an immersive reality show, there’s only one answer they can give: YES!
The level of impressiveness is beyond anything they can believe and some of them start to wonder why.
Abigail, James, Krista, Nicole, Richard, and Megan have to learn how to play the game and win; the fate of Everdome depends on it.
Thank you and good reading,
Éric
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2015 film Barely Lethal.
The story was clever and had some good ideas, but as a comedy it took itself too seriously.
Score: 0
It felt like the actors all got different direction. Most of the teens acted like they were in a fish out of water comedy. Samuel Jackson seemed to think he was in a spy parody, while the mom and brother were in a Disney movie. It was very discordant in tone. The dad and teacher were the worst acted, like characters from a cringe 90’s shock comedy. (Spoiler warning: their edginess was just sexism and homophobia.)
Score: 0.5
The dialogue was over the top and not all that funny. There were some great lines from the main character and her adoptive sister. I didn’t like that the fight between the two spies ended up with catty insults about their looks and weight. Again, the dad of the love interest and the teacher were just the worst.
Score: 0.5
The movie was well shot; the action scenes were believable and fun. The clothes and visual gags were nice.
The music was nice and did a good job with the mood.
Score: 1
I really got into the movie, despite the weird changes in tone. It was okay and most of the family liked it.
Score: 0.5
A movie that is trying a little too hard to be a spy/comedy and not really hitting the mark with either one. There are moments that are truly entertaining and the main actors are great, but the weird choices in dialogue and story just bring it down.
Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5
Hello Readers!
Do you want to read something like The Quest? How about Survivor meets The Lord of the Rings?
Welcome to Everdome!
(now with a new cover)
Will YOU be Everdome’s next hero?
S.M. Ardwur’s epic ten novel series and the world’s biggest MMORPG is a world fractured by a magical disaster and saved from destruction by a brave king and mad wizard. It is now formed of twelve floating continents with magical domes protecting them.
For thirteen lucky contestants, when a man dressed as a knight offers them the opportunity to visit their favourite fantasy world as an immersive reality show, there’s only one answer they can give: YES!
The level of impressiveness is beyond anything they can believe and some of them start to wonder why.
Abigail, James, Krista, Nicole, Richard, and Megan have to learn how to play the game and win; the fate of Everdome depends on it.
The Ebook is available now and the paperback will be out at the end of the month!
Have you read Everdome?
Éric
Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;
As I lay down to sleep last night, fighting a migraine and hearing Pegasus coughing, I was hit with the absurdity of life. On a microscopic scale we are nothing but a sapient world filled with billions of life forms, every cell in our body living and dying in an instant. On a macroscopic scale we’re specs of dust in an uncaring universe, our planet was formed and will be destroyed in a blink of a cosmic eye.
What brought on this existential drama? Chocolate Raspberry coffee.
I was waxing nostalgic about the chocolate raspberry coffee I used to drink in university. You know, back in the old days when Trump was a comedic reality star, TikTok was the sound clocks made, and social media was LiveJournal, MySpace, and MSN Messenger.
Back then, I was working three jobs, going to university full time, volunteering, and horribly burnt out. (Closeted and undiagnosed) However, it felt like the world made sense, like it had rules. Those rules were often unfair, but they were there.
I know now that I was naive. The world doesn’t follow any real rules, and this past decade has proven that over and over again. Humans are so desperate for order that we are easily deceived by grifters and a good story.
But nihilistically, it doesn’t matter. We’re all going to die and be forgotten. In a thousand years, everything and everyone we care about will be forgotten dust, and in five billion years our planet and race will be completely forgotten. Nothing really matters in the long run. Not tariffs, not disease, not the book I’m struggling to write, NOTHING.
So if nothing matters, than what’s the point? If it doesn’t matter, what is our pain and struggle for?
There are two ways to deal with understanding our impermanence: you can choose selfishness or kindness.
