Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Apocalyptic Organ Grinder: A Hydra Dystopian Novella - by William Todd Rose

4 of 5 Stars     Review copy

For a novella length story, there is a lot going on in Apocalyptic Organ Grinder.

There's the back story of the evil wizard who created the pathogen which kills off most of the world's population, there are two groups of survivors, those not killed outright, but are diseased carriers who refer to themselves as The People, and those known as Clear Skins who call the infected Spewers.

Tanner Kline, a Clear Skin, is also a Sweeper, it's his job to seek out Spewers and eliminate them.  I found Apocalyptic Organ Grinder to be interesting in that there are no clear-cut good guys and bad guys, both groups want the same basic things.  Food, shelter, and safety for their loved ones.

Of course, if you are a Clear Skin, you can understand why the Spewers would be a threat, "He could see the greenish yellow pus within the stone-sized blisters that covered their bodies.  The blisters were membrane thin and the pressure of infection made them pulse and throb as if tiny hearts were submerged within the cloudy liquid.  Portions of the Spewer's bodies were marked with deflated blisters that had yet to scab over; directly below these festering wounds. new bubbles of flesh filled with contagion and strained against the skin."

Apocalyptic Organ Grinder seems a bit hampered by the novella format.  I would have liked to have read this in a novel sized treatment with more about life in each of the survivor groups, as well as more about the evil wizard and the events leading up to the way things are now.

As it stands, Apocalyptic Organ Grinder is a good story and an enjoyable read from Random House.  It's set for publication on June 17, 2014, but I see the ebook available now at Amazon.com.






No comments:

Post a Comment