All Manner of Thing Shall Be

The Time Traveler's Passport #5

by Olivie Blake

A group of vampirical frenemies come face to face with their immortality in this off-the-beaten-timeline short story from Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six.

What do you get when you throw together a PTA president, a dissipated rake, a poor little match-girl, a colonial nun, and an elderly revolutionary? No, it’s not the start of a joke; it’s the cast of undead characters sharing a Victorian mansion in Santa Monica, California. The motley housemates can usually keep the bickering to a minimum—but when their clashing personalities get stuck in a rut, they suffer what could be a terminal case of déjà vu.

Olivie Blake’s All Manner of Thing Shall Be is part of The Time Traveler’s Passport, an unforgettable collection of stories about memory, identity, and choice. Watch time fly as you read or listen to each short story in a single sitting.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Audiobook, Time Travel, Fiction, Fantasy, Novella

46 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 3, 2025

About the author

Olivie Blake is the pseudonym of Alexene Farol Follmuth, a lover and writer of stories, many of which involve the fantastic, the paranormal, or the supernatural, but not always. More often, her works revolve around what it means to be human (or not), and the endlessly interesting complexities of life and love.
​
Olivie has penned several indie SFF projects, including the webtoon Clara and the Devil with illustrator Little Chmura and the viral Atlas series. As Follmuth, her young adult rom-com My Mechanical Romance releases May 2022.

Olivie lives in Los Angeles with her husband and new baby, where she is generally tolerated by her rescue pit bull.

Reviews

[Ricarda · Rating 2 out of 5]

"What We Do In the Shadows" with incomprehensible time travel and if it wasn't hilarious.

[JJtheBookNerd · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is book 5 in a six-part collection of short stories which surround the theme of time travel. Each story in the series titled 'The Time Travellers Passport' is written by a different Author and can be read as a standalone.

The story begins by introducing us to an array of characters who all share a house in Santa Monica: Esther, Geoffrey, Roisin, Princess Urduja, Sister Martha and a Professor—all have died during varying eras in history and are now supernatural beings who are also some version of a vampire.

The time travel machine here is flamingo-pink and resembles a double-decker bus, which they keep at the front of the house. Our characters skip back through time daily for all manner of reasons, but a few start to get a sense of déjà vu. It seems one of them is up to mischief.

This one was a bit all over the place; it was obviously trying for some humour, but it fell completely flat. The cast of characters was way too bloated for such a short book, and I found it overly convoluted in parts whilst extremely shallow in others, making it feel jumbled and asinine.

Rating it 1.5/5.

[Zana · Rating 2 out of 5]

In true Olivie Blake fashion, this was all style and no substance. Who else can make a story about monsters and time travel so boring??

[Alina ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

☆☆☆☆

I genuinely don’t understand where all the bad reviews are coming from. All Manner of Thing Shall Be was such a fun, strange, and deeply “Olivie Blake” kind of read. It actually reminded me a lot of Masters of Death (which I ironically DNF’d), but this one worked for me in all the ways that one didn’t. There’s the same blend of witty, dark humor and existential musing and it feels like What We Do in the Shadows meets time travel.

Blake’s trademark writing style, sharp dialogue, introspective characters, and slightly chaotic narrative threads, is all here. If you’re already a fan of her storytelling, I think you’ll enjoy this.

[Akankshya (catching up) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emotionally interesting, a wild mish-mash of ideas that kind of works out, with a great ending. This book follows five vampire housemates who live in Santa Monica and use a magic pink bus to travel through time, and find themselves experiencing chronic déjà vu. It feels like a writing exercise, like too much stuffed into too little space, and I usually never enjoy books like these. I'm always left with questions. Given this was a short story, I didn't expect an explanation for anything, and the chaotic mood of the story became more entertaining, the existential musing became moving, and the story ended up surprising me by the end. A strong 3.5ish rating.

Published as a part of The Time Traveler's Passport series, I recommend picking it up, especially if you know you like stories about wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff and vampires, or complicated yet lighthearted narratives that hide existential brooding.

The Time Traveler's Passport series
3 Days, 9 Months, 27 Years: ★★★★
Making Space: ★★
For a Limited Time Only: ★★★
A Visit to the Husband Archive: ★★★★★
All Manner of Thing Shall Be: ★★★★
Cronus: ★★★★★

[mackenzie (hiatus) · Rating 1 out of 5]

what in the disaster was this

[Brooke (B for Books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

All Manner of things shall be in this story like everything but the kitchen sink. Time loops, repetition, confusion, obtusion, all manner of chaos and messiness. What did I just read? I did love referring to Magellan as a colonizing twerp."

