Wolf Weather

by Miles Watson

Imagine if you had lived a life of cruel discipline from the time you were a child, and were constantly called upon to do battle for an emperor you had never seen. Now imagine that emperor orders you far off the map, into a frozen land where the sun never shines and the only light comes from the grinning moon. Imagine that once there, hundreds of miles from the warmth of civilization and the sun, you encounter supernatural beasts somewhere between wolf and man; cunning creatures who slaughter your comrades and lay siege to the fort you have built with your own hands. Imagine that one by one, your fellow legionnaires are torn to bits and consumed, or worse yet, turned into beasts themselves...until at last, only you remain. The sole survivor and inhabitant of Fort Luna. Now imagine that's where the story begins.

63 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 30, 2023

About the author

Miles Watson was born in Evanston, Illinois. The son of a prominent Chicago journalist, he took an early interest in writing and published his first short story at 17. He worked in Criminal Justice for ten years before moving to Los Angeles for a dozen more, where he worked on numerous television shows and half a dozen feature films. He is the author of four book series: CAGE LIFE, SINNER'S CROSS, THE CHRONICLES OF MAGNUS and SOMETHING EVIL as well as numerous novellas, which have won nearly 30 literary awards.

Reviews

[E. Billups · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story gripped me from beginning to end!

I will read any book with werewolves and vampires. Wolf Weather is a well-written, fast-paced, short story filled with suspense, thrills, and of course, gore. The writing is vivid and tingled all my senses. Wolf weather hit all my buttons for this genre. I highly recommend this story to lovers of the paranormal.

[Margot Meanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You yourself have precipitated it. You came here. Unwanted. Unwelcome. But you came. Filled this place with yourselves. And now we will fill ourselves with you".

Content warning : death, sexual imagery

It's an enthralling novella that breathes new life into the werewolf trope. This story is all about contemplation and rich storytelling. It's a blend of atmosphere and thought-provoking themes, showcasing the author's talent for immersive, visual storytelling.

Meet Crowning, a soldier of the legion, moulded by strict rules. His life revolves around discipline, and he's stationed at a now-deserted fort that has faced relentless attacks. It's cold and deserted, but filled with haunting memories. As the sole survivor, he represents the last stand against the encroaching monsters.

What sets this novella apart is its ability to make you question the essence of humanity. Was Crowning, who served an army that pillaged and plundered under orders from a leader he never even personally saw or knew, a monster from the start? In contrast, the creatures he battles against seem to enjoy a freedom he can only dream of. It's almost like a poetic justice—those who conquer are now being conquered by the wild and its creatures.

The prose is captivating, immersing you in the harshness of a soldier's trance-like daily survival, surrounded by an ever-present sense of dread. Loneliness and coldness permeate the narrative, making it incredibly evocative. The atmosphere is really pitch-perfect. A quick and gripping read, informed by the writer's knowledge of military life. The style really puts you there and then.



At the risk of sounding ignorant because there are many things I don't know, the only thing that to me felt somehow out of place was coffee. As far as I read, coffee wasn't known in ancient Rome and soldiers would more likely drink posca so I kinda questioned its presence here and it felt a little immersion breaking.

Overall, it's a compelling read. The author's deep understanding of military life shines through, enhancing the immersion. The story unfolds naturally, not forced, which is the hallmark of a truly engaging read—one that's born from genuine experiences and solid knowledge, with a thought-provoking concept and a message that resonates

[Sara Hailstone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wolf Weather by Miles Watson
Reviewed By: Sara Hailstone

Content Warning (Death and Sexually Explicit Scenes)


Miles Watson takes hold of us in a haunting novella that re-imagines the werewolf archetype in, “Wolf Weather.” Crowning is a soldier stationed in the harsh environment of the Arctic with sunless days and a ghostly unwavering moon that summons a stripping away of immense military discipline and order. Crowning is groomed in orderly conduct and the moral pillars of civilization: discipline, loyalty and respect. Evoking the extreme discipline of an army like the Unsullied in Game of Thrones, Watson expertly profiles a lone survivor’s unleashing from civil obedience to animalistic urges that cannot be ignored.

