Title: Heads Will Roll
Author: Lish McBride
Series: Necromancer #0.1
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Ghosts, Necromancers
Pace: Fast
Format: Short story
Publisher: Tor.com
Year: 2012
5th sentence, 74th page: The harpy used her own talons to slice into the manticore’s flesh and tear muscle.

Lena’s not your typical animal trainer. And when she and her unicorn partner, Steve, decide to enter a fight, it’s definitely not your typical fight….

Every time I pick this short story up, the song “Heads Will Roll” gets stuck in my head… it’s actually my current ringtone. Which is maybe why I haven’t read this so far – I get too busy singing the song to actually start reading the story. But, I finally pushed through the soundtrack playing in my head and decided to read this. And I really, really, really wasn’t disappointed.

A fighting unicorn really isn’t what I was expecting, and when I explained this tale to my partner, he kind of gave me this incredibly confused, dear in the headlights kind of look. Which is the perfect explanation of how wickedly awesome and random this story is. And how much I want to pick up another piece of McBride’s writing.

I think that my favourite moment of all in this 51-page tale was the ending, the attempt at riding off into the sunset, and kind of epically failing at it. And the hint that there are more adventures to come for this small team of do-gooders and vigilantes.

<- Necromancing the Stone

Death and Waffles ->

Image source: Kobo