Uncle Brucker the Rat Killer

by Leslie Peter Wulff

Sixteen-year-old Walt thinks he's left his problems behind him when he runs away from a broken home to live with his eccentric uncle. The simple, semi-rural, semi-anti-social lifestyle seems at first to be exactly what Walt wants, but he soon learns his new life isn't just about ditching school and drinking beer with his friends.

Uncle Brucker is a Rat Killer; a tireless rat tracker, an expert in rat lore, a speaker of the rat language, and a decorated veteran of two bloody uprisings. His uncle begins to train Walt in the ways of rat killing, and explains to his nephew the ancient and bloody history of men and rats. Before the rise of men, he says, rats ruled the earth. They've been hiding in another dimension ever since they were kicked out by humanity, planning to retake the planet.

In the middle of Walt's training, Uncle Brucker is called away by mysterious men from the government. When he fails to return from his mission, Walt discovers a portal to the rat dimension and realizes he must travel alone to Rat Land to save his uncle. Perhaps the most unusual dark fantasy debut of the year, Uncle Brucker the Rat Killer is a surreal exploration of honor, duty, and inter-dimensional genocide.

Genres: Fantasy

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 11, 2017

Reviews

[S.M.]

I feel like there's a decent bizarro story lodged in this book somewhere, but it never really made it out from the pages. The entire thing reads like it was written by a 13-year-old boy with a good imagination. Structurally it's a total disaster, and it's about 100 pages too long on top of it. I blasted through those final 100 pages because by that point I realized the book was not going to improve (or have any point at all), and frankly I was sick of reading it.

[Lauren Hopkins]

No

[Kurt]

Fun and funny. It's not what I expected.

[Pavel Lishin]

Ended up abandoning this. The vernacular first-person-narration just kind of got boring and annoying after awhile, well before the story (apparently, hopefully) really takes off.

[Estelle]

The entire book read like a really bad episode of Beavis and Butt-head.

[Rick Brown]

I'm not really sure what to say about this book, other than it was weird. And I feel like after reading it I was surely on an episode of "Punk'd".

[Brent]

Well, I finished the book. In some ways it reminds me of Mars Attacks! The tone is odd.

I have a feeling it is one of those books you will either like or hate.