 Aside from the isolated story here and there, I was a novice to the work of Patrick Freivald. I had met him years ago, consider him a friend and we even shared a reading slot at a convention once (his story was devastating!) where was I going here....oh! His recent collection is a sampler in the truest sense of that word, nearly every story dips its taloned toes into another part of the genre pool. We have hard-assed science fiction and ooey gooey horror, we have reflective quiet weird and loudly wounding dark. Grab that flashlight and I'll give you a look around. The collection opens with the title story, a dim and drab futuristic parable about survival and the sacrifices necessary to do so, it also has scary mechanical creatures in it. "Forward Base Fourteen" is an oddly pliable grimy, gritty, sci-fi nightmare. "The Star" is a rock & roll story, we've heard it before but never with so much sweet distortion!  "Well Worn" is a weird tale about payback and consequence and second-hand clothing. "Trophy Hunt" is exactly as the title promise but not at all what you're expecting. "The Extermination Business" is a bonafide hard boiled private eye tale with were-rodents and the undead and it's absolutely perfect. "Twelve Kilos" is a grim future story that you'll never wash off your hands. "Foam Ride" delivers time travel and revenge. "Splinter" is a haunted fairy tale of nature and reclamation. 'Erik Pruitt's Smoker" tells the tale of a woman who buys an antique beekeeping tool at an auction and discovers it holds a special kind of power. Rounding home is a pair of tales that are strong and swarthy. "A Creative Urge" is a visceral and on-the-nose heart wreck of a story and "Taps" speaks of a student who hears strange noises in her school, and then in her head and seeks to discover their meaning. I left a few out, not for any real reason other than running time. I enjoyed every story in this book and will proclaim that Freivald is a great storyteller. Wordy when he needs to be, practical and easy when the turn or tale calls for it. He's definitely someone you ought to be reading. In The Garden Of Rusting Gods is available from Barking Deer Press on Amazon BY JOHN BODEN   Comments are closed.
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