Year of publication: 2017
Author: Kurt Anderson
Plot: Some call it a spirit, a demon. Others, an
all-consuming force of nature. According to Cree legend, it goes by the name of
Wendigo. For a hundred years it has been sleeping. Resting beneath the earth.
Buried in a godless no-man’s-land known as Resurrection Pass. (Back of Book)
My Review and Thoughts:
This is a creature feature style book. A mix of dark
humanity and the reality of monster in the woods. What makes this book stand
out is the dark human side of this story. Yes, there is a monster in the woods,
but there are human monsters also inside this story that bring out a darker
humanity worse than the creature in the woods. This is a complex story of
characters and violence. A mother nature run amok. A darker story that lingers
in your thoughts. From one page to other you never really know what is going to
happen next. The story unfolds with many characters and situations all melding
into a creature feature drama with a mixture of pure imaginative fiction.
Your main character is a half-Cree Indian named Jake
Trueblood who has been hired as a guide to lead a team of miners in the darkened
woods of the Canadian wilderness and most of all a place called Resurrection
Pass. These minors are looking for a rare earth element. What they don’t
realize is as the explore and drill into the dirt of the wilderness they start
to uncover something very dark, large and most of all alive in all its
monstrosity.
The minors are not ready for the darkness that awaits them.
But that is just the half of the story. Soon you are given a life and death
survival tale against angry locals. Jake Trueblood will find himself in one
battle he never saw coming. From the monsters and creatures that await a
feeding reality to the angry humans with evil intentions, Jack Trueblood will have
his hands full.
Kurt writes in a vivid, intense way that leaves nothing to
the imagination. He allows you the reader to become a fly, a weed all watching
the darkness unfold. Kurt truly knows how to grab you and create an intense
dramatic, emotional ordeal on page. Really enjoyed the tension at times. Really
enjoyed the monstrous descriptions. Kurt also creates some very shocking
moments of violence that are unexpected. He creates this group of Okitchawa who
are a murdering Cree group angry with persons destroying there land. As I have
stated above, the human monsters are worse than the creature lurking. I think
the dynamic between monster and human monster play off in this tale in a
lasting reaction inside you that truly impresses the reader, at least it did
this reader.
Kurt knows how to hold you tightly into the tale being told.
Vivid descriptions mixed with awesome character development. Really loved the fleshed-out
persons inside the unfolding plot. 40 pages in I was thoroughly hooked and I
knew that this was going to be one of those books that held me tight and never
let good, and all I can say is this is a great book of human monstrosity right
along with unknown monsters lurking in the darkness of the world.
What I love about reading the biography of Kurt Anderson is
he happens to be an environmental scientist. Loves hunting, fishing, and loves
the wilderness, and those loves are clearly written in these pages. You can
tell the writer is a lover of the outdoors. He places you there in the woods,
the hunt, the showdown. Kurt knows how to take the landscape and take the
reader and place them into that landscape.
The brutal reality of description is what makes this tale a
flawless reading. Anderson knows how to write detail. A graphic intense detail
that thoroughly never lets up. I loved the description power of Anderson’s
writing.
As the back of the book says: It is Real….It is Rising…It is
Ravenous, truly a perfect description of this book. A fun, wild, intense ride
of imaginative perfection.
Would I Return to it Again? I will return to the author. He
has a wonderful sense of pure storytelling that makes a lasting impression that
makes the reader remember the story long after it’s over and that is what I
love about good writers.
Would I Recommend: Anyone who loves a mother nature or
creature feature in the middle of the woods style story, absolutely. Fans of
monsters and human monsters will take to this book and make it their own.
My Rating: 4 out of 5
Four Final Words: Darkly, Masterly, Emotionally Intense.