Review: The Builders by Daniel Polansky
Reviews / October 28, 2015

Funny how I’m generally not big on anthropomorphism but at the same time I do seem to love a lot of books featuring fluffy, furry adorable sentient animals (Redwall, Watership Down, Mouse Guard, etc.) Thus the draw of Daniel Polansky’s The Builders won out, and it was also perfect because I’ve been meaning to check out his work for a long time. The animals in this book are far from soft and cuddly, though. A mouse, a stoat, an opossum, a badger, a salamander, a mole, and an owl all walk into a bar. This however is not the beginning of a joke but a start of a Kill Bill-style tale of vengeance and bloody destruction. One upon a time, all of them stood united against a common enemy, until treachery destroyed the group from within. The last job they were all on together didn’t end so well, so now the battle-hardened mouse known as the Captain is rounding up his old pals again for one last hurrah. But alas, you know what they say about the best laid schemes of mice and men. Before long, both bullets and fur will fly in abundance, as the Captain and his ragtag…

Review: The Last Witness by K. J. Parker
Reviews / October 7, 2015

The Last Witness by K. J. Parker is dark and deceitful, yet addictive novella. These two aspects are spun together for a truly fascinating story and one hell of a protagonist that you might not like, but you can’t help but want to know more about. It’s a book that doesn’t shy away from the darker side of humanity, it actually relishes in it. I’ve only read one other book by Parker, but I feel this story was every bit as intriguing as The Folding Knife and has reinforced my need to read more by the author. The narrator has the unique ability to enter someone’s mind and remove their memories.  This can be to relieve a person of unbearable memories, or perhaps to clear a witness of potentially damaging knowledge. The catch here though, is that these memories then become his own. Since it is usually not happy, loving memories that people have removed, he is left with countless disturbing, graphic memories that can be haunting. And while the narrator never forgets a detail, he can sometimes lose track of which memories are his own versus which are memories he has taken from others. This provides an interesting perspective for the…