![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Reviews for Werewolves Hates A Cowards
Oct. 24th, 2015 06:39 pmHi,
Cleaned up two books this week so let's get to the reviews.
First up Rules for Werewolves by Kirk Lynn. Much like the previous book I reviewed, this book leans pretty heavily on literary affect. In particular, there's almost no descriptive text. Everything is dialog or soliloquy and none of it is marked by "Bob said" or "Susan said" and if there's multiple characters in a scene...good luck.
The book follows a group of squatters from teenagers to 20-somethings who break into houses, liver there as long as they can and then move on. There are some intergroup squabbles and one of the members is sent home for a while.
Oh yes, they're all werewolves. That means something a bit different than what you're thinking but there is a physical change and a wildness that can be difficult to control and leads to trouble and is greatly yearned for.
I was rather reminded of Orange Eats Creeps although the kids here were vampires not werewolves. It also had a much more poetic and lyrical development while Rules stays relatively grounded in it's firehose of dialog.
Overall, I didn't feel this one really did a great job. A few high points, but nothing that really grabbed me.
Next up is a short novella piece called The Sea Hates A Coward by Nate Crowley. This is a much more straight-forward kind of book centered on a zombie uprising from the zombie's point of view.
Schneider Wrack wakes up from a pleasant dream to find himself in a living nightmare. He's a zombie on board a massive fishing/processing ship called the Tuvato. This ship supplies the millions of tons of meat required by the inhabitants of a city under an endless siege. With no land to farm and backed up against the sea, the City relies on the Tuvato and the steady stream of supply boats that return laden down with food.
And there's plenty of fish in Ocean. Not the ocean that washes up against the city but Ocean, a watery world connected to the ocean of the city by a portal. There's clearly a sort of "high tech society fallen on hard times" vibe to everything.
Anyway, the City needs food, Ocean has it and the workforce consists mostly of zombies. Enemy soldiers, criminals, political dissidents, anyone who gets in the City's way gets killed, reanimated and sent to work on Tuvato.
Wrack isn't terribly happy with this state of affairs, and he learns that it's possible to wake up other zombies and return them to a state of sentience (which can vary depending on the zombie). But the zombies are watched by Overseers, powerfully enhanced humans, and their various sea-monster/cyborg watchdogs. Wrack needs to get enough awakened zombies together and figure out a plan to take over the ship and end their exploitation.
Like I said, a novella more than a novel, but it really clips along and it's a fun little read. The descriptions of the ship, the meat, the terrible sea life of Ocean and the various zombies s well done. Not a ton of dialog but Wrack's inner monolog is good. While the author clearly intends to do more stories, it ends at a pretty good place and feels relatively complete in itself.
A fun little off-kilter zombie story for Halloween and well-worth checking out.
later
Tom
Cleaned up two books this week so let's get to the reviews.
First up Rules for Werewolves by Kirk Lynn. Much like the previous book I reviewed, this book leans pretty heavily on literary affect. In particular, there's almost no descriptive text. Everything is dialog or soliloquy and none of it is marked by "Bob said" or "Susan said" and if there's multiple characters in a scene...good luck.
The book follows a group of squatters from teenagers to 20-somethings who break into houses, liver there as long as they can and then move on. There are some intergroup squabbles and one of the members is sent home for a while.
Oh yes, they're all werewolves. That means something a bit different than what you're thinking but there is a physical change and a wildness that can be difficult to control and leads to trouble and is greatly yearned for.
I was rather reminded of Orange Eats Creeps although the kids here were vampires not werewolves. It also had a much more poetic and lyrical development while Rules stays relatively grounded in it's firehose of dialog.
Overall, I didn't feel this one really did a great job. A few high points, but nothing that really grabbed me.
Next up is a short novella piece called The Sea Hates A Coward by Nate Crowley. This is a much more straight-forward kind of book centered on a zombie uprising from the zombie's point of view.
Schneider Wrack wakes up from a pleasant dream to find himself in a living nightmare. He's a zombie on board a massive fishing/processing ship called the Tuvato. This ship supplies the millions of tons of meat required by the inhabitants of a city under an endless siege. With no land to farm and backed up against the sea, the City relies on the Tuvato and the steady stream of supply boats that return laden down with food.
And there's plenty of fish in Ocean. Not the ocean that washes up against the city but Ocean, a watery world connected to the ocean of the city by a portal. There's clearly a sort of "high tech society fallen on hard times" vibe to everything.
Anyway, the City needs food, Ocean has it and the workforce consists mostly of zombies. Enemy soldiers, criminals, political dissidents, anyone who gets in the City's way gets killed, reanimated and sent to work on Tuvato.
Wrack isn't terribly happy with this state of affairs, and he learns that it's possible to wake up other zombies and return them to a state of sentience (which can vary depending on the zombie). But the zombies are watched by Overseers, powerfully enhanced humans, and their various sea-monster/cyborg watchdogs. Wrack needs to get enough awakened zombies together and figure out a plan to take over the ship and end their exploitation.
Like I said, a novella more than a novel, but it really clips along and it's a fun little read. The descriptions of the ship, the meat, the terrible sea life of Ocean and the various zombies s well done. Not a ton of dialog but Wrack's inner monolog is good. While the author clearly intends to do more stories, it ends at a pretty good place and feels relatively complete in itself.
A fun little off-kilter zombie story for Halloween and well-worth checking out.
later
Tom
