Flesh Like Smoke
Edited by Brian M. Sammons
April Moon Books
July, 2015
Reviewed by David Goudsward
The conventional wisdom is that the werewolf trope is played out — that Twilight was the final silver nail in the wolfsbane coffin. The moon beast has become mundane since H. Warner Munn reinvented the genre in Weird Tales back in 1928; the ravenous killing machine is today more prone to teen angst than bloody carnage. Well, hang on to your Lon Chaney underoos, there’s good news gleaming in the moonlight!
From April Moon Books comes Flesh Like Smoke, a new anthology of shapeshifters for the lycanthophiliacs in your life. Brian Sammons is rapidly developing reputation for his almost supernatural ability to find and juxtapose stories that make even old tropes new and exciting.
Sixteen new stories of varying degrees of spilled sanguinity, and not one angst-filled, pretty boy, werewolf sex symbol in the book. All feature mutable monsters, all radically different from each other. As well it should with a solid roster of authors with diverse reputations of their own – Tim Waggoner, William Meikle, Pete Rawlik, Cody Goodfellow, and Don Webb just to name a few.
It is not a one-sitting read. This is one you’ll want to stop between stories and savor the experience before plunging into another tale. Indeed, it’s almost advised – the stories leap from place to place and time periods. Stories jump from modern day South Boston to the Reign of Vikings to a Cyberpunk future with Indian legends, folk legends, and pure sci-fi along the way.
I hope Sammons considers reinvigorating other old monsters in need of a transfusion of fresh blood —and I don’t necessarily mean just vampires.
