Brendan Detzner

Beasts: 16 More Weird Stories is a good little short story collection in the vein of Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman. There is some great, creative stuff in here, and I’m impressed by the varying ideas: some of which are references to mythological ideas and some of which seem wholly original. Occasionally the writing is missing a certain cadence I feel would enhance the inhuman mythopoeia some stories turn into, but this is a minor quibble and likely relevant only if the reader is used to a writer like Lord Dunsany.

There are some stories that I feel aren’t fully on the page. It seems like there’s more to them, like some un-introduced clues that bring the story together. Because this clue is lacking, some of the stories are confusing. The problem her, is that Mystery, the Unknown, the Eldritch, can be confusing, but it should all snap into place in the end. There can remain the Unknown, but I should have all the story pieces I need to understand the motivations of all the “normal” characters, and enough to understand that the Eldritch are operating at a level of mythic madness.

Those few stories aside, the others are great and probably won’t appeal to those who are scared out of their pants by horror fiction. But if you like having the ghostly whips of chthonic things wrapped around your brain, pick up Beasts. The settings might seem familiar, but the destinations are not.… (meer)

I received the advanced reading copy of Beasts in exchange for an honest review.

First off, even for an ARC, there were a decent amount of grammatical errors and odd sentence structures. (There were even a few places where I could tell that one idea had been abandoned for another one.) I don't know how/if these were fixed in the released copy, but I just found that odd. And it's possible that my understanding or enjoyment of certain stories may have been hindered by these errors.

Anyway, what we have here is a collection of stories that range in quality from fairly decent to mediocre. I enjoy short story collections, in general. But I like a bit more character development. I didn't really feel for many of these characters at all. For example, rather than identifying with the kid in "Two Nights Only", I found him unlikable.

"Spirits of the Wind" probably had some of the best character development out of the sixteen stories. Even so, I found the narration to be somewhat odd. There wasn't much distinction in the "voices", so to speak, of his narrator and the characters. I found this true, actually, for a number of the stories.

"PCBF" might be my favorite out of this collection. It seemed the most complete to me. Both the dialogue and narration were quite good, and this might have to do with the fact that it was from the first-person perspective. Plus the concept of an AI exploring hedonism was fun.

And that, I think, is Detzner's strength: interesting concepts. In truth, the concepts for these stories are wonderful. It's the execution that needs work.

For example, "The Gardener Estate" had a great concept and a really good ending, too. But it started off rather shaky. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be picturing. But then I can understand the difficulty in describing how a skeleton would wake up.

"Ebb Tide" and "A Day and Two Nights When I was Twenty" also had good concepts, but they suffered from a lack of structure and character development. I liked the plots and the endings. But they were both, at times, confusing.

"In the Fall" had a great concept, but it was too short and could have benefited from a lot more development. The same could be said for "The Envelope Job" and "Shadow". There are rather abstract concepts in these stories that, for me at least, were not described as completely as they could have been.

I guess to summarize, a lot of these concepts were quite good, but in general they felt unfinished and needed more structure and development.… (meer)

Trending 3.5 stars. I received an ARC of this book and kudos to Brendan Detzner for living the dream and pursuing writing full-time. The stories in this collection are weird in the denotative sense of the word: “fantastic” and “bizarre.” You can see the author ask himself the question: What if? and then following through on the trajectory. What if Sasquatch fought Chupacabre? What if an AI creature took over a human body but blabbed about it beforehand? What if the boundaries we take for granted as solid (time, life & death, etc.) weren’t? These stories explore the questions in a playful and haunting way. There is humor here too: the conquering computer simply wants to experience Spring Break in Panama City, FL. The author’s only challenge is to harness his supple imagination long enough to allow those less creative to hop on.… (meer)

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White Rabbit Society by Brendan Detzner was such an interesting and great read, I’m so happy Mr. Detzner asked me to review his novel! It was extremely well written and reminded me a bit of the magic realism from The Dresden Files, but also seemed bit like The Seer by Grant Palmquist in that it revolved around a pair of teens trying to understand the weirdness of the world around them. What made this an extra fun book, however, was the extra element of a club/mafia/mob involvement. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I absolutely LOVE heist and mafia/organized crime type books, so that was such a pleasant addition to find.

After being abandoned at his grandmother’s house, Andrew is bored and lonely, which surprise, surprise, leads to his discovery of Shadow, an ephemeral creature that lives beneath a gazebo at the park. He gives Shadow a name and befriends her. She, in turn, struggles to understand what she is, as well as what is the world she is a part of. Detzner does a great job in portraying not only Shadow’s innocence, but also her and Andrew’s naivete.This culminates towards the books ending, which shows just how Shadow chooses to evolve and the actions she takes.

Then, we have the adults in the story, Paul playing a major part. This is where the mafia/heist elements come into play, as well as family secrets. Paul and his flashbacks are simultaneously one of the best and most informative parts of the book, but also what brought this book down a star. The way he entered into the knowledge of magic, forced his way into the White Rabbit Society, even his birth and upbringing, are all so intriguing and interesting, yet we only see brief instances of these events. Detzner cuts through the present day story with bits of the past, as well as bits of the present with other characters, and it simply doesn’t work as effectively as it could. Were it only cuts between Paul’s past and Andrew’s present, it would make White Rabbit Society much more effective. However, cutting between Paul’s past, Andrew’s present, and then various other side characters from the Society, it just gets too jumbled and confusing. I lost track of who some characters were and how they fit into the story or with each other.

If you’re into urban paranormal/magic realism stories a la Dresden Files, but with a stronger human touch, I wholeheartedly recommend you pick up White Rabbit Society by Brendan Detzner. It is solidly written, well developed, and has a strong plot that really makes me want to check out more his writing.

// I received this title for free in exchange for an honest review //… (meer)