Reviewed by Sarina

TITLE: Wolfman Apocalypse

SERIES: Collection

AUTHOR: Brannan Black

PUBLISHER: Changeling Press

LENGTH: 433 pages

RELEASE DATE: October 25, 2013

BLURB:

Four years ago our world ended with the lightning fast spread of the wolfman plague. The lucky ones died. Men who survived became something from the Twilight Zone growing larger, stronger and faster with better senses than us mere humans. Oh, and aggressive? ‘Roid rage is nothing compared to these guys. They either wanted to kill it, fuck it or eat it, sometimes all three, and not in any particular order.

One of a few immune men, I live in a fortified compound with a couple dozen women, a bunch of kids and two asshole straight guys. Sounds like a man’s wet dream — unless you happen to be the last gay man standing. After a winter locked up with two guys I’ve got nothing in common with, a few dozen lonely women and about a dozen kids, I needed to get away. That’s how I ended up alone in that alley staring death in the face.

I expected to die, not find my future and someone to share it with. Not that it was all wine and roses what with angry wolfmen, militant women and a threat none of us saw coming.

The Wolfman Apocalypse Collection contains the previously released novellas Apocalypse, Revelations, Judgement, Salvation, and Genesis.

REVIEW:

I picked up this book because it seemed to be a nice blending of some of my favorite things to read: post apocalyptic and shifter type characters wherein the ‘shifters’ are actually humans who’ve mutated to take on more wolf like characteristics. I found I actually liked it better that way; it made for a nice change from both traditional shifter books and your usual type of ‘plague’ that caused the collapse of modern civilization.

This book is actually a collection of five different stories that made up the wolfman series but they all flow directly into each other kind of like individual episodes within a television season; that made it easy to read just a single installment without detracting from the story as a whole while at the same time allowed you to ‘binge’ read if that was your desire. The main characters, Mace and Daniel, both managed to surprise me; Mace is what I would consider a stereotypical ‘alpha’ male in every sense of the word while Daniel is not. While their personalities did clash at times, Daniel’s refusal to just roll over for Mace both challenged and drove the other man to look for solutions outside what had been established in the pack previously. I just loved how Daniel began changing the status quo in little ways just by being himself.

I was a little uncertain about how much I would like this book until I got about halfway into the first story and suddenly found myself hooked; each subsequent installment just sucked me further into this world as I found myself trying to read faster just to get to what happened next. I adored the world building and how you got to see some semblance of civilization being rebuilt around people’s preconceived notions on what constitutes a monster. This was a great collection and my only complaint is that, now I’ve finished it, there aren’t any more stories in this world for me to read. 🙁

If you enjoy post apocalyptic stories or just like your men a little on the rougher side, I’d recommend giving this one a look.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: 

Changeling Press

Amazon