2.5 stars, rounding up for anti-colonialism!

[Lucia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sorry that this was my least favorite story in this anthology. By now it’s safe to say Olive Blake's books are not for me 😅

I thought this story was pure nonsense and not in a good, whimsical way, but in a confusing "why do we care about this" way. Imagine if What We Do in the Shadows was written by Olive Blake, and the vampires own a time traveling bus (I'm not joking).

It felt as if the author actually wanted to write a story about vampire roommates, and she added the time travel aspect just because it was required for this anthology.
There was too much happening at the same time for such a short story. Maybe if she had reduced the cast of characters to half of them it would’ve been a bit better.

If any of this sounds good to you or if you like the author's other books, you might enjoy it, it just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to Amazon Original Stories via NetGalley for providing an ALC

[mimi (depression slump) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just don’t try to rewrite What We Do In the Shadows and you’ll be fine.

↠ 1.8 stars (DFN @30%)

Thanks to Amazon Original Stories and NetGalley, who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

[hamna · Rating 1 out of 5]

i didn’t understand anything and i honestly don’t even want to. waste of time

[faith · Rating 1 out of 5]

blake really falls short when you compare her writing to all these other incredible authors in this short series

[Alan (the Lone Librarian) Teder · Rating 1 out of 5]

What We Do In the Shadows meets Groundhog Day
A review of the Amazon Original Stories Kindle eBook edition (November 3, 2025), released simultaneously with the Brilliance Publishing Inc. audiobook.

... then came home to write a genius new idea he’d had about a house full of vampires, where sometimes a family was two demon frenemies, a depraved former playwright, a malnourished Victorian orphan, and a woman in a come-hither skirt suit, a sort of archetypal bitch with a heart of gold.

A disparate group of vampires from different eras end up living together in Santa Monica thanks to a wormhole and a magic Stargazer double decker bus which lets them travel through time, except it is the same day on repeat every time. That's about as near as I can figure out the plot to this chaotic short story. There didn't seem to be anything else to it.

Soundtrack
As opposed to the actual soundtrack She's Kinda Hot (2015) by the band 5 Seconds of Summer, which is referenced several times in the story, I preferred to listen to Magic Bus (1968) by The Who. You can listen to the latter on YouTube here or on Spotify here.

Trivia and Links
Author Olivie Blake (penname of Alexene Farol Follmuth) is best known as a writer of fantasy, paranormal and the supernatural with the novel The Atlas Six (2020) being her most popular work (per current GR ratings and reviews). It is the first novel in The Atlas series (2020-2024).

All Manner of Thing Shall Be is the 5th of 6 stories in The Time Traveler's Passport anthology collection from Amazon Original Stories released on November 3, 2025. The promo for the collection reads:

Six short stories. Infinite possibilities.
Embark on a mind-bending journey through time with six of today’s most visionary authors. Brimming with humor and heartache, this collection of short stories maps the roads we took to get here and the paths that lie ahead. The present may be a gift, but the future and the past both come with a price. Curated by John Joseph Adams, New York Times bestselling anthologist.

You can watch for current and past Amazon Original Stories which are usually paired with their Audible Original narrations at an Amazon page here (link goes to Amazon US, adjust for your own country or region).

[Rina | Worldsbetweenpages · Rating 3 out of 5]

**2,75/5**

„It had been gloomy for such a stretch of time that madness felt unavoidable, perhaps even earned;“

- time travel
- undead housemates
- time loop
- short-story

As always I liked the author’s unusual writing style and her (not always likable) characters. However, I felt that for a book under 50 pages, there was too much of everything to really understand anything: time travel, time loops, many characters (from different centuries), different kinds of creatures…

Compared to her other books, this one reminds me most of Masters of Death.”

Writing style: 4/5
Characters: 3/5
Worldbuilding: 3/5
Story & Plot: 2/5
Vibes: 2/5

„Already, most things on television were remakes. What yet remained to look forward to that he had not already seen?“

[Fernanda (ivyfer_isreading) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't really understand such a bad rating... this was fun.
I must preface by saying I'm in love with olivie blake's writing, it's like nothing else and it pleases me deeply. I did not like girl dinner that much but I still gave it a good rating because the writing was so up my alley.
That being said this was FUN. Vampires, time travel, religious talk AND 5 seconds of summer? sign me up.
I think this would've worked better as a full novel but again, I've never met a novella/short story that I didn't immediately think "this should be a full length book" after finishing.
For such a short piece this was very good.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it!

