Author – Joseph Ramshaw (Journals of Horror: Found Fiction)
Release Date – 2015
Rating – 3/5
Life has changed drastically for me the last 6 months. During this time I switched companies I work for during the day. Same industry just a different company. This new job not only pays more but I have a bit of down time where I have been reading like a mother fucker. In the past I was lucky to read two or three books a year but I have read 6 books in one capacity or another in less than a month. I have mostly been reading the Vampire Hunter D series where I just wrapped up volume 4 as I wait on others to arrive but I have taken the time to read a few stories from one of my favorite authors, Terry M. West.
After I finished Monsters in the Magic Now and Night Things, I decided it was time to check out his Car Nex series which features stories written by other authors. The first one I decided to check out was written by Joseph Ramshaw and was titled The Mighty and the Merciless. Thanks Terry for sending this one my way.
**Spoiler Alert**The story follows a group of soldiers, self-named Face-Punchers, who are sent to a whore house to check on high levels of paranormal activity. When they arrive they discover a undead sorcerer with ties to the past of one of their own. The undead sorcerer has an evil book in his possession and uses it to call on an evil creature known as the carnivore from the nexus, or car nex. However, these are not your ordinary soldiers. Each and everyone one has a unique ability and use these special powers to stop the beast from laying waste to the locals while one of them battles a memory from their past.**Spoiler Alert**
Terry M. West’s story Car Nex is my favorite work of horror fiction from him so when I heard that a group of authors would be helming a series of stories set around his piece of work, I was excited to say the least. With that being said, Joseph Ramshaw was a new name to me. I have not read any of his previous work but I was open to his take on the Car Nex mythos.
The way this one is written is clearly different than how West had written the original story and that is for obvious reasons. Ramshaw gets straight to the point with very little room for play. He doesn’t over complicate things similar to West but he does not spend too much time on the details. In some aspects that benefited the story while at times it did leave it feeling a little flat.
The story for this one is a solid attempt at tossing the Car Nex creature into a futuristic sci-fi action flick. The story is a horror/sci-fi action story full of magic, heavy artillery, the undead, and tons of carnage. I enjoyed the story but felt it softened what was established in the original Car Nexstory.
Finally, the story’s characters put me in mind of some that could be found in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. We have the dumb muscle similar to Drax, the one experimented on over and over like Rocket, we have the female bad ass just like Gamora, and then we have their not so special leader like Agent Phil Coulson. These characters were actually fun and the possibilities are endless but they felt out of place with the story. Overall, Car Nex: The Mighty and the Merciless is a solid addition to the Car Nex series. As a stand alone story it would have had more impact but it is still a worthy edition to the rapidly expanding universe of the carnivore from the nexus. Well worth the read.
