Bloodstar: Star Corpsman, book 1 (Harper Voyager), by Ian Douglas

Before we get this under way, it is definitely worth warning you that I am not in any way a fan of either Hard or Military Sci-Fi. As far as I am concerned, they both tend to be overloaded with information that gets in the way of the story, instead of aiding it. I know that there are people out there who are highly interested in the intricacies of propulsion units and methodology as well as tactical data, but I am not one of those. I want the story itself and any information pertinent to that story or an understanding of its characters and the world they live in but anything more bores me. Please keep that in mind as it is something that highly flavors this review.

Way off in the far-flung future, people have begun colonizing the stars. One of those colonies, Bloodworld, was founded by a group whose desire to suffer for the sins of humanity found an ideal home on its brutal terrain. They’ve lived there for decades, alone and isolated and content with both. However, a war-bound race of aliens, the Qesh, have found them. Not only is their own safety at stake, but the security of Earth and any other human colonies. Enter space marines and combat galore.

Let’s start off with the good things here: I very much enjoyed seeing war from the point of view of a Corpsman (the closest layman's term would be a field medic, but it would not be entirely accurate), someone whose primary concern is healing over harming. This alone tossed much of the over the top, “we kick ass” attitude out the window. And, Ian presents us with a much more likely view of humanity’s early forays into space: tentative and frightful. This is a future where humanity knows that they are outnumbered and outgunned by older, larger and more strategically powerful races in space and are doing everything they can to stay below the radar. The main character is well developed and there isn’t the usual good versus evil delineation so much as a concern for the people he is with.

All of these things are great. I loved the story itself. When I  got to read it.

Unfortunately, most of the time was spent buried under paragraphs and piles of text dedicated to the history of Corpsmen. The changes in medical engineering. Every detail of how each specific bit of nano-technology worked. The operating principles of the weapons systems. Military tactics out the wasoo. Over 150 pages had passed before Bloodworld was reached it still took a bit of discussion of nano-flage and nano-grown encampments before much else occurred.

I can’t stress enough how much I enjoyed the story at the heart of this novel, but I could not find it in myself to enjoy the novel as a whole.


Buy it here

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 Necrotic Tissue magazines as well as THE GHOST IS THE MACHINE, a steampunk ghost anthology by Permuted Press, and continues to vomit his oh-so-astute literary opinions, random thoughts and nonsense at antoncancre.blogspot.com. No, he won't babysit your pet shoggoth this weekend. Stop asking.

The Last Kind Words (Bantam), by Tom Piccirilli

“The last kind words ever spoken to Jesus were spoken by a thief.”

Normally, I'd start off with some kind of hook, a generalized statement that ties into my feelings about the book being reviewed. Summary. A well reasoned list of pro's and con's. Professional and clean, if a bit self-conscious at times.

That's not what you're getting today, because this isn't that kind of book.

The back flap breakdown would have you believe that this is a story of a man forced to return home to a broken family of crooks and thieves. Faced with the brutality of his brother's murder spree, he's been asked to find the killer of the one person his brother didn't kill. A murder mystery wrapped in the barbs of crime fiction curled in the velvet black drapes of noir.

But that is also not what you are getting today, because it isn't that type of book.

It's not really about any of those things, at least not to me. To me, this is a tale of the sicknesses and sins floating in blood, embedded in flesh. It's about a man's struggle to find out if he is bound to the same fate as his family, if genetics, like anatomy, is truly destiny. The murderous brother who went mad dog one night and killed an old woman, a family of five (their little daughter included). The history of graft and theft running generations deep. The dementia whose roots have all but mushed the brains of the family's eldest and have begun to worm their way into the younger ones as well. These things that our dear, humble narrator wants so desperately to believe he can extricate himself from but fears with just as much certainty that he cannot escape.

It says so much about the effect of Piccirilli's writing on me that I cannot remove myself from it, that I can only speak of it in terms of myself. That's why I, quite frankly, ride his nuts as if they are my favorite stallion. His writing is always so intensely personal, that it becomes personal to me. Here is this man whom I have never met, who knows nothing about me, yet whose words seem to understand the deepest fears and hopes bursting inside of me.

Its a bit scary, really.

I'll just end with saying that The Last Kind Words resonates against my own experiences in ways I don't care to share with strangers, but it's there all the same. There will be those of you put off by the first person narration and the somewhat overwrought and bruise-purple prose but my own experience was sublime in the truest, most Longinus(ian?) sense of the word.

