In Search Of and Others

by Will Ludwigsen

A house inches eight hundred miles to confess its horrible crime. The last resident of a mental institution discovers he's not alone. A middle-schooler performs an experiment to determine how much time we fit in dreams. Boys looking for wonder find more than they're expecting in the Adirondacks with Charles Fort. A detective learns everything he's ever wanted to know...and some things he hasn't. In Will Ludwigsen's short stories of strangeness and mystery, the universe has a way of being weird in just the ways we need it to be. There are answers to many of our deepest questions...and they're usually far more personal than we expect. What are you in search of? And what is in search of you?

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

196 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 2012

About the author

Will Ludwigsen's stories have appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Blood Lite, Interfictions 2, and many other places.

The intersection of these strange and scattered venues seems to be Will's fascination with weird mystery: signs of a dark and sublime imagination behind the universe. If he doesn't see those signs, he's more than happy to add them himself.

Reviews

[Hilcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you think of romance when you hear the term speculative fiction? There is a kind of romance that goes along with reading speculative fiction. It's true. I believe it happens because readers, or fans like me, fall a little in love with the what ifs and why nots, the unexplained, the unexpected, the twists and turns that sometimes push edginess into the weird. The wonder.

The title of Will Ludwigsen's collection, In Search Of and Others is a take on the 1970's television program In Search Of hosted by Leonard Nimoy. That program specialized in debunking myths and legends, in other words as Ludwigsen says in his foreword, they in fact specialized in killing the imagination. However, this collection is his answer or the antithesis of all that: "What am I "in search of"? I'm looking for any signs of imagination in the universe, and if I don't find any, I'm willing to create some of my own. The truth that paralyzed me twenty years ago has come full circle: you don't find magic but make it." When I began reading this collection of 15 stories, I went in my own "search" for magic, the unexpected, those what ifs and why nots that keep the romance of speculative fiction alive and kicking for me.

In his first story "In Search Of," Ludwigsen creates his own version of the television program where he goes from giving general answers to well known events shifting to personal, more intimate moments and building tension until it ends with an edge. The collection continues with "Endless Encore," a fun story with a somewhat predictable outcome, followed by the brilliantly executed "The Speed of Dreams" which has one of those stop-on-your-track endings, and "Nora's Thing" with its excellent plot and beautifully organic finish. As I kept reading, I found that with stories about moving old houses, rednecks, canny realtors, and clowns, this collection just kept getting better and more consistent as it moved along.

At the back of this collection there is a short section where Ludwigsen explains what inspired him to write each story. In his witty explanation as to what inspired him to write "Universicule," he uses the phrase "coaxing meaning out of meaninglessness" while referring to language. This phrase brought to mind how we, as readers, bring our own baggage and imagination to the table, and sometimes "coax meaning" out of stories that may in fact have an entirely different meaning or no meaning at all to someone else. This is true of all stories, but then again that is the beauty of reading. In this case, what I found in Ludwigsen's stories seemed to touch on the personal.

For example, in reading "The Ghost Factory" I made an immediate connection between the eerily fictional circumstances presented by Ludwigsen and real life past job experiences, giving this piece a significance that goes beyond the obvious. This is a story set in a mental health institution narrated by an unethical psychologist. The narrator shifts from events that took place in the 1990's to his present position as the only resident at said institution. The one passage that made this story gel and snap for me is: "The whole world's a ghost factory. We all fade like the paint on these buildings, sometimes from too much sun, sometimes from too little. We blur and blend to the murky shades left behind when something vivid dies." At times the atmosphere in this story is oppressive and immediate which Ludwigsen juxtapositions quite effectively against the coldness of his disconnected characters, and at other times the sense of disconnect and distance is all encompassing. This excellent story is precise in its execution.

"Universicule" on the other hand provided me with quite a few chuckles regardless of the ending and great passages interspersed throughout the text. "[...] but here in person, smelling this loamy garden of a book --- God, you could plant seeds inside it and they'd grow trees of glass with absinthe fruit." In this story, a bibliophile writes letters to Charlotte to keep her informed of his progress as he obsessively studies and attempts to decipher the contents of a rare book. It builds to an unexpected ending, but in reality this story is an elaborate farce. "They miss the fluidity of language qua language." Hah! Written in letter form, "Universicule" is creative in writing style, development and content. I absolutely loved it.

"She Shells" is a great example of the diversity of stories found in this collection because this story borders on the creepy-horror category. It freaked me out! Again, this could be interpreted as a personal reaction since I suffer from deep-water phobia. I always blame my personal fear on the movie "Jaws" and that awfully effective music (not true, but it sounds better than the truth). In this story, Ludwigsen uses a seemingly simple narrative style and a very short story format heavy in atmosphere to great effect.