Crowning is the last survivor, “the final ambassador of civilization in a hostile wilderness” at Fort Luna. His heart and mind are thoroughly braided with the ethical contract of his Legion and an iron Emperor’s will. But, this psychological bearing is continuously shaken as one man after the other is picked off by an enemy lurking in the night. All that is left is Crowning and his nerve in Arctic darkness.

Watson’s smooth prose of a soldier’s life enters the reader seamlessly into Crowning’s day-to-day survival. The descriptive language of the domestic residue of Fort life, brewing coffee, the burn of wine and the solitude of life during the day is contrasted expertly with the hauntings of night and supernatural wolf pack howls. Flame and shadow, the movement of something calculating and creeping transfixes and pins the reader to plot.

The effortlessness of ease into the story is backboned with Watson’s authorial skill and knowledge of military living. Equipped with undergraduate degrees in Criminal Justice and History, and a graduate degree from Seton Hill University with a Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction, Watson is able to execute a gesture of re-imagining the werewolf in popular culture. Having served as a law enforcement officer for almost a decade, Watson then perfected his writing working in television on shows like Heroes, CSI: New York, True Blood, The Walking Dead and The Orville that further gives the novella a feeling of entering a filmset with an Oscar award-winning performer.

A multi-award winner with over 15 credentials, Watson has solidly carved out a space as an independent author. His most recent awards are: The Literary Titan Book Award Gold Medal Winner (2022), a Pinnacle Book Achievement Award Winner (2022), and a Book Excellence Award Finalist (2022).

A portfolio of his works includes: Cage Life, Knuckle Down, Devils You Know, The Numbers Game, Nosferatu, and Sinner’s Cross.

Watson can be found on his website: https://www.mileswatsonauthor.com/.

Wolf Weather is a provocative novella due to the intrigue that Watson weaves around and inside of his characters. Of course, there is Crowning the soldier protagonist, but there is also the mystique surrounding the wolfgod. This ethereal being “stands apart,” from the werewolf pack, gives off an air of ‘arrogance,’ with a human demeanor of upright stance with feet ‘spread wide,’ and “muscular folded arms.” Crowning meets the wolfgod in a dream-vision, the creature standing away from the group while two wolves, a female and male writhe and connect in almost a ritual-like act of reproduction. A species fighting for domination and reclamation of hostile environment. Watson threads in a layer of seduction and the release of animal nature that unravels and reinforces the narrative.

Watson had reached a peak in writing the novella of what would transcend the storyline and push Crowning into a pack of supernatural beings. He could not unearth the trajectory of plot to expose what was truly at stake, the transformation of the evolution of a superior species. Crowning was too strong, too well-trained. Until, a female seductress emerged from the depths of wilderness. Watson’s writes in an afterward, “then, one night, Arabeth appeared- slipped over the ramparts, one might say, while I was sleeping. The seductive force I needed to complete the tale appeared of its own accord…uninvited.” Amidst a deconstruction of Western society’s fascination with vampiric folklore and the vampire image in film and literary culture, Watson defends and builds up a shift of focus to the werewolf. “A vampire would have knocked,” Watson affirms; Arabeth would not. And with her presence comes the seduction and unravelling of character of firm moral control and psychological obedience.

This novella is a work of fiction that roots beyond limitations. In the crux of Watson’s expertise with the no-man’s-land of mortality, we are presented with the wondering of humankind, what breaks us down and what we are capable of stripping away. We can grow from the text, or we can succumb to it. I look forward to what Watson conceives of next.

Thank you to Miles Watson and Coffee and Thorn for the complimentary copy in request for an honest review!

[Denise Cee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ooh, this was a fun, fab scary story. I loved it. Its nicely structured, and builds. The pace is good, not too fast, not too slow. I liked the concept and the central character.

It’s kind of what you want in a scary story, not so implausible that you can’t believe it, just plausible enough that when you think about it you can see it might be a thing. I like wolves and snow and animal stuff and this had just the right amount of tension to keep me going to the end.

