RELEASE THE WOLVES

A blacksmith’s apprentice and a sword-wielding princess unite to defend their conquered people against periodic plagues of murderous monsters.

Having endured a reign of terror for centuries, thanks to hordes of murderous monsters released at unpredictable intervals by high-tech conquerors the Elduari, the people of Varen have split into cowed appeasers and surreptitious rebels. Among the latter is young Argo, who’s fretting at signs that another Release is imminent, and his chance-met ally, Ana, who’s bent on revenge against those who killed her little sister. The rebels have not only the super-powered Elduari and their vicious creations to battle but also their own people, many of whom are too frightened to resist or are actually secret spies bearing futuristic surveillance gear. Bachmann must therefore resort to unlikely contortions to keep his protagonists alive, first through multiple battles with overwhelmingly powerful foes, and then, in a ham-fisted effort to complicate the moral landscape, a climactic confrontation with the Elduari king, who offers a thoroughly unconvincing justification for the centuries of slaughter before making way for a tidily simplistic resolution. Still, from the eldritch masked Elduari and their terrifying minions to his depictions of hideous transformations and gory murder sprees, the author does show a knack for creating gut-wrenching horrors. Readers with properly strong stomachs may be inclined to forgive the contrivances. The cast reads white.

A grim, gruesome, overly ambitious jumble.