A review by nicktionary19
Standalone by Paul Michael Anderson
4.0
Seems like 160 pages is the perfect length for my current life.
Standalone is a tasty little paperback mashup of Cabin in the Woods and I wanna say ... the Wynn/Dodd portion of Cube Zero? Yeah, let’s go with that.
Standalone explores the idea that your favorite slashers are propping reality up across a multitude of universes. The story centers on a handful of guys conscripted to murder in the guise of mythic bogeymen. After a day of murdergigs that go poorly - and the collapse of one of the men’s home universe, something begins to hunt the hunters.
I really enjoyed Standalone and will pursue other stories by Paul Michael Anderson. The character’s rumination on their tasks - as well as their reasons for doing them make a fun philosophical sidebar. A couple things that kept this from being five stars:
1- while the book was an ideal length for my crowded life, I think it was 20~ish pages short for itself. A couple elements throughout would benefit from some fleshing out. The climactic battle is mostly glossed over, with just the beginning and end detailed. The magnitude of the encroaching horde feels so much larger than the battle.
2- typos. Seems like every book has one. This one had several. It needed one more set of eyes. Wrong words, missing words, homonymical misuse. I really try to give a pass on these things but it was enough to pull me out of the story several times.
***there is a stellar short story at the end of the book***
The One Thing I Wished For You is like one of those scenes at the end of the credits. But not the bullshit Marvel has everyone expecting now. Setting up sequels ... Whiz! Bang! Punchline! Fuck that noise.
This is a story with a shared mythology and one possibly shared character. A story about fatherhood, fear, and love. You might even see what’s coming right from the first page. That’ll only serve to unsettle you more, I suspect.
Standalone is a tasty little paperback mashup of Cabin in the Woods and I wanna say ... the Wynn/Dodd portion of Cube Zero? Yeah, let’s go with that.
Standalone explores the idea that your favorite slashers are propping reality up across a multitude of universes. The story centers on a handful of guys conscripted to murder in the guise of mythic bogeymen. After a day of murdergigs that go poorly - and the collapse of one of the men’s home universe, something begins to hunt the hunters.
I really enjoyed Standalone and will pursue other stories by Paul Michael Anderson. The character’s rumination on their tasks - as well as their reasons for doing them make a fun philosophical sidebar. A couple things that kept this from being five stars:
1- while the book was an ideal length for my crowded life, I think it was 20~ish pages short for itself. A couple elements throughout would benefit from some fleshing out. The climactic battle is mostly glossed over, with just the beginning and end detailed. The magnitude of the encroaching horde feels so much larger than the battle.
2- typos. Seems like every book has one. This one had several. It needed one more set of eyes. Wrong words, missing words, homonymical misuse. I really try to give a pass on these things but it was enough to pull me out of the story several times.
***there is a stellar short story at the end of the book***
The One Thing I Wished For You is like one of those scenes at the end of the credits. But not the bullshit Marvel has everyone expecting now. Setting up sequels ... Whiz! Bang! Punchline! Fuck that noise.
This is a story with a shared mythology and one possibly shared character. A story about fatherhood, fear, and love. You might even see what’s coming right from the first page. That’ll only serve to unsettle you more, I suspect.