Review by Frank Plowright

Cryptoid presents a collection of stories in a world gone wrong, one where genetic fusions exist in many and varied forms, and Eric Haven’s study is a form of field guide.

With a poker-faced sincerity he flits from one to the next detailing the unique conditions each must endure. The Manklyosaur appears on the cover, a combination human and ankylosaur dinosaur who must eat 130 pounds of vegetables every day, and who during the night emits haunting involuntary vocal noises caused by cavernous sinus chambers. Then there’s the Flightless Running Shrieking Bat, about to be caught and used as transportation by a gnome whose origin we then learn.

Haven’s absurdity can be hit or miss. A satire of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon serves no great purpose, but he’s dedicated to ploughing his narrow furrow as he tours around a world definitely influenced by Marvel superhero comics, and the 1950s supernatural material preceding them. They’re twisted, though, into new shapes with new perspectives. Masked hero archetype Nightsword is drawn as if the creation of a child, posed heroically on the edge of a flat roof, but his story then continued as if the creator has no idea of where to take it. He fights nebulous shapes never moving his feet.

Conceptually strong, Haven flits from one scenario to another, as if observing a society where the fantastic is reduced to the mundane. A passive cast are never surprised by what occurs, they just react to it, and the reaction to them is most likely to be hilarity or puzzlement.