Pic's blog is marvelous and you can buy the book here.

 

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.

GRAVEMINDER

by Melissa Marr
Published by William Morrow-Pinnacle Press

What is it that makes a novel “gothic”? We all know that it sure as hell isn’t pouty teenage girls fainting in the embrace of sparkly vampires, but negative proof is never much help. Is it old, crumbling manses or castles sinking into the unbearable stench of a cursed moor? Ghosts that haunt the periphery of the damned? Some alchemy made from cobwebs and wrought iron posts? Or, is it old secrets, buried deep but still boiling to the surface? The inescapable past sneaking up on the unknowing present?

If, like me, those last two are what really make the genre for you, then you’re in for a dilly of a tale with Melissa Marr’s Graveminder.

Rebekkah Barrow left Claysville a decade ago and did her best to never look back, despite the deep connection to her step-grandmother Maylene and long running ignored relationship with the town’s Undertaker in training. As with all best laid plans of meece and menses, this all goes to hell when Maylene is murdered. Someone or something tore her apart and finding out who only begins the mystery that forces Rebekkah back into the town she never truly called home and the arms of the man she never admitted into her heart, ByronMontgomery. It seems that the town elders had made a pack in the long ago that binds everyone within its borders and more than just ghosts are worming their way out of the ground.

Graveminder takes an interesting approach to the traditional gothic ghost story in that it is the town itself that is haunted, instead of a specific person or house. Not so much haunted by ghosts (though the dead do walk within these town limits) as by the remnants of decisions made long ago. That aspect is what makes it a uniquely American, distinctly post-millennial Gothic novel while maintaining the sense of history and age associated with the genre, this sense that even as we strive for personal freedom we are bound by the sins of our fathers. No matter how much we may strive and struggle against this hold of the past, we inevitably find ourselves unable to escape and must find some way to live with it. Melissa Marr beautifully captures this age old strain of freedom versus fate in both Rebekkah’s constant fight against it and Byron’s passive acceptance.

Of course, you could ignore that and lose yourself in the loamy, dusty ambiance (you’re soaking in it) while the hungry dead chew at your flesh.

On the down side, the ending seemed a tad rushed to me. The setup was far too rich and the emotions seemed too complicated to play out as quickly as they did. Also, the romance portion fell flat for me. I didn’t feel the connection between the two in any way beyond the superficial and still have a tough time buying it. These aren’t story killers by any means, but it could’ve played out a little stronger with more patience.

Regardless, Graveminder goes well beyond the standard penny dreadful and kept me up well into the dreary hours with Ms. Marr’s combination of originality, heart and whip quick pacing.

Buy it here.

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.

Deadline book 2 of the Newsflesh Trilogy

By Mira Grant
Published by Orbit


*Warning, this review contains spoilers for FEED, the preceding book in Mira Grant's Newsflesh trilogy read the review here, then read that book first.*

It sucks to be the second part of a trilogy. The first part is young and impetuous, the vibrant child introducing us to new worlds and people while establishing the broad conflict. The last one is older, more mature, bringing it all together and providing us with a sense of closure. All the middle kids does is get everyone into as much trouble as possible.

Boy, howdy does DEADLINE do that.

Picking up scant months after the events of FEED, we're plopped into the head of Shaun Mason as he barely holds the crew of After the End Times together. The ghost of his dead sister is in his head, an officially deceased CDC researcher is in his apartment and his city is overrun with the hungry amplified. This new addition to the group has information that someone is willing to firebomb the entirety of Oakland to keep secret. It would appear that the conspiracy behind his sister's death is alive and Shaun will stop at nothing to get at the heart of the matter.

Everything that made FEED my favorite novel of last year, as well as my second favorite zombie novel of all time, is still here: political intrigue, in-depth and honest characters that work their way into your heart and life, spot on social commentary on the way we live under the threat of a terror state and some damn fine “hold onto your britches while you fill them with poo” action. Of course, Mira continues to ratchet up the tension with the increasingly tightening noose around the necks of our intrepid newsies. Her previously proven Whedonesque willingness to kill off any character, no matter how important they may seem, certainly kept me on my toes in that regard.

I specifically enjoyed the change in POV from FEED's supremely self-assured and driven Georgia to the increasingly apathetic and uncertain Shaun. His feelings of inadequacy and mental breakdown (he doesn't just talk to his dead sis, she argues back) provide the heavy emotional impact this go round. The world around and within him is collapsing into chaos and you'll feel every moment.

