(Short Story Collection.) Constellating around the hermit Alphard, from the Arabic *al-fard,* meaning “The Solitary One,” named for the brightest star within the constellation Hydra—the largest in the night sky—which Tycho Brahe called “The Heart of the Snake,” these twisted tales are stitched together by questions of immortality and temptation. Spanning vast geographies, centuries, and psychologies, the gothic grit and desolate dissonance of these absurd stories would best be classed among those defying classification, better exiled than at home alongside Horace Walpole’s eccentric *Hieroglyphic Tales,* yarns defying definition by rewriting it, if not exceeding expectations then conflating them with adrenaline-adulating anticipation. These succinct curiosities weave in and out of Borden’s well-known, labyrinthine psyche, not so much consolidating but extrapolating on Jono’s many and varied esoteric interests which thread and pepper the book with a dark flavour those seeking to scorch an alternate path toward the light will savour.