As
a species, we are born hunters. No matter how removed from our
distant past we may get, buying slabs of neatly packaged and
processed meat from brightly lit coolers at the local grocery store,
the genetic memory is still buried somewhere deep in our subconscious.
That need to pounce and destroy. To feel the sweet, tangy taste of
blood dripping down out throat. At the very least, to avoid being
eaten ourselves. The stories in Hunter’s Moon deal with that
relationship of predator and prey, approaching it in ways that are
sometimes surprising and often quite entertaining.
The
best stories in this collection showcase R Scott McCoy’s more
playful side. “Jihad” is a great example of this, placing
the reader in the head of a man obsessed with destroying the rodents
that have overrun his house. Certainly, the analytic in me loves that
I was never sure what was real and what was purely a figment of the
protagonist’s growing psychosis but then he hit me with this: “I’m
not leaving my post, Steve. If I do, this position will be overrun.
If you want to help, bring me more peanut butter for the traps.” If
you didn’t fall in love with that line, I’m not talking to you
any more.
I
could go on, with stories like “Bitch Queen” (kegel enhanced
coochie and all), “Garbage Man” (always use a full sized
portrait) and “The Find” (bigfoot-‘nuff said) but you get the
point: McCoy knows how to tell a tale that is just downright fun. At the same time, his knack for building honest and true
feeling characters gives the more serious tales like the heartfelt
“The Last Line” and damn angry “Best Served Cold” the punch
they need to truly hit home.
Unfortunately,
there are times that McCoy’s old school, Serling-esque aesthetic
gets a tad too repetitive and predictable. Most of the time, the
personality and characters save those but there are times,
specifically in the cases of “Stream Scream” and “Regular
Customer”, where the story’s lack of a sense of cohesion or
direction kills the experience.
McCoy
isn’t out to change the world or shock us with his new and
outrageous approach to story telling. His work makes it clear that he
is out to do one thing and one thing only: spin a good yarn. Overall,
despite a few minor missteps, he certainly succeeds with this
collection.
Stop by the author's blog and buy the book here or through amazon, as always.
Reviewed by Anton Cancre
Anton Cancre is one of those rotting, pus-filled thingies on the underside of humanity that your mother always warned you about. He has oozed symbolic word-farms onto the pages of Shroud, Sex and Murder and Horrorbound magazines as well as The Terror at Miskatonic Falls, an upcoming poetry anthology by Shroud Publishing and continues to vomit his oh-so-astute literary opinions, random thoughts and nonsense at antoncancre.blogspot.com. No, he won't babysit you pet shoggoth this weekend. Stop asking.
Stop by the author's blog and buy the book here or through amazon, as always.
Reviewed by Anton Cancre
Anton Cancre is one of those rotting, pus-filled thingies on the underside of humanity that your mother always warned you about. He has oozed symbolic word-farms onto the pages of Shroud, Sex and Murder and Horrorbound magazines as well as The Terror at Miskatonic Falls, an upcoming poetry anthology by Shroud Publishing and continues to vomit his oh-so-astute literary opinions, random thoughts and nonsense at antoncancre.blogspot.com. No, he won't babysit you pet shoggoth this weekend. Stop asking.
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