Graeme Rodaughan's Reviews > Gollitok

Survey Scandal! Bureau Official Fails to File a Report! "Give me a freakin' break! I'm finding it a tad difficult to hold a pen at the moment!" - Hammel E. Varka - The Bureau Bugler

In a post-pandemic-nuclear holocaust world, the Bureau runs the show, and mid-level official, Varka, is running a survey of an abandoned island, but is it truly abandoned?

I'm not a fan of 'lack of agency,' in characters (or in life) and watching Varka and his team mates mostly stumble from one 'death-by-a-thousand-cuts' disaster to the next as Varka's mission fell into disarray was kinda painful.

I'm also a fan of pace, and while the events of the story happen in less than a handful of days, they somehow dragged out in the telling to make the first 90% of this story a showcase in 'the-slow-burn,' technique where I was left wondering and waiting for the payoff.

And the payoff does arrive in the final chapter - but was it fully satisfying? Maybe? I'm not sure, and that makes me question giving this book 4 stars.

That said ... and yet ... and yet ... the story has a strange mesmerising quality to it ... like an overdose of Orlot...

The way I feel about this book reminds me of how I feel about Carmilla by Fanu, a book that on the surface doesn't thrill me or hit my typical points of interest, and yet it has an uncanny (a very apt word for this book) appeal beyond rational explanation.

Clever writing in a unique voice, I may well read more by this author.

Recommended, 4 'Beware the Offspring of Men,' stars