Rats!

by Brett James

The future is bright...for them.


Rats is a free short story by the author of The Drift Wars.

Genres: Science Fiction

ebook

First published January 18, 2014

About the author

Brett James makes irrationally large art installations that he has installed in New York, San Francisco, Amsterdam, England, and Croatia. He has written and directed six films and been honored at a dozen festivals. He was raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

James hand-makes (most of) the paperback versions of his own books.

Reviews

[The Shayne-Train · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty kick-ass story of a dude hunting super-rats in a cavernous, futuristic grocery warehouse.

Read it to spend the best 20 minutes of your day, today.**

**(this will not be the case if you happen to have sex today.)

[Corin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I certainly won't look at rats quite the same way again! I really enjoyed this short story. It drew me in from the first moment and had me hooked until the end. Not one second of the story was slow or boring and the author did a very good job of peppering in all the necessary background information about the main character, Jama'al, and the rat vermin he faced without bogging down the action.

[Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this at Readercon, and despite my generally trying not to pick up too much, was charmed enough by the cover to make a lunge for it. It's a quick-paced, tense little near-future story, satisfying to read and enjoyably written. (July 2019)

Reread this today (May 2023), and I have to say that I like it better this time, so I thought I'd update the review.

[Andrea Blythe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this mini-chapbook up from the freebie table at FOGcon 2014. The short story centers on Jama'al, an exterminator in a world faced with a dire rat problem. A very entertaining and action packed story. I'd be interested in trying Brett James' novel, Drift Wars.

[O.G. Readmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good read. Enjoyed the action and pace of the story; I want more. Would love to spend more time in that world to experience more of the characters, and to see more of these wicked cool rats. The writer is on to something good.

Thank you for such a good piece (better on the second, and third reads)!

[Jesse Deleon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great short story.

Great short story and here I was worried about dinosaurs opening doors. Thank you Brett James for a awesome tale.