April 2005: Usher II Summary

William Stendahl is an avid book lover, wealthy from an inheritance, who has come to Mars to build the house of his dreams: a recreation of Edgar Allen Poe's House of Usher. Stendahl has been banned from building the house on Earth by the Office of Moral Climate, a group whose governmental position is to ban and destroy anything which suggests "ghosts, vampires, fairies, or any creature of the imagination." Stendahl plans revenge by building the house on Mars. He hires an architect, Mr. Bigelow, to design the seven-room mansion filled with banned creatures, such as vampires, references to Alice and Wonderland, Rapunzel, ghosts, and many other imaginary creatures. In order to create the dead effect of the house, the construction crew uses ten thousand tons of DDT, which destroys everything on the property.

When asked what he is...