Review: Interesting concept that would have been scarier in third person
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 26, 2013
I love a good first person narrated tale, but feel disappointed when I read one where I want to see action the narrator could only tell me about, versus show me through the eyes of another character. It seems like several DarkFuse published first person narratives would have been scarier for me if they were written in third person. That's the case for me with this one about a man off to rescue his daughter with nightmarish god creatures walking the earth destroying everything and everyone in their path. It's almost a bit like reading a Godzilla rampage tale, only without Toyko being the battle zone and mankind being the main enemy, not some other gigantic flying or aquatic beast.Strangely, I found myself most interested and most fearful of the creature described in the mirror (and why was the mirror not presented sooner in the story?), which invoked a very Lovecraftian sense of "you know it's there, but won't see it." Nobody has done those type of stories better than Lovecraft, but the author here did an admirable job emulating the experience. At the end of the day, this has the pacing of another DarkFuse novella,Wormby Tim Curran, and a little more character depth. I didn't find the writing as descriptive or varied as Curran's story (the word 'flesh' was used roughly a dozen times in a couple pages). This sits on the boundary between an "OK" and "I liked it" read. 2.75 stars, rounded. 1,958 Kindle locations. Approximately 128 pages.