It’s a short story, so you need it to keep moving. I liked the descriptions and the suspense kept ratcheting up. It has a deeper concept behind it, but I confess I didn’t overthink it. I just sat back and enjoyed it for what it is, a really fast paced, fab piece of work. A bit like taking a sports car out for a spin on the last sunny day, wind in your hair, touch those brakes before the bend and forget those speed cameras.

You know underneath that motor is humming and the noise is getting inside your head and it all means something, and winter is coming but you’ll think about that later on. I read it in one sitting. It’s a deep, dark, snowy tale, full of animal instinct and primal power. Indulge yourself and afterwards go out into the garden and howl at the moon.

I was given a free copy of this to review.

[Iseult Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wolf Weather is a taut atmospheric horror story. There’s lots of layers here, hinting at themes like colonization and Sisyphean routine when facing an existential threat. Like a nightmare, you know all action is hopeless, but you can’t look away as Crowning follows the prescribed path to inevitable oblivion.

[Julie Porter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miles Watson's latest short work is a chilling atmospheric Dark Fantasy Horror that shows that there can be much to be feared in the cold woods during winter.

Crowning, a soldier of the Empire's Legion. Since Dagamin the Restless obtained the throne after conflicts between warring kingdoms. Dagamin decided to expand his kingdom far into the North. There isn't anything out there but wolves, he insists.
Unfortunately, they aren't just any wolves as the human-like howling and the wolves walking around on hind legs can attest. Then Crowning's fellow Legionnaires keep disappearing and the wolves' numbers increase.

Wolf Weather is not long, only 62 pages, but like Watson's other works like The Numbers Game, The Devils You Know, and Deus Ex, he is an expert at capturing a really tense moment with plenty of atmosphere and not a lot of exposition. Aside from the bit of information about the preceding wars, and the current empire, we aren't told much about the political climate. We get some implications especially towards the end that all may not be well in this empire and that's all we need.

This is told from the point of view of Crowning, a Legion soldier, the type who follows orders. He doesn't see anything wrong with the Empire until he is faced with the possibility that encroaching on other lands might not be a good idea especially when the locals are not happy about it.

The book is filled with descriptions that highlight the tension and isolation that Crowning feels during this story. The North seems cut off from the rest of the world because of the cold snowy landscape. Even when he is with the Legionnaires, there is a feeling of loneliness and despair. It gets worse as the other soldiers disappear and Corwin is literally and metaphorically cut off from everyone and everything that he knows.

One of the more interesting aspects is how Wilson writes werewolves. Their links between their human and animalistic natures are revealed and actually are even balanced. In most werewolf tales, the human side is not in control, usually not remembering or regretting their actions. Here the werewolves know what they are doing and why. It is almost seen as a reclamation between humans and nature that these half-human half-wolves have accepted their wild natural side and live their lives away from the structured human world.

Corwin's encounter with the werewolves changes his outlook. He struggles to retain his humanity and his identity as a Legionnaire. However, his encounter with the werewolves causes him to question his loyalty, his placement in society, his own natural instincts, and the Emperor's ambitions. It culminates in a climax when Corwin has to face the truth of who he really is and what he really wants.

Wolf Weather is a short work but an interesting one with great atmosphere, characterization, and an interesting outlook at magical creatures who have been sidelined long enough.

[Marian Thorpe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read most of Wolf Weather with a smile of appreciation on my face, and that is rare. Author Miles Watson’s ability to create a setting and a structured world in the first few pages of a very short novella was the start of that appreciation; he takes the familiar and modifies it just a bit, enough for you to know this is a fantasy world, but not so much you need pages of exposition or explanation to understand it. The character of Crowning, the narrator, is equally well-drawn: again, he is both familiar and unique.

But beyond my admiration for Watson’s deft, spare creation of another world was also respect for his ability to ask hard questions about what a man at the edge of existence might do, facing something unimaginable that his mind cannot fully realize. Crowning is a man defined by discipline; the tenets of the military to which he belongs are literally written on his skin: by discipline we live, by discipline we die. Even when he is the only soldier left alive, in a fortress under perpetual night at the arctic edge of the world, he maintains the discipline by which he lives. Even though a horror lives in the darkness, a horror that has taken all his companions. Some are dead. Some are not, but neither are they living men any longer.