Sure, it will leave you hanging in the air once the last page is turned, but that is what middle children do. Also, there's a revelation near the end that I want to call cheap but it does fit with the information we are provided earlier and I'm curious to see how it will play out in BLACKOUT. Overall, it's a hell of a worthy followup to FEED that had me tearing through the pages and left me salivating more. What else can you ask for?

Buy it here.

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.

Central Park Knight

By C.J. Henderson
Published by Tor Books

The cover and back copy of C.J. Henderson’s Central Park Knight can be boiled down to a simple equation of awesomeness: Indiana Jones + Dragons = YAY! Needless to say, I go fairly excited. Unfortunately, the story did not manage to reach my hopes.

You’ve got Professor Piers Knight, a dowdy and somewhat eccentric scholar who works at the Brooklyn Museum and, in addition to having nearly limitless access to arcane artifacts from past cultures and untold knowledge of their every facet is also quite proficient at the use of these sometimes magical artifacts. After saving the world twice in not quite so many months, the good professor finds himself faced with the reemergence of Dragonkind in the world. Worse, one specific dragon wishes nothing more than total subjugation of humanity, and he is perfectly willing to use humanities nuclear capabilities to accomplish this end.

From the start, the protagonist made it very hard for me to get into this book. Piers Knight is too perfect, at least from what we are constantly told. Too assured, too quick witted and too all around effective. Likewise, his initially bumbling intern is quickly revealed to be a genius. From page one, there is no doubt that they will survive and triumph over the cartoonishly single minded big bad. I can’t find it in myself to care about anyone this perfect and it leaves no room for tension in the story and no interest in him as a character.

In addition, Mr. Henderson spends quite a bit of time telling us how much ass his character kicks and how suave he is, without showing us any of it. This dependence upon telling over showing would be grating enough on its own, but gets worse when coupled with lines like the following: “So, tell me young George Rainert, would you care for the chance to be torn apart, burned to death and otherwise pounded into salt by an immortal nightmare beyond understanding, or would you rather we get you back to the city and put you in a cab so you can eat chips and drink diet soda while uploading the story of your day to the internet.” Instead of being suave and cool, this comes across as more self-consciously cumbersome than Quentin Tarantino at its worst. This guy, in real life, would be the dork who tries way too hard to sound aloof and cool while firmly placing his lack of social skills on display. What we are told definitely does not jibe with what we see and I do not get the sense that the author is doing this deliberately in an attempt to make a more complex tale.

Granted, Henderson’s writing style is brisk and moves smoothly and I kinda dug the transmutation of the Cthulhu Mythos into dragons (even if calling them “Great Old Ones” is a bit heavy handed). Heck, the story may have enough to it to make up for the previously listed faults, but the central character is incredibly important to any story and I couldn’t get myself past this one to notice anything else.

Buy it here.

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.

Transubstantiate

by Richard Thomas
Published by Otherworld Publications LLC (April 1, 2010)

As the thriving business at Permuted press can attest, apocalyptic fiction is always in vogue. Every generation seems to feel that population growth, advances in weaponry, pollution and other ills have gotten as bad as they possibly can, leaving no option but the end of it all. Yet we're still here. That's why I'm much more fascinated with stories about the days after and end that was quite, focusing on the need to survive and, more importantly, rebuild.

That places us squarely into the world of Richard Thomas' Transubstantiate where we follow seven physically and psychologically damaged characters in the aftermath of a population control experiment gone awry. With 97% of the population dead and much of the remainder turned to violent and insane blisterheads, a small island community holds the only chance of rebirth. But, as this society also begins to collapse, a question must be asked: is the island more of a prison than a new Eden?

The first paragraph had my brains by the balls (yep, I'm so manly even my brain has balls). Lyric and enigmatic, it set the tone for the strain between the inevitability of nihilism and the possibility of hope. Then Mr. Thomas immediately proceeded to slam both brains and balls against the nearest wall by tossing me directly into a situation that had already gone to hell with no explanation whatsoever. To further cement my confusion, he presents the story in first person, from each of the seven main characters' points of view, and not always in chronological order. This Rashomon-ish experience is akin to being given the pieces of a puzzle and the places they fit but having to wait until you've got it all together before you get to see the big picture. Or you can think of it as a mystery where the mystery itself is revealed slowly through the process of the solving.

Either way, it messed with me. And I enjoyed every second of it.