And the excellent "We Were Wonder Scouts" brought back memories of days when as a girl my imagination was the best entertainment and I believed in such places as Ludwigsen's fictional Thuria, and of one particular moment when cold reality interfered. But, there is always a place for Wonder Scouts like Harald; boys and girls who are willing to explore and look for the unexplained and the unexpected, the what ifs and why nots. I love that even after reality creeps into this story, Ludwigsen imbues it with enough imagination that the magic lingers to the end.

If you haven't figured it out yet, then I will tell you. In reading In Search Of and Other Stories, I found that Mr. Ludwigsen was quite successful in "making his magic." He took me along for a ride of the imagination and I loved every minute of it. Highly recommended. Grade A-

[Jack Haringa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another very fine collection in 2013, Will Ludwigsen's In Search of and Others from Lethe Press offers fifteen tales of varying weirdness but consistent quality. My particular favorites are "We Were Wonder Scouts," "The Ghost Factory," and "Burying the Hatchets," which I think should have closed the collection with its notes of hope and tenderness. There are six original stories in the collection. The only one that fell flat for me was "Singularity Knocks," mainly because it felt more clever than affecting.

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read in 2013. A short collection of unique, weird stories that I'd recommend to anyone (who's not afraid of ghosts).

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love short stories, which means I read collections and anthologies often. Ludwigsen's In Search of and Others is one of the best I've read in the last year. Just amazing. On a line-by-line level his writing is beautiful and the stories, at their best are both magical and harrowing without ever being explicitly violent. Plus there's plenty of dark humor.
The most interesting part of this collection, for me, is how it builds; the first half of the collection contains previously published work, which I really enjoyed. The second half of the collection, which contains mainly unpublished material, was even better. I really couldn't put the book down.

[Nickolas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short stories are not my cup of tea but at the behest of a close friend I decided to check out Will Ludwigsen's short story collection IN SEARCH OF AND OTHERS. This friend assured me that Will was a talented author and suspected that I would appreciate his fiendish wit. And so once again I took a step outside my comfortable bubble of security and exclusion to try something different. It's becoming apparent that I should clear my mind of preconceived notions because IN SEARCH OF AND OTHERS struck a strong emotional cord.

"Reality leaks," he told us at the first meeting. "The consciousness that imagines us into existence doesn't always remember all the details. It gets distracted. It lets things slip. It can't keep up the illusion in all places and all times, and it's our job to find those places and times, to peel back the edges." (page 59, "We Were Wonder Scouts")

This collection includes fifteen short stories, offering glimpses into the mysteries of the universe. It's a powerful anthology that moved me in more ways than one. Ludwigsen asks a lot of deep questions and provides answers that are deep and weird and eerie and whimsical. I didn't skip over a single story (a first, even regarding collections I enjoy) and I didn't skim either. If anyone ever decides to revive The Twilight Zone I dearly hope that they contract Ludwigsen to pen the scripts. It's a position he may have been born to fulfill. Here are some of the highlights from IN SEARCH OF AND OTHERS...

"In Search Of" - Of course the flagship title of the collection would number amongst the best stories. It compresses a lifetime's worth of questions into a few pages worth of answers. It properly sets the tone for the stories to follow, suggesting that you can ask questions but there aren't always answers - and when there are answers they may be stranger than you could have ever expected.

"The Speed of Dreams" - A cute and clever 8th grade Science Fair experiment involving time dilation in dreams. As someone that endures more than his fair share of dreams I found this piece particularly thought provoking. I like the format (it's written as a paper draft of the experiment) and the ending was...unexpected.

"Whit Carlton's Trespasser" - I found myself chuckling my way through this story - until the end that is.

"We Were Wonder Scouts" - I feel like this would have also made a good headliner for the collection. It's a story that encapsulates the theme of yearning, and searching, for wonder.

"A Chamber to be Haunted" - A favorite of mine! I love the idea of a real estate agent that specializes in stigmatized property (i.e. death houses/kill houses/haunted houses). The agent explains the process of selling such a house and I could easily see Ludwigsen crafting a whole novel on this premise. Who would have thought real estate could be gripping?

"Prudenter to Dream" - Another story that could be worked into a full-length novel. This story is somewhat like Inception, but without all the Hollywood special effects and overly-complex plotting.

"The Ghost Factory" - This one hit a little too close to home but that does not make it a bad story. In fact, it's a very good story for all the sadness that comes with reading it. If there is one piece from IN SEARCH OF AND OTHERS that is bound to stick with me it would be this.

"Universicule" - And here we have reached my favorite story of all. The most compelling mystery of this book is the mystery of a book. This too is a terribly sad examination of relationships and the pursuit of the wondrous. It is a perfect note to end on and it continues the enigma of Thuria, which is touched upon in several other tales.

