Beastial Beasties Beat it HARD!

BESTIAL: WEREWOLF APOCALYPSE by William D. Carl (2008 Permuted Press / 298 pp / tp)


I finally got around to reading Carl's 2008 action-packed monster novel, close to the eve of its re-release through Simon & Schuster this December, 2011.


When a bunch of hoods hold up a bank in Cincinatti, things take a wickedly bad turn when the city is attacked by werewolf-like creatures.  Head thug Rick and head bank teller Chesya manage to survive the assault inside the bank's vault.  But when they emerge the next morning, they find their city in ruins.


Across town, a teenage runaway squatter named Christian thinks he knows what's going on.  It seems one of his Johns was a wealthy Frenchman who also worked at a bio lab.  When things seem safe outside of his building, he locates the man's lab and finds a notebook that may hold some answers to the devastation.  And finally, a middle-aged housewife is on a mission to find her lost son after receiving a telephone call from him amidst the chaos (while several end-time novels use this search-for-the-missing-kid subplot, this time it's done quickly and doesn't take much space).


Despite a couple of end-of-the-world scenarious that will be familiar to fans of the subgenre, BESTIAL has a relentless pace that forced me to finish it in two sittings.  And the werewolves aren't your typical werewolves; they also show signs of being part bear and part tiger, giving them a faster, stronger, and more lethal edge.  Carl also manages to flesh out his characters while keeping the action flying at a nearly non-stop pace, making me long to see more of them in the two promised sequels.


Apocalyptic novels have saturated the horror fiction scene over the past eight years or so...but when they're as well done as BESTIAL, it's easy to see why fans keep begging for more.