In short, Borealis was about being weird. Weird in ideal and in delivery. Weird as a vested interest. Weird as a state of living and breathing. Weird as the supremacy of all art. It was good to be weird and even better to be authentically warped out. It was a delicacy designed for dark and geeky sad little kids like me.

So what happened? The official reason for Borealis ceasing of publishing is beyond me. Remember I read books I don't philosophize about their financial status. If I had to guess I would say two things did in the experiment. For one it was horribly marketed. Come on guys how many of you even heard of Borealis or knew that White Wolf had a fiction branch that didn't bop around its gaming environment? Very little. Too little. Second Borealis had a non-stripped book situation. Normally when booksellers and mass-market store chains don't sell books they rip the cover off and send it back to the publisher. What do they do with the rest of the book? Most likely they trash it. Or if luck holds out it ends up at a flea market somewhere. Borealis saw this as waste and asked that the whole book be sent back. They knew it was an economic infeasibility but it was morals you know. Love 'em for it but it probably didn't make them any favorites with most chain operations.

Ok I'm finished with my introduction to the review series so let's get on to the meat. First in my official Requiem for Borealis Reviews is a little Happy Book called The Psalms of Herod by Esther M. Friesner. It's one of the last Borealis book I could fine and go figure it's the first one they published. Says so on the back.

The world has died and been reborn. Of what it died of in the first place the reader is left guessing. There was a Time of Hunger that is mentioned in the book as near curse. From this Time of Hunger civilization was forced to bring itself up. Now in this civilization they don't have a lot of history. They know that some time in the past King Herod was brought to his knowledge of sin by his daughter Salomé. See god told Salomé that she should tell Herod that he was a great big sinner. Our girl Salomé told his daddy by dancing for him. King Herod found out that he was in deep sin and repented. God said "Its ok guy" and promoted him to being is right hand man. Three wise men told Herod that Jesus the Christ was born. Herod realizes that there's not enough food to go around so he slaughters the children of Bethlehem so that little baby Jesus can have enough to eat. Herod also tends to run around killing all the infidels that do great sin in the eyes of god. A Great Hunger came because Men and Women were wicked. Women could only have sex twice a year the Lord was so sore at them. All that background noise leads us to Becca of Wiserways Stead. She has just turned of age and is preparing for his first Harvest Dance. It's about that time that women get to have sex you know so she's a bit nervous and scared. Plus she gets invaded by a ghost that haunts Prayerful Hill. It's the hill where they bury the dead and leave babies on top that are the wrong sex or are of defective nature. This is her coming of age story.