Like any binary, there’s an infinite amount of varieties in these two, but if you look at what’s going on around the word, at the hate, the fear, the war, and the suffering; it’s not hard to see that a lot of people have chosen selfishness.
If nothing matters, if we only have this short amount of time together, what’s the point of amassing wealth? Of creating a legacy of money, business, or power? It’s all dust in the end. Just ask Ozymandias.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart.[d] Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.— Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”, 1819 edition
Kindness is the better option. It’s always the better option. Be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and be kind to the world.
Since we’re just tiny blips in the history of humanity, and completely irrelevant to the history of the universe, why not make the time we have be pleasant. If there is a God, he’ll agree, if there isn’t, you’ve made your life and those around you a little better, and that might not mean anything in the long term, but in the short term it’s the only thing that matters.
Choose Kindness,
Éric
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 1998 film Quest for Camelot.
It’s a basic quest story with the main character being completely oblivious and helpless most of the movie.
Score: 0
It’s nice to see a blind character who is self sufficiant and isn’t looking for a cure. It would have been better if he didn’t think his disability made him a monster.
The rest of the cast is mostly odd comic releif, a villain that didn’t sound right.
There was a princess character and she was the most disapointing. She was shown to be super compitant in the begining and by the time the villains attacked she was useless. I would have liked to see her actually do something.
Score: 0.5
There are a few funny lines but most of the humour is really dated. The vilain was menacing but not particularly interesting in his dialogue.
Score: 0.5
The animation was choppy and rough. It looked cheap and there were some consistency issues.
The music was good. Nothing stood out but it did it’s job.
Score: 0.5
This was okay. The kids kinda liked it and the adults kinda liked it. Not going to be a movie we rewatch very often.
Score: 0.5
This was an interesting concept that failed it’s celebrity cast and potential.
Final Score: 2 Stars out of 5
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12
“Must have been a French Roast,” deadpanned Ursula, her deep voice never betraying the laughter I saw in her eyes.
Sylvie pulled the sword out of the puddle and asked, “Does this mean I’m King of England now?”
Clifford immediately quoted Monty Python, “‘Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.’”
“They based that on us and no, you’re not a king. You’re now a Gatekeeper, a balancing force of the world. We keep magic from going wild and when it does, we clean it up. We are the Knights of the Aether,” I said, trying to make her understand that this was serious.
Sylvie raised an eyebrow and asked, “Do I have to take a vow of celibacy?”
“No?” I replied, not understanding why she was asking.
“Oh. So that’s just a you thing, not a Gatekeeper thing. Great.” She smiled mischievously at me. She always liked to tease me. This was going to be a long mission.
Coming to my defence, Ursula said, “He has Annabel.”
Eyes wide, Sylvie said, “Al, dish. Who’s Annabel?”
“You received a sword during a quest, not after it. That means you need to see it through to gain your full knighthood.” I changed the subject.
She put her free hand on her hip and said, “This talk isn’t over. How come none of you have your swords?”
I held out my hand and willed my sword into it. “You can summon your sword and dismiss it with your will. It can take months of training and even then, some have issues with it.” As I let my sword disappear, I tried really hard not to glance at Clifford. He had the hardest time learning to call his sword. We’d been working on it.
Sylvie took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment and her sword vanished.
“Wow,” Clifford said, looking a little sad.
“I’m a cop in Westmeath. I’ve seen shit,” Sylvie said, sounding way too cool.
I scoffed and added, “She was in the military, Elmsley special forces, before quitting and joining the police force. She’s been trained to resist magic in multiple ways. It makes sense that her training would come in handy.”
“Actually, my Ronnie’s been training me to use magic items for defence,” Sylvie said, grinning as she mentioned her fiancée.
Looking really uncomfortable, Granny Pie asked, “Can I clean this up or is it religiously important?”
“No ma’am, it’s not holy and l can clean it up for you,” I said and she looked relieved.