Transubstantiate, when all the pieces fall into place, is an intricate and layered look at action and consequence, the struggle between mislaid control and frustrated effort of self-proclaimed gods of men and the people caught up in the maelstrom, told in a way that will make your head spin. Occasionally, it looses focus and keeping track of the characters and motivations can be a bit frustrating at times, not to mention the large amount of simple typos that overrun the printing, but I found the whole to be well worth the extra effort and vastly rewarding. If only they had done better than the uninspired and rather dull cover art.

Buy it here.

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.

Hellhole

by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Published by Tor Books

Ok, I admit it: I never made it further than Children in that god-almighty of sci-fi sagas, Dune, let alone delving into Brian Herbert’s extensions and had never heard of Kevin J. Anderson before. However, after reading Hellhole, it’s obvious that they have a hell of a talent for building a universe and wrapping an engaging tale within it, even if that tale, on its own, is ultimately unfulfilling.

In a far-flung future universe, the aging Diadem rules her empire of 20 core worlds (known as the “Crown Jewels”) and 54 pioneer “Deep Zone” planets with an iron fist (if iron sucked the life out of everything it touched). In the aftermath of a failed revolution, she exiled the revolution’s leader (General Adolphus), leaving him in charge of the worst of the DZ planets, the aptly named Hellhole. No one should be remotely surprised to find that he still harbors some hopes for rebellion, but few could predict the empire wide effects of the newly discovered remnant of the long lost original civilization on Hellhole.

It is easy to be impressed with the breadth of this book; taking place on several different worlds, each with their own topography, personality and culture. At the same time, that's pretty much expected from anyone daring to create broad, universe spanning fiction. The real skill on display is in the points of view that are given. There are over ten truly significant characters, standing on both sides of the battle, and each seen through each others' eyes as well as their own. This makes for an intricately plotted and morally complicated affair that I dug quite well. They also walk a tightrope regarding the motivations of the aliens and their method of resurrecting their species. Just enough hints are dropped to keep the situation tense, without directly saying whether it's due to cultural misunderstanding or if they have a much more sinister plan beneath it all. The effect is disturbing in all the best ways.

But a reader of such keen eye and mind as yourself will have noticed that I called it ultimately unfulfilling, despite such glowing, giddy statements. Frankly, I'm not pleased that it wasn't a self-sufficient story, even as part of a larger epic. Brian should have learned from his father's example that the story should have some minor sense of closure even as it opens the door to worse problems on the horizon, yet we get no such thing here. If I had dropped thirty bucks on what amounts to the buildup to a war that doesn't even get started by the end, I'd be miffed about it.

So, great universe building, tremendous characterization and marvelous mounting tension are offset by the fact that it drops you off a cliff at the end. Tough call.

Buy it here.

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.

Every Shallow Cut

by Tom Piccirilli
Published by ChiZine Publications (March 29, 2011)


Overtly socially conscious fiction tends to bug me. The second I become aware that I am being taught a lesson, I start to tune it out or get pulled from the story. It tends to draw more attention to the artifice than to the feelings that should be created by the art itself. Often the best and most effective lessons are those we learn when we don't realize we are being taught, like falling off a bike or walking in the front door at the wrong time of day to find someone else with your someone else. What does that have to do with the new novella by Tom Picirilli? Read on...

Picture your life turned into a walking medley of the most stereotypical country music you can think of: your career has collapsed, your house has been foreclosed and your wife done run off on you. At least you still have your dog, your car and a shiny new gun, even if that is it. Maybe now might be a good time for a trip back to the old hometown, to beg at the foot of a brother much more successful than yourself or collapse on the doorstep of your first love. Maybe the manager who hasn't been keeping his promises could use a visit, too.

That is precisely where Mr. Piccirilli places you, with no easy separation of a 3rd person narrator or even a name to distinguish the main character from yourself and the experience is not a kind one. Sure, the man's work has never been among the cheeriest, but he reaches a whole new depth of bleak here. Few people could have made this man's desperation and hopelessness into the reader's like Tom has, with prose that dances between poetry and bluntness, a hammer and chisel wielded with purpose and power. The beauty here is a somber, dark beauty, of a kind that wounds, but it is a beauty nonetheless. However, for some it may hit a bit too close to home. This isn't a doomed quest for revenge or an ill-fated push for redemption, but the steady collapse of a man losing everything he had been told would matter in his life. If you are looking for an analogous work, Hemingway's “A Clean, Well Lighted Place”, with more rage and less apathy, wouldn't be far off.

