Book Review: The Ballad of El Hacha by JP Wenner
Title: The Ballad of El Hacha
Author: JP Wenner
Release date: March 29th, 2023
Huge thanks to JP for sending me a copy of his debut novella!
I’ve long, long been a wrestling fan, having cut my chops growing up on the classic WWF era and into the WWE era. Truthfully, though, it’s been a solid twenty years since I’ve watched and followed wrestling of any kind, but that might be changing as my six-year-old son is slowly becoming intrigued with some of the clips he’s been watching on Youtube.
JP described this as a Splatterpunk wrestling story with some Bizarro mixed in. I was worried about the Bizarro slant as sometimes it can really take me out of a story, but I was intrigued and leaped in off the top ropes.
What I liked: The story begins with a bang. We arrive in the middle of a wrestling match in honor of El Hacha Cuarto father, one of the most revered wrestlers to ever live. Now, El Hacha Cuarto is destined to take his place, even as his family roots against him and doesn’t believe he deserves the honor.
The story really ramps up when, after the match, El Hacha Cuarto hits a deer while driving and soon learns that the deer was actually a powerful forest beast, who takes possession of the van. The van is El Hacha Cuarto’s prized possession and thus the story takes off. About a wrestler, trying to get his van back from a vengeful entity, who is accompanied by a woman, Abby who longs to help.
Wenner goes to a number of great spots in this novella, as well as some really odd spots, but that is expected with the Bizarro component. We get a talking flower, some crazy characters and a ton of action spots that really work to dole out a warehouse volume of carnage.
Throughout, Wenner has done a solid job of wanting us to root for El Hacha Cuarto, and it doesn’t take long before you see just how much is stacked against him and how hard he needs to battle to survive, get his van back and become the greatest wrestling champion of all time.
What I didn’t like: Like I mentioned, the Bizarro aspects can be tough for me and there were a number of times where I was loving the storytelling and then got really pulled out because of the odd directions it went. If you love the Bizarro world of dark fiction, it’ll work great for you, otherwise do be aware.
Why you should buy this: ‘The Ballad of El Hacha’ was a really fun time and Wenner has created a character in El Hacha Cuarto that the reader will instantly believe in and root for from page one. The story has great pacing and we get enough action and intrigue to pull us all along really well.
Fans of wrestling and crazy-zany antics will be very, very happy!
4/5
