This was a mind bender for me. I have gotten out of the habit of reading Sci-fi and I found myself pretty caught up in the concept of not only encountering creatures from different planets (and they abound in this novella) but also from a different dimension. I thought of them sort of the same way that I think of those crazy aberrations that they find in the deepest trenches of the ocean---and that analogy plays out here. Creatures that actually live among us, but we cannot, except under the most unusual circumstances, come into contact with them. What if we not only invade but also attempt to take up residence their “inner space?” How will they respond? Especially since we have no idea of what their capabilities really are. Add to that very interesting social commentary on what we choose to do with our “less desirable” population and our endless desire for conquest.

This is no space opera. Very thoughtful and well done. Another great novella from Darkfuse.
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Prepare yourself for yet another fantastic story by Jeffrey Thomas! Fantastic in the true sense of the word. Fantastic: imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality. It doesn't get much further from reality than this story. I have enjoyed the work of Mr. Thomas that I have read so far, especially his collection Beyond the Door. (You can check out my review on it here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/567140366?book_show_action=false.

This tale takes place in a prison. But it's not a regular prison. It's not even on this planet. Yeah, this is one of those kind of stories. In this prison, inmates are dying and no one knows how or way. All they know is the prisoner is gone and their cell is soaked in blood. A lot of blood.

That's all I will say about the plot. This tale features a recurring character from Mr. Thomas' Punktown series, Jeremy Stake. I actually haven't read the Punktown novels yet, but that did not hinder my enjoyment of this dark science fiction/horror tale.

If you have an hour or so to spend, and you enjoy dark science fiction mixed with a bit of gore and a nice mystery, this is the novella for you. Highly recommended! ( )

2.5 Stars.

Two things I failed to realize:

- this is a short story
- this is a short story set in a well-established series

The latter is totally my fault. My brain skimmed right over the fact that the blurb says the protagonist is the hero of 2 other novels. The first isn't clear. Not my fault. My rating isn’t taking either of these things into account, though. That wouldn’t be fair. Also, the story appears to be a standalone. I could be wrong, but it reads fine on its own.

The premise is awesome. You have a private detective who’s also a mutant shapeshifter with a “badass” vibe. Then you have a prison (that exists in its own pocket universe) full of prisoners that are different types of life forms/aliens. There are a number of gory murders and shit that our cool cat MC, Stake, gets roped into investigating. Recipe for awesomeness, no? Unfortunately, the execution is seriously lacking. There just wasn’t enough time to build up the intrigue, before the MC easily figures everything out.

I haven’t read any of the other books in this series, but I get the impression that Stake is a bit of a Gary Stu. There’s a character that is hard to talk to due to a physical condition. No problem. Stake figures out how to calm him and get him talking coherently the first time they meet. This dude has a large group of friends who aren’t able to properly communicate with him, but Stake does it right off the bat. Ok.

On his second (maybe third?) day in the prison, Stake gets randomly tipped off by a malfunctioning robot guard . This is bizarre, because the “tipper” has been at this prison for some time. The killings had started before Stake arrived, so why hadn’t they divulged info to anyone before? Unless Stake is speshul.

Finally, nearly immediately, Stake knows whodunnit. It’s not like this is some obscure conclusion, either. When he first hypothesized, I thought that it was a logical guess, but way too obvious. And yet, he was right. He asked one witness one question and very soon after figured out whodunnit. How immensely stupid is everyone else at this prison that no one made the connection sooner? He walks in and in no time, he figures it all out. C’mon. Really? Where’s the suspense? There isn’t any.

There’s also little action. There were a couple of scenes that had the potential to be really good, but they flew by in a minute. Other than that, it was basically Stake having the villain info dump him.

This is a super-quick read, but, unfortunately, not a great one. Admittedly, I was enjoying it until I realized that the climax I had been anticipating had already passed. Big disappointment that. I would have been disappointed sooner had I known it was a short story. I thought I was maybe 25% into a book and so, I was intrigued at where the story was going. Instead, the story was solved and nearly over. Wtf.

Despite my dissatisfaction with this one, I may be picking up the first book in the series. The premise and the writing were admittedly good. I just think this would have made a better full-length book, so that the story could be fleshed out a lot more. The MC in this one isn't the MC of all the books in the series, so there's potential there.

This may be more enjoyable for already-established fans of the series and/or hero, but I wouldn’t bet much on it. It read like it was supposed to be a standalone and as such, it just wasn’t up to snuff.



ARC recieved for review via Netgalley.






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