A strange weed that has strangled society in its grasp; a mother and child somehow flourishing in a grey soulless world; an odd waif with a penchant for fire; a Professor on trial for his nonconformity in a totalitarian University; an Englishman bedeviled by the wiles of Tsarina Catherine the GreatÕs Imperial Russia; Giants who give way to local lore; an ivory city ruined by vice; these are merely a few of the weird characters and strange settings populating the surreal pages of Blue are the Stars, a unique collection of stories from the pen of L.P. Hammond.