But Crowning is only human, and when in exhaustion he forgets part of his routine in his endless battle against that horror,  that breach of discipline has consequences—and the central question of the novella is made clear: when we let go of the expectations of civilization, of the disciplines required by communal life, by society; when we embrace ‘at the end of all things’ the darkness and the desires that run in the tracings of our blood—what might happen? Unbridled passion can destroy, but it can also engender.

Deceptively simple, Wolf Weather is a story I won’t soon forget.

[Joanne Easley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Atmospheric and relentless
This short horror novel grabbed me for the beginning with its sense of foreboding and isolation in a cold, dark, northern land. Crowning, a member of the Legion, finds himself the lone survivor in Fort Luna, an unwelcome and remote outpost of the Empire. In the eerie, omnipresent night, lit only by the moon, strange howling and glimpses of creatures that are neither human nor wolf do not deter Crowning from his routine and duty because “it is by discipline we live; it is by discipline we die,” a mantra that is ingrained in his psyche as well as branded and tattooed into his flesh.
Crowning defends the fort against the predations of the pack, knowing it is ultimately a losing battle. One night, he is visited by a female creature who taunts him with a cryptic message.
Later, he has a vision that leads him to leave his post without orders, an unthinkable act for a Legionnaire, but his internal dialogue convinces him it is a higher necessity. He goes hunting. During a ferocious battle, Crowning confronts his fate, and when he is victorious and forever changed, understands he has a wild heart.
I recommend this well-crafted novella to readers of horror.

[Carly Rheilan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is Crowning; the final soldier of a doomed campaign, trapped in an arctic world of perpetual darkness, sustained by implacable duty, by the impossibility of escape, by the certainty of death.

Certainty? Nothing is certain. Even death may not be what he thinks. What could a man be in such a place? What could he dream? What would his nightmares look like?

In all his writing, Miles Watson is a master of liminal spaces, not just the worlds that we inhabit in the extremes of our experience but the other worlds just beyond those, the doors we don’t open. This brief novella takes you step by step towards those doors, opens them oh-so-gently, pushes you through, and closes the door.

A chilling, disturbing, disorienting little book. Like everything by this author, well worth the journey.

[Matt Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wolf Weather by Miles Watson is an epic, short novel that shows a post apocalyptic world torn by war and plundered by supernatural beasts. I felt it was a fitting and at times, epic story. The story begins with the sole inhabitant of Fort Luna, one of the last forts untouched by the beasts and cunning creatures that stalk the lands. In particular, I felt the descriptions and the action-heavy prose of the book keeps you in the action. Ultimately I felt it was an epic and action-based novel whose language echoed my own! I love the way the authors used italics to add emphatics to certain phrases or words. I cannot wait to see more and I look forward to whatever else Miles comes up with!

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this for free, to review as part of a book tour with Coffee And Thorn.

This was a dark fantasy/horror novella. From the start, I felt the author created a dark, sinister atmosphere, and I was drawn into it. The chapters were quite short, so I felt that helped to create more suspense, and I was turning the pages quickly. There was some gory imagery, but because I was so invested in the story, it didn't strike me as distasteful. This was a short read, but I was entertained by it.

Thank you to Coffee And Thorn, and to the author, for a free copy to review.

[D.K. Hundt · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOLF WEATHER – by Miles Watson

‘Only the moon howls, Crowning thought. . . . Familiarity may or may not breed contempt, but it gives a firm nod to foresight, and Crowning foresaw that this night would be exactly like the others.’

That. Was. AWESOME!!

I Love the writing and, even more, the story; WOLF WEATHER is a quick-intense yet fulfilling read that I Highly Recommend!

‘[Y]ou embody the Legion and the Emperor’s will: so long as you draw breath and can hold a cutlass or a carbine you must also hold – hold out, hold fast, hold to the last, because it is by discipline that we live.’

Thank You, Miles Watson, and Coffee & Thorn Book Tour, for providing me with an eBook of WOLF WEATHER at the request of an honest review.