What do you think?
Rate this book
Pan
"Hush, child. Let me loosen that rope. Is that better? Can you feel your fingers? No more crying. You'll bring the naiads down from the brook. They take pretty boys like you into the dark. They'd push your face into the pebbles and keep your drowned body for a plaything. No, don't fear me. There're enough monsters on this island already."
On a distant archipelago, warped by the magic of a long-dead witch, is a boy with a spear and sharp, gleaming teeth. A boy who collects others like himself - lonely, destitute, desperate for approval. A goat-footed child who never ages.
Pan is charismatic. Pan knows all the best tricks. All his lost boys worship and obey. But when he snatches young Jimmy from his London home, he may have met his match.
Because Jimmy isn't fooled by Pan's sweet songs. Jimmy wants to go home.
And Jimmy knows how to fight.
PAN is a Aurealis Award nominated fantasy/horror short, first published in Andromeda Spaceways.
- - -
First published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #62
2017 Aurealis Awards Best Horror Novella
On a distant archipelago, warped by the magic of a long-dead witch, is a boy with a spear and sharp, gleaming teeth. A boy who collects others like himself - lonely, destitute, desperate for approval. A goat-footed child who never ages.
Pan is charismatic. Pan knows all the best tricks. All his lost boys worship and obey. But when he snatches young Jimmy from his London home, he may have met his match.
Because Jimmy isn't fooled by Pan's sweet songs. Jimmy wants to go home.
And Jimmy knows how to fight.
PAN is a Aurealis Award nominated fantasy/horror short, first published in Andromeda Spaceways.
- - -
First published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #62
2017 Aurealis Awards Best Horror Novella
- GenresHorror
32 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 28, 2017
4 people are currently reading
38 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Ruz
34 books45 followersChristopher "Ruz" Hayes-Kossmann was born in Hong Kong, raised in Vienna, and is now settled in Melbourne, Australia. Although he graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Industrial Design, his first love has always been writing.
He's been published by Weaponizer, Labyrinth Inhabitant's Magazine and Birdville Magazine, and has won both the first Ergofiction Search Term Challenge and the first Birdville Impromptu Award.
His first fantasy trilogy, Century of Sand, is releasing Q1 2019 from Parvus Press.
He's been published by Weaponizer, Labyrinth Inhabitant's Magazine and Birdville Magazine, and has won both the first Ergofiction Search Term Challenge and the first Birdville Impromptu Award.
His first fantasy trilogy, Century of Sand, is releasing Q1 2019 from Parvus Press.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 17, 2017
4.5 stars.
Christopher Ruz is my type of writer! He writes EXACTLY what I want to read, and I get completely subsumed by his prose. I'm a fan of not only his short fiction, but both his "Rust" and "Century of Sand" series.
And this wonderfully creepy retelling (Well, "reinvention" is actually a better term) of the Pan myth is no exception to his track record for me.
Christopher Ruz is my type of writer! He writes EXACTLY what I want to read, and I get completely subsumed by his prose. I'm a fan of not only his short fiction, but both his "Rust" and "Century of Sand" series.
And this wonderfully creepy retelling (Well, "reinvention" is actually a better term) of the Pan myth is no exception to his track record for me.
April 18, 2017
Good retellings reimagine the original material by changing the place, the time, or adding character depth while still keeping the relationships and plot the same. Great retellings completely change your view of the original work, so much that you can never see the original work in quite the same way again. So that whenever you encounter the source material you think of the retelling interpretation in the same breath.
This is a great retelling.
The interpretation is sinister and the narrative hooks you from the start and keeps pulling. It's a short read and you'll finish it in one or two reading sessions, easily. Some people have criticised this for being too short, that it should be extended out to a novel. It could, but I think its strength lies in being such a compact read. You don't stop to breathe, you just run through it alongside the characters. I don't think a longer work would necessarily add anything that hasn't been covered off in this shorter form - we know where it goes from here. It does everything it needs to do.
