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Date Posted: 06:38:00 07/06/25 Sun
Author: Curious
Author Host/IP: 49.196.177.20
Subject: (SFFR) Nevermore (Richard Ralls aka Flavius Aetius) - A Review
Warning: This Review Contains Spoilers
Nevermore (Richard Ralls aka Flavius Aetius) - A Review
Part One - The Author
As far as is known the author only wrote this book, and it is from the book the only clues about their nature can be deduced, he was a Dark Side fetishist, the work has a death haunted quality to it, opening as it does with the funeral of someone who's died from a smoking related illness and there are constant references to the long term consequences of smoking. He had an interest in World War II, since reminiscences of this conflict appear at several points in the story. And they appear to have watched 'The Simpsons' TV series as one character, Shamus, is a clear reworking of Groundskeeper Willy from that series.
Part Two - Nevermore
For Tiffany, the trip to see her cousin Patricia was a chance to meet new people and introduce them to the wonderful thing she enjoyed. For local bigwig Robert Rainor Tiffany's arrival was an existential threat that needed to be stopped quickly. How he chose to deal with her set in motion a series of events with profound consequences for all concerned.(1) The story was published on Amazon in the early 2000s under the pen name 'Flavius Aetus', originally in both paperback and ebook forms. Currently it appears to only be available in print form.
Part Three - Comments
The story uses a modified 'inkspot' plotline. The basic 'inkspot' plotline sees a smoker join a group of non-smokers and introduce them to the habit.
As this reviewer noted in their analysis of the prologue to the story, the author was, and could be an effective writer. There's a good contrast between the Bruce's and the Blevins, the former having lived their lives in a smoking permissive environment, the latter in the increasingly restrictive environment that evolved after the Surgeon Generals statement. This is shown in the scene where Tiffany and her newly smoking cousin Trish walk to the house of one of Trish's friends, Lucy Pickett, a closet smoker. Trish has to remind Tiffany not to light up in public. It's emphasized more strongly later on in the scene where Lucy having been emboldened by the actions of another character who's been introduced to smoking by Tiffany choses to come out as a smoker to her mother, during the ensuing argument, which I will return to later in these comments, she mentions to her mother the environment in the Bruce household and is met with incredulity.
Moving on to one of the main characters, in my analysis of the prologue, I characterised Tiffany as a hedonistic smoking evangelist. The rest of the novel confirms that she's a pleasure driven individual, only constrained by her parents threat to remove one of those sources of pleasure as a punishment. In addition it's revealed that she has the Dark Side fetish in it's most extreme form, that in which a female derives gratification on imagining what the habit is doing to her insides.(2)
The other key protagonist, Robert Rainor, does not develop much from what's laid out in the prologue. The only major revelation outside the prologue, is that he's the local 'big wheel', his ties into the local power structure both give him the resources to do what he does in the story, but provide the motivation for what the Bruce's, the Blevins, the Pickett's and their friends do in the stories climax.
In the authors page on the AuthorsDen website he describes the story as a 'morality play'. The nature of the moral may be given in this line spoken by Alan Pickett, Lucy's father shortly after he reveals he knew she smoked from shortly after she took up the habit, "Just never let pleasure become the means to your ends, never go crazy seeking it. Do not let it become all that you live for: because it will waste you if you do."
This point is emphasized in the books fourth chapter 'Nameless Here Forevermore' in the subsection entitled 'Sins of the Mother' where Karen Bruce and Belinda Blevin discuss their youth, Belinda revealing that she and a friend named Rachel pursued sexual pleasure and paid the price in the form of venereal disease, in Belinda's case her daughter Patricia is the only child she could have, hence her concern in the prologue in ensuring Patricia became a smoker.
It's also made very clear that pleasure is Tiffany's end, as is overemphasised in various scenes of her masturbating. As to whether what Rainer does, and it's ultimate end is an appropriate punishment is another matter. This is something I will get to later.
The authors reliance on graphic sexual description for titillation is one of their mistakes, they had a strong idea that didn't require embellishments of that kind. While the authors design of the story, a lazy exploration of Tiffanys disruptive/empowering effect on the locals and on two in particular(3) followed by a race-against-time once Rainer has grabbed her is effective, that effectiveness is compromised by the various extended reminiscences of World War II that kill the plots momentum at point's where it should be charging full speed ahead. More to the point, with the exception of the first, that which appears in the prologue and which sheds an important light on Robert Rainor's character and motivations, the other's are effectively redundant to the plot.
There's also at least one missed opportunity, in the books fifth chapter 'Raven' in the subsection entitled 'The Wrath of Mom' Lucy's journey from 'closet' to 'open' smoker reaches it's climax. It's an effective scene, the author clearly articulates what's driving Lucy's mother Melissa as she makes an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to lay down the law, even while pointing out the paradox of a woman who's "...infinitely fond of cigarettes..." herself trying to stop her daughter from enjoying the same pleasure. As the scene winds down following Lucy's father, Alan making it clear he will not support his wife's attempts to make Lucy quit the habit if she persists in them, Lucy, as mentioned earlier describes the permissive environment in the Bruce household resulting in an incredulous response from her mother. Alan then informs Melissa that Lucy's telling the truth and that he'll take her round to the Blevins's to see the truth for herself in the afternoon. The clear implication is that a scene from Melissa's point of view based around this visit will appear in the story. While it's made clear that Melissa is there during the stories climax, no such scene takes place in the novel.(4)
Another minor issue relates to Morgan Bruce, Tiffany's older brother. He's the only one of the sibling's whose age is not given in the prologue, it's finally given in the books seventh chapter 'Darkness there and nothing more'. While, as I noted in my analysis of the prologue this relates to his relative importance to the plot, it would have been better to have provided this information to the reader when he first appeared.