IN SEARCH OF AND OTHERS is a moving collection. It made me nostalgic for a time when I believed in the Bermuda Triangle and other supernatural phenomena. It was a time right before the Internet became so commonplace and there was a bit less transparency in the world. Ludwigsen puts it far better than I ever could in the Foreword, but it tugs the intended heart strings. IN SEARCH OF left me with a mixed bag of emotion and a satisfying feeling that there are mysteries out there and it's up to us to "peel back the edges."

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: I really can't remember there being any.
Violence: Talk of violence, no direct violence.
Sex: Talk of sex, no direct sex.

Nick Sharps
Elitist Book Reviews

[Rand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ludwigsen churns possibility to make a new mythos to feed your dreams.

Listen to the story Remembrance is Something Like a House, in which a condemned murder-house goes in search of amends here (or read it here).

Fans of the short fiction of Orson Scott Card, Rudy Rucker, or Ray Bradbury will be at home here.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review forthcoming. For now, I can say that this is the best short-story collection I have read this year.

[Veronica Payne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very unique collection of short stories! I loved the story "We were Wonder Scouts". Slightly weird, very creepy... All in all, a great read!

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think it's the best book of the year but it's a very good collection of stories. It's slightly weird, edging on literary, without a lot of fantastical elements. What is there gets repeated: more than one story with ghosts, more than one about madness, more than one about children. I don't love that strong women are rare in Ludwigsen's collection; here are broken women, jealous girls, confused and lost and suicidal. Dead girls appear several times. There's one story with a respectable matriarch, and that's all. The one about the great teacher starts by pointing out she was chased out of town. The one about the politician had her wounded and retreating to childhood memory. The love interests are crazy or hiding behind the protection of their husbands. The smart girl doesn't get the boy and gives up on life completely.

There are stories I love. There are strings of beautiful language, well-turned phrases, and a shambling house I'll never forget. The longer short stories are much better than the short-shorts, but the whole book is worth reading. I have seen reviews proclaiming it amazing, and I was disappointed that I didn't feel that way on every page, but there were moments where I was moved and impressed. That's enough.

[Jared Millet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't remember how I found out about this book, but it was probably a recommendation from John Mantooth. (Read his stuff.) In Search Of starts off with a glowing introduction from Jeffrey Ford praising the Literary Merit and Exquisite Imagery of Will Ludwigsen's stories, which reads almost like the opening statement of a trial attorney defending the work from a jury of hostile MFAs. Which is well and good, but I think it buries the lead: these stories are weird and spooky as hell. And they're fanatastic.

The author struck a deep chord in me with his references to the TV show that gave the book it's name, and his description of growing up reading dusty library books about UFOs, hauntings, and Bigfoot. I was that kid, and I learned to hide those books from Mom, even while they scared the crap out of me. Ludwigsen brings that same flavor: dancing back and forth across the line between fantasy and plausibility where the genuinely spooky stuff lives. I can't say scary because Ludwigsen's protagonists all try to maintain a safe, cynical distance between themselves and the weirdness around them, all the while wishing to be sucked in deeper like the narrator of "The Ghost Factory," the best story in the collection.

Other favorites include "A Chamber to be Haunted," about a guy who sells a specific kind of 'tainted' property, "We Were Wonder Scouts," a tale of boys in the woods that could arguably be considered Ludwigsen's thesis for the book, and the title story "In Search Of," a prose poem on the subject of finally having all your cherished and nagging mysteries answered.

I got a kick out of all of it. And yeah, it's beautiful and has literary merit too.

[Ian Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will Ludwigsen's second collection, as with his first, is highly diverse in a way that doesn't lend itself to commercial stardom but is pleasing from the perspective of artistry. Nor does he simply shove every story in here willy-nilly, which makes for another short collection pared down from his catalogue.

Three stories mention a fantasy land called Thuria in parallel to the real world, subtly building a kind of Ludwigsen mythos without overpowering the stories individually or collectively. It's reminiscent of Carcosa's incursions into the stories of Robert W. Chambers, to the alternate world in HPL's Polaris, or to Ligotti's The Small People.

I like the choice to alternate the extremely short stories with the relatively longer ones. Some might be called flash fiction but are no less expertly crafted for it. If anything, they're more so. The longest story by far, 'The Ghost Factory', was my least favourite but still a worthwhile and slightly unconventional tale of ghosts at a mental asylum.

A favourite was 'I Was a Wonder Scout', a simultaneously charming yet unnerving exercise in what it would have been like had Charles Fort created his own version of the Boy Scouts. As was the first and title story, 'In Search Of'. This was not in any conventional story format but rather a narration in the second person of a series of answers to questions someone had over the course of the first person's life, as though they were finally allowed them upon arrival at the afterlife.

