Saturday 2 April 2016

Wind Walker by Neil Buchanan







Audio & Ebook versions:
Wind Walker consists of three short stories; one is stand alone and the last two are linked by a character.  All of them have a similar feel and theme; death, apocalyptic, cannibalism and monsters.

I found the writing style to be very dark but exceptionally descriptive, add in the clipped, direct narration of Carrie Buchanan and I kept rewinding to ensure I had heard what she said; the ewww moments were really horrifying.

The first story is Wind Walkers; a man learns he is the harbinger/catalyst for monsters to rise on a snowy mountain side in Wales.  His inner monologue of fears and memories interspersed with the dialogue with his children allowed for characterisation and a connection with them as a family.

I really liked the “cool velvet” explanation of calm after intense pain. My only negative would be the alternating of PoV was a little confusing when listening to the audio version, but when read I was able to slow and repeat paragraphs.

The second two stories were linked by a character; the narrator is left alone in a shopping mall whilst the world outside is filled with monsters. I did wonder if they were all linked as the season is winter with snow and ice and both talk of a rift. 

Sam the floating corpse will stay with me for a while, she was so vivid, even in death NB gave her a brilliant back story.   Another negative amongst all this praise would be the use of “diapers”; clearly set in the UK why use an American word?

The is an abundance of flesh, blood and gore, eyeballs hanging and bits being cleaved or munched off. The shock value is obviously there but NB writes with such substance and palpability that even the simplest of phrases made me wince eg the eye ball stalk!

All the endings were very sorrowful and pessimistic, no happy endings here, horah for some dirty horror. Loved the gruesome, creepy unrelenting nature of these stories and cannot wait to read more from this author!