The first critical mistake the author makes is the ages at which he has the Bruce children start smoking, all three are below the 10-12 year average that appears to have been the 'real world' average, he compounds it in chapter four, when Karen and Belinda are having their discussion, it's mentioned that Jenny, a friend of Tiffany and the only person with a habit comparable to Tiffany's started smoking at an age only a few months older than the character Virginia in the smoking fetish story 'Starting: A Story'.(5) This is bluntly not acceptable, not at the time the story came out and definitely not now.
The next critical mistake the author made was in the stories endgame, not so much in having the Bruce, Blevin and Pickett family menfolk, along with their friends attack Rainor's hideout to free Tiffany, but in what it triggers. Namely the rape of a thirteen year old girl and the killing by that girl of her rapist. The sole credit I can give the author for this sequence of events is that it's presented as the tragedy it is and not a source of cheap titillation, but it does not feel like an appropriate price for Tiffany's pursuit of pleasure, rather what came before it, the kidnapping and the battering ram attempts by Rainor to persuade Tiffany to give up the habit. Concluding the epilogue with Tiffany and her friends singing the Three Dog Night version of 'Joy To The World' following a scene in which a furious Tiffany desecrates Rainor's grave and exchanges angry words with his widow does not sit well with this reviewer.
While I'm sure many authors could find ideas within, in fact I think that the hometown for the character Olivia Jones in BlackLungLovers 'North and South' may have been inspired by the smoking permissive location that the Bruce's hail from in this story, I cannot bring myself to recommend this story to the general smoking fetish fiction reader.
Chapters/Episodes
I. Prologue
1. Proliferator
2. Tiffanys World
3. Bird or Friend
4. Nameless Here Forevermore
5. Raven
6. Never Flitting, Still Is Sitting
7. Darkness there, and nothing more
8. The Tyrant, Rainor
9. Shadow of the Raven
II. Epilogue
Appendix: Planned sequels
On the authors abandoned AuthorsDen page they write that the published novel was intended as the first of a trilogy that would follow Tiffany into adulthood. Book two was to be entitled 'Sundown'(6). Some clues to what was going to be in that story can be seen in the epilogue, the boy Tiffany had a crush on has been poached by another girl, but more interestingly the Blevin's and the Pickett's having been forced into exile by their actions in the wake of Tiffanys kidnapping are moving to Tiffany's home town. The author described the planned story as containing elements of horror/drama/comedy.
No clues exist beyond the authors description of the story as containing elements of action/adventure/scifi for the concluding novel 'The Gates of Babylon'.
The author also describes these following stories as being lighter in tone than 'Nevermore' which points to perhaps the most interesting of their mistakes, leading off with the story they did.
Notes:
1. It's worth comparing this summary with the authors blurb for the novel: "Intentions are capricious things; they are a fool's guide and the Devil's play-ground. Interesting, isn't it, how the best of intentions pave the road to hell with the corpses of their victims?" This is a tale of human nature and human will. It is the story a girl named Tiffany and the tyrant whose tragic good intentions would make herself, herself detest. His will would lead them both down a road paved with his good intentions. This road lead to that infamous gate whose inscription read: "ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE!" This was their destiny, he was her Raven, and they would be bound together by bonds of fate like steel that would hold them bound for their forever. Neither would ever be the same again neither could ever be the same again, not after what they had done. What horrors this world could hold and the pain that the tyranny of men could wreck! It was indeed an ancient misery that man turned upon himself as a snake eating its own tail in an insatiable greed. Oh, Woe! Tyranny was thy soul! The very plague of the ages; drenched in the blood of men, it wallowed eternally in this gore and gloried in the suffering of its victims! Beaten down in a flood of fresh blood spilled in Liberty's sweet name, it would but rise again like a phoenix of horror to renewed slaughter. Of all the enemies man had ever faced, man was the worst. Now they, as so many luckless generations before, had to confront this auld demon of death and destruction and face all of the horrors it held. And it would hold nothing of its horrors back, for there was no mercy in its nature."
2. See the seventh Smoking Fetish Fiction Character essay entitled 'The Smoking Fetishist' in the Noble Leaf Library for more details on this character subtype.
3. Patricia Blevin and Lucy Pickett.
4. It's possible this scene would have been featured in flashback during the course of the authors planned first sequel, but this is pure speculation on my part.
5. The story can be found in the 44th volume of the Noble Leaf Library, with it's sequel appearing in the 45th volume. A review of the story and it's sequel can be found in the 13th volume of the Consolidated Smoking Fetish Fiction Review.
6. Presumably a reference to the Gordon Lightfoot song of the same title.
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- Re: (SFFR) Nevermore (Richard Ralls aka Flavius Aetius) - A Review (corrected) -- Curious, 14:38:56 07/06/25 Sun
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