And then there's 'Remembrance is Something Like a House', a touching and thoroughly weird tale of a sentient house which journeys for decades to right an injustice. And 'Singularity Knocks', about the few holdouts who don't want to take part in the inevitable technological rapture and transcendence of our minds beyond mere flesh and blood.

Suffice it to say that imagination abounds throughout and that Ludwigsen continues to find perspectives quite unlike any other author or to care at all for genre boundaries. As such he's essential reading for anyone open-minded to the weird and fantastic.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

I share the author's obsession with the old In Search of... series starring Leonard Nimoy, and Ludwigsen does a wonderful job writing pieces that resonate with that vibe. It also seems he and I share some other interests and experiences in common: with Appalachia, the mental health profession, and--if the multiple appearances of dead people in rivers are any indication--Raymond Carver's story "So Much Water, So Close to Home."

My issue was that, with exceptions, my general reading experience was that of being told. Yes, I realize that may even have been the point. Heck, in the story "We Were Wonder Scouts," we're told a story which has a scene in which a secondary character tells a story. But the approach is double-edged. There's no question Ludwigsen has mad storytelling skills. But I didn't always feel the sort of tension I like to feel in short-short stories.

The exceptions really touch me, though. "Mom in the Misted Lands" had such a poignancy in its telling and in its theme. "The Ghost Factory" hit a different spot, giving me a (pleasantly!) sickening "There, but for the grace..." feeling.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of short fiction. Sharply written, these stories have a mature sophistication and an air of darkness, but simultaneously balance those qualities with some playful aspect of childhood that still bears a sense of wonder in the face of the inexplicable and unknown. It's especially nice that some stories are accompanied by the illustrations that inspired them. I was sold on this book after reading only the author's introduction, in which he cites some seeds of inspiration from childhood: library books on the paranormal, old Bigfoot documentaries, and the 1970's TV show In Search Of... If thoughts of these give rise to fond nostalgia, you'll definitely find a familiar kinship in this book.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of darker-tinged stories with an originality and talent for exploring new ideas. The characters aren't particularly strong, moreso the settings and gloomy moods that Ludwigsen creates.

It borders on weird fiction and borders on horror, but doesn't go too far off the rails. Contained weirdness is nice, and it's a collection you can revisit.

[Michael Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic and touching collection of stories

[M.L. Desir · Rating 5 out of 5]

This haunting collection of short stories showcases several tales that must be read more than once.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun collection of Ludiwgsen's off-kilter takes, with a house that walks, slooowly, to undo the misapprehension of a crime (never thought I'd end up rooting for...a house, but this house is appropriately well-meaning and humble in its simple goodness--kind of Lassie, just with a house instead of a collie. Pretty suspenseful when the house has to try to cross the highway, and also when it inches onto the golf course to make itself visible to the last surviving family member of the original inhabitants. Elsewhere, we've got Wonder Scouts, led by Charles Fort, and multiple glimpses of the numinous in a recurring bit about an invented world. Especially liked the one where the dumb kid's mom is determined to go off crusading in the darklands, and the only one of the boys with imagination decides to ride along. A couple actually-surprising twist endings, and another Poe nod, this time with a former literary theorist whos now selling houses and considers how he'd pitch the House of Usher before fitting another murder house to the story he foresees for its prospective inhabitants.

As with Acres of Perhaps, the narrative voice is pleasingly lean, funny, knowing. and understated. Now reading his Innsmouth Boy-Scout novel, which the Fort story here somewhat foreshadows. And his meta-point, about the centrality of imagination and weirdness in lending your life meaning and gravity, is always welcome.

[SmokingMirror · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a pleasant discovery! Ludwigsen's stories are well worth reading, and no doubt, reading again. I may have to change my rating upward. Two of my favourites were the one about the ambulatory kill house and the underground society of odd children (boys) investigating the unusual and possibly supernatural. The last does not go anywhere near the places you might anticipate. In fact, this is a strength of Ludwigsen's stories generally. I really recommend this, and now I'm on to his following collection, eagerly.

Special mention of the unsettling illustrations that accompany some of the stories.

[Thomas Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Captivating stories that aren't easily categorised. The collection features reprints from Asimov's Science Fiction and Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, but then you get a story like Burying the Hatchets or The Ghost Factory and they are just wonderful works of fiction. Literary would be the category, I guess. Wonderful characters and character development, and beautiful writing really get to the heart of our humanity. I really enjoyed it.

[fred · Rating 2 out of 5]

cons: mediocre, soulless, devoid of substance
pros: cool cover

[D.J. Sylvis · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a few good stories, but overall it was more the sort of clever-but-soulless writing that really does nothing for me.

[Brad]

EBR - love