Howl

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.

---

We’d give until nightfall or the first howls before we gave them up for lost. Lost to never be spoken of again. Those ghosts trapped in meat who would become monsters to haunt us, to hunt us.

What’s Howl About?

That’s the end of the first chapter—and it tells you all you need to know about how warm and fuzzy this world isn’t.

This novella takes place in some sort of postapocalyptic future, and the world is in a very confusing place. It could be filled with the sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic or, it could be filled with sufficiently ordered magic indistinguishable from technology. Or maybe in the overlap of the Venn Diagram of the two. Eh…it doesn’t matter—one or both, it’s a cool world (for the reader, anyway, not so great for the residents).

In this harsh world, a young man and woman are kicked out of their tribe, their names taken from them—they’re left to try to survive as long as they can in the wilderness (yes, I’m glossing over important things). Following an encounter with some beasts that no one wants to come across, they meet a woman powerful enough to help them. She’s a monster hunter who has recently lost her team. This pair are a team in need of shelter, food, identity, and purpose. She takes them in, starts to teach them about the world outside all they’ve known and gives them those things they need.

And then…well, as you expect from monster hunters—they run into something nasty.

So, what did I think about Howl?

The writing was solid throughout—with moments that surpassed that and approached “good.” This isn’t necessarily a book that requires good writing—it’s got an inventive setting, strong characters, a propulsive storyline, and strange magic/science. Solid, capable writing is enough to keep you engaged and turning the pages—it’s enough to bring you back for more in the series. But good writing? The parts where you really can tell that craft has gone into a sentence or more? That’s icing on the cake—and rathke brushes up against that on a few occasions. Enough to make you realize he’s capable of it–and that maybe he’ll deliver more of that soon.

That said, there were a few moments where I wondered if he was trying too hard to make some of the emotional beats hit hard. If he’s backed off a bit and let them impact the reader with their own gravity, rather than giving an extra “oomph,” I think it might have been more effective. One of those moments was tied to a big reveal for a couple of the characters—or at least they acted like it was a big reveal. All I could think at the moment was, “Were you not paying attention a few pages back? I was.” Having paid that kind of attention, the (second) revelation didn’t make much of an impact on me, so the characters’ reactions seemed a bit off.

But let’s ignore those points (or at least rush past them), they’re not all that important.

What is important is the action, the worldbuilding, the characters—and the promise that we’ll learn a lot more about everything we see in this novella.

Once it gets moving (and it takes just a little while to get there), things happen quickly and intensely. The action scenes are great, the dashes of humor are fun—and I want more of all of this.