I retrieved the mop and bucket from the shop’s storage closet and I started to mop up the coffee while Pie explained, “There’s been some strange things going on around here.” She leaned in and whispered, “Magical.” When no one looked surprised, she continued, “Normally, the Aether here is really thick, but it’s been thinning, and I can’t figure out why. Things have been bleeding through. Nothing sapient or dangerous, but with Halloween around the corner, I’m not sure that will last.”
“I guess we need to go check out the beach and see if there’s anything there,” Sylvie suggested.
At this point I was feeling old jealousies. She was only a few years older than me and lived in different parts of Ontario but I’d always been envious of her. She was better than me at everything, and I mean everything. I fought down the feeling and agreed.
We finished our coffees, paid, and thanked Pie for help. Shield’s Crossing was a small town, but it was long, squished between Highway 17 and Muskrat Lake.
We took the Volkswagen van. It was harder to drive than a minivan but easier to repair, as long as you could find the parts. It also allowed for more passengers. I guess we’re just a group of hippy knights. Who am I kidding? We were nerds at best.
We parked in the rowing club’s lot and walked to where the body had been found. Faught Beach was less of a beach and more of an opening in the woods that connected to the lake. No one with any sense would swim there.
We looked around and found nothing useful.
“I’m sure he died on the other side,” Robin said.
I looked up at the sky and then at my watch, “Let’s get going. We only have three hours before sunset, and we’re not ready to do a forest search in the dark.”
Sylvie looked confused and suggested, “We can get gear in town.”
I shook my head, “I’m not taking four inexperienced and one untrained knight into the wilderness in the dark.” I’d seen enough weird stuff in the cities. The woods brought out humanity’s weirdest fears and I wasn’t about to be killed by a yeti or killer duck.
The entirety of the other side of Muskrat Lake was thick forest. There were some homes on the shore but they were sparse. The roads were terrible but we made it to a lookout area with two hours to spare.
“We should split up to cover more ground,” Sylvie suggested.
“Never split the party,” Grant said quickly.
Rolling her eyes, Sylvie said, “That’s only in Dungeons and Dragons. In real life, time is more important. Take these.” She passed out black metal rings.
The ring felt warm and I could feel it was charged with magic. There was the symbol of a tree with a maple leaf on the trunk, the logo of Yggdrasil. “What are these?” I asked.
“Coms. They work like mindspeak but they’re completely secure.” When the others gave her a blank look, she added, “It’ll let us talk mind to mind.”
“Okay fine, we split into two groups,” I started. “Sylvie, take Clifford and Robin, and search south. I’ll take Grant and Ursula and go north. We meet back here in an hour and a half.”
“Yes sir,” said my knights and Sylvie gave me a half-hearted salute.
Searching the woods isn’t the most exciting thing to do. We saw several rabbits, a lot of squirrels, a coyote, and more crows than I’d expected. We also met every damned mosquito in the area. Damn the warm fall. It was normally close to freezing at this time of year, but it had been in the low teens the whole time we’d been here.
As we walked it got hotter until I was considering taking off my leather coat. “Something’s wrong,” I said at the same time I heard a scream in my head.
I was about to turn and run to help my friends when the trees parted and a large three-storey antebellum style mansion appeared. The heat was coming off of it, and there was a large sign in the front that read, “Luc’s House of the Rising Sun.”
Read Chapter 4 (April 2025)
While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:
Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;
The world is all kinds of scary and exhausting lately. For those of us that feel everything strongly it’s sometimes hard to function. So I have some advice for you:
It’s okay to rest and take care of yourself.
Seriously, sometimes you have to take a little moment to yourself for joy. If you worry and stress all the time you’ll feel like crap. I know it feels counter intuitive but you’ve got to do it and shut the little voice off. I know it’s easier said than done but try.
My current way of relaxing, other than reading and writing, is watching fun YouTube science stuff. Like this:
It’s hard not to smile and join in the sense of wonder.
Take care of yourself.
Stay safe and be kind (that includes being kind to yourself),
Éric