Looking back to that initial statement, we can see the immensity of what Tom has done here. Anyone can rant about the disparity in lifestyles in this country or the problems of the promises too many of us were sold over our lives. Anyone can scream that there is a problem. But within these pages, we have no choice but to live it, to breathe it in and make it a part of ourselves. It isn't so easy to ignore then.

This isn't art to raise you above your problems, or to rub in a soothing salve. Instead, it shoves our faces into it, scratching and tearing all the way. Still, the wounding bears a minor relief, if only in the knowledge that someone out there understands.

Buy it here.

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.

Men of Five

by C. Bryan Brown

Publisher Misanthrope Press

Dealing with Sci-fi, especially soft sci-fi and even more so when it bears a horror bent, can be a bit of a sticky wicket due to the assumption that it is always a rehashing of a specific archetype. For instance, if I told you that Men of Five deals with Yerik Romanofski and his Interplanetary Task Force team who are searching a supposedlybarren, inhospitable rock of a planet, designated rather than named (HT 12-25), that possesses an inexplicable structure of obvious non-natural origin and have found it somewhat less uninhabited than they thought, you would be inclined to think Alien rehash. And you would be wrong here.

Instead, C. Bryan Brown uses that prejudice to misdirect the reader and keep them off balance when the true thrust of the story hits. Unfortunately, it is in that thrust that it fell flat for me. First off, it seems predicated on a surprise that didn’t surprise very well due to over use. About half way through, I had found myself muttering that “if the planet is (spoiler redacted) and they are (more spoilers redacted), then I’m gonna be pissed,” and I was. Part of my annoyance may be that I do not find the central conflict, as it is presentedhere, or even the mystery surrounding it to be particularly engaging. It certainly doesn’t help that the largely internal struggle, despite the presence of giant, man eating creatures, doesn’t leave much room for action. Someone else with a more religious bent may disagree with me, but even on those terms there isn’t enough meat and depth to make it truly affecting.

Now that I’ve complained, I’m going to backtrack a bit and say that this story could work quite well if used as an introduction to a larger conflict. There is a reason that so much of our classic literature has dealt with issues of fate and destiny and the struggles of man against those forces, both futile and fruitful: they strike a deep cord in us. It would need quite a bit of trimming but could prove to lead into a very interesting story. Unfortunately, as it stands it left me a tad empty.

Buy it here.

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.

The White Faced Bear

by R. Scott McCoy
Publisher Belfire Press, 2010


As often as I deal with his work as a publisher, via Stygian Press and Necrotic Tissue magazine, it is sometimes easy to forget that R. Scott McCoy is a writer in his own right. So here I am, looking down the barrel of his second novel and asking the only question that matters: does this bear bite?

Jeff Bennett and Merrick Polasky don't have much in common, living states and total existences away from each other, but there is that one thing. Nope, I'm not talking about the omnipresent grief and guilt due to the loss of their fathers. There is that, but the ancient, ageless evil magician trapped in the form of a Kodiak bear by one of Merrick's Sun'Aq ancestors and severely po'd by Jeff's father is a tad more pressing. Now they have no choice but to destroy the White Faced bear in a journey that will force them to face the deep dark things inside themselves neither is willing to admit. It's either that, or get eaten by a whole mess of bears.

As McCoy's second novel, The White Faced Bear shows him becoming more focused and confident in the craft. Where Feast was a bit loose and scattershot, in a fever-dream nightmare logic sort of way, the Bear is very concrete and grounded. This, along with the brevity, makes a tight story that speeds through the pages. I also appreciated the down to earth approach to dealing with shamanism and American Indian traditions in modern society.

However, what struck me the most here is how well Scott captures the easy going, somewhat dickish camaraderie that develops between men. Most of the dialog is spent on the interactions of Jeff and Merrick and it feels natural, comfortable and it flows well, but most importantly, it sounds like guys talking. Yes, I know that's vague, but we're dealing with feeling here, not quantifiable statistics.

Unfortunately, there are times that he draws the narrative momentum to a screeching halt to either proselytize or rant at the reader through the mouth of his characters. The worst offense comes up about half way through, via an argument over bitching rights that served no purpose either in moving the story forward or revealing character. It's not intolerable and the occurrences are spare and sparse enough to keep it from being a story killer, but it annoyed me a little.

Ending verdict: This Bear is a lean, muscular little beasty that moved at a brisk pace, took a fair piece out of my pale-faced booty and gave me a new nickname for Scott besides "he who loves unicorns".

Buy it here.

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.