Irregular Creatures by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was my first Chuck Wendig book. If I’m thinking of the right author, all I knew about him before going into this is that he apparently likes to use a lot of profanity in his books. This one had more than most, but not an obscene amount.
If I had to describe this book in just one sentence it’d be: Irregular Creatures is like a bunch of Twilight Zone episodes if Twilight Zone was rated R. That said, most of the stories were probably closer to PG-13. I’d watch a one-season HBO TV adaptation of this book.
The opening story, and the source of the cover image, Dog Man and Cat Bird, was my favorite one. I really enjoyed everything about the way the story was crafted and the way the main characters were…well…characterized.
Radioactive Monkey was creepy. I liked how short it was.
Product Placement was probably my third favorite. It’s the first one that had a really strong feeling of being a lost Twilight Zone episode. I have no idea if things would fall apart in a longer story, but the universe in which it takes place is pretty neat.
This Guy had promise, but the ending made no sense to me.
Mr Mhu’s – As I was reading it, I was expecting things to go wrong – something like from Dusk Til Dawn. Things DID go wrong, but not quite in the way I was expecting. Good job, Wendig!
Lethe – I really liked that it was very short. Just enough to leave the brain thinking.
The Auction House was my second favorite. I loved pretty much everything about it. Again, probably couldn’t be a longer story, but I would love to see more in that world.
Beware Owner – Oh man! The twist at the end – I almost dropped my book and just yelled out, “NO WAY”
The last story was very interesting – the way it went back and forth was awesome. I don’t know how much sense it makes the more I try and think about it. But I did like the almost evil genie aspect of it.
Took me about a couple hours of reading time – well worth it.