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite out of the series

[♡ retrovvitches ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

extremely boring…. such an exciting concept that just fell incredibly flat for me. and i really liked the plot of time travel vampire time loop 😖

[gracie · Rating 3 out of 5]

low 3 😔 I have tried to start so many of her books but just can’t get thru them I fear her writing isn’t for me…

[David Chapman · Rating 1 out of 5]

A little much

Basic story was ok, but it didn't go anywhere. The writing/English seemed like every other word had been filtered through a thesaurus.

[Gerhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another author new to me, and another corker in the Time Traveler's Passport series, one of Amazon's strongest original collections in ages. Here we have time-travelling, disembowelling vampires, hungry to sate themselves on all of history. In a flamingo-pink double-decker bus. Blood-drenched, sexy, funny.

[Lizette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recommend-O-Meter: Yes but don’t expect to understand anything

Yet another title in this collection that I wish were much longer! Here we follow a bunch of vampire-ish cast of incredibly entertaining characters co-habiting a Victorian mansion in modern-day Earth, who also happen to own a time traveling bus. Lots and lots of fun! My personal favorite was the revolutionary princess whose sole mission in life was to go in the past over and over again to kill Ferdinand Magellan.

And speaking of that, I had no idea that Olivie Blake was of Filipino descent, which meant I was pleasantly surprised by the incorporation of Filipino characters and mythology in this title. Instead of being traditional vampires, some characters are explicitly described as being of the aswang and manananggal variety (the latter of which—by nature a woman who splits her torso from her legs and grows bat wings at night to feed on unborn children in their mothers’ wombs—being a particular favorite of mine in the local tradition. Again, super duper fun!

Anyway, my complaint is that for a short story, having so many characters made things pretty confusing. Like, I LOVE the characters, but none of them got enough screen time in my opinion, and the plot suffered for it. A lot. As in, I don’t really get what was even going on there. Ah well, I still had fun!

Audio Assessment: Loved how lively the voice was! It was absolutely the right level of matter-of-fact and sarcastic needed for this kind of writing.

[I received an ALC of this book from the publisher on NetGalley. This does not in any way affect the contents of my review.]

[fem – femsbookshelf(f) · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.75⭐️

I had no clue what was going on lol.

[Lyndsey Mowat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Super interesting plot: vampires stuck in a time loop each with their own mission to kill or save or change something

But I didn’t completely understand the story? Was left feeling pretty confused at the end, waiting for a twist or conclusion.

*Thanks to Amazon publishing for the ARC!

[Cassandra Plunkett · Rating 2 out of 5]

What and also Why

[Brok3n · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun little bit of time-travel insanity

The fifth story in Amazon's Time Traveler's Passport series, All Manner of Thing Shall Be by Olivie Blake, is a fun little bit of insanity. It concerns a group of mostly very old beings living in a mansion in Southern California. I say "beings" because the majority of them are not baseline humans. There's a vampire, two monsters from Philippine folklore along with some more human characters from different eras. When I call them "very old" I don't necessarily mean that the individuals themselves have lived a long time. Some of them were born long ago but arrived at their present time through time travel and are therefore not old in body.

They have diverse and complicated obsessions. One of them wants to assassinate Ferdinand Magellan. This is not as impractical as it may sound, because although Magellan has been dead for centuries, she (the assassin) has a time-travel bus at her disposal. A bigger problem, however, is that one of her housemates' obsessions is to prevent Magellan's assassination. And some of them have more ordinary concerns, such as making sure that the PTA (that's Parent Teacher Association, for non-USAians) of her local school performs according to her specifications.

It doesn't make a lot of sense, nor will you expect it to. But it's funny. One of the better stories in the series, and probably the most amusing of the five I've read so far.

Blog review.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I'm the target audience for Olivie Blake and her writing because I always have fun when I read her stories. This was certainly no different. For just under 50 pages it packs a fun punch + anti-colonialism. We love to see it. At parts this was a bit confusing (which could be because I read half on a night I didn't sleep) but I still think this novella was a good time!

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had a lot of potential but ended up more as a character sketch.

[because_she_reads (Mira Jade) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was boring and confusing. I’m sorry I am the ultimate fan of Olivie Blake and I’ve read her short stories before, some were good while others needed work but with her complex way of writing and explaining things. This one just felt like she tried to do too much in a short amount of pages and it just didn’t translate well 😞

[Danielle Kaitlin (daniallreads) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to dnf...I couldn't understand anything that was going on. sorry Olivia Blake, I think it was a me problem.

[CadmanReads · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the weakest story in the set for me. I expected to love it, given Olivie Blake's style usually resonates with me, but I just couldn't connect with it here. It felt lighter in tone than the others, which may have thrown off the pacing. Perhaps I'd feel differently reading it on its own.