There's nothing wrong with the prose here and in places it's beautiful. Jimmy is a great narrative voice, his cynicism and remorse as he recounts his tale are what made a lot of the underlying horror show up for me. Pan also sticks the satisfying ending criteria: surprising and, in hindsight, inevitable.
Pan does not drop the ball anywhere and is well deserving of its praise.
This is a great retelling.
The interpretation is sinister and the narrative hooks you from the start and keeps pulling. It's a short read and you'll finish it in one or two reading sessions, easily. Some people have criticised this for being too short, that it should be extended out to a novel. It could, but I think its strength lies in being such a compact read. You don't stop to breathe, you just run through it alongside the characters. I don't think a longer work would necessarily add anything that hasn't been covered off in this shorter form - we know where it goes from here. It does everything it needs to do.
There's nothing wrong with the prose here and in places it's beautiful. Jimmy is a great narrative voice, his cynicism and remorse as he recounts his tale are what made a lot of the underlying horror show up for me. Pan also sticks the satisfying ending criteria: surprising and, in hindsight, inevitable.
Pan does not drop the ball anywhere and is well deserving of its praise.
April 5, 2024
A horror short. I LOVED it!
4⭐️
Available on Kindle Unlimited
32 pages
He was just a lost lonely boy. Until Pan showed up on his window sill and whisked him away. That's when the true horrors began.
"I never questioned how we were flying or where. Those worries seemed petty. I was Icarus, swooping low enough to brush the peaks of waves with my fingertips."
My Thoughts
Jimmy ( hint hint 🪝) is only 7 years old when he arrives on the island. The story is told through the eyes of a child. As he matures and learns hard truths.
This book differs from most Pan lore in the fact that lost boys DO grow older on Neverland. They just never grow up. Pan doesn't grow up, and he doesn't allow them to reach adulthood. He uses fear as a motivator to achieve this goal, but not in the way you might think.
I greatly enjoyed the backstory the author put on Pan. Not the Kensington Garden one of Barrie's creation but a unique one that gives reason to Pans hatred of grown men. I found it to be an intriguing spin.
Pan is not the fun-loving child of storybooks, but a monster wearing a child's face. This is more of a short horror story than a fantasy. I loved it, and I wish it was longer. I also wish it was available in physical form so I could add it to my Pete Pan/Hook book collection.
4⭐️
Available on Kindle Unlimited
32 pages
He was just a lost lonely boy. Until Pan showed up on his window sill and whisked him away. That's when the true horrors began.
"I never questioned how we were flying or where. Those worries seemed petty. I was Icarus, swooping low enough to brush the peaks of waves with my fingertips."
My Thoughts
Jimmy ( hint hint 🪝) is only 7 years old when he arrives on the island. The story is told through the eyes of a child. As he matures and learns hard truths.
This book differs from most Pan lore in the fact that lost boys DO grow older on Neverland. They just never grow up. Pan doesn't grow up, and he doesn't allow them to reach adulthood. He uses fear as a motivator to achieve this goal, but not in the way you might think.
I greatly enjoyed the backstory the author put on Pan. Not the Kensington Garden one of Barrie's creation but a unique one that gives reason to Pans hatred of grown men. I found it to be an intriguing spin.
Pan is not the fun-loving child of storybooks, but a monster wearing a child's face. This is more of a short horror story than a fantasy. I loved it, and I wish it was longer. I also wish it was available in physical form so I could add it to my Pete Pan/Hook book collection.
March 8, 2020
Another
Peter Pan
spin off that's rather similar to
Lost Boy
.
Pan was first published in January 2016 as a short story for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine whereas Lost Boy was published in July 2017, which is curious: was Pan the catalyst for Lost Boy?
But, whatever, glad to have them both as they're both definite must reads for all fans of Peter Pan and things Neverland, and Pan definitely deserves a place in the "Peter Pan and Neverland" hall of fame.
Pan was first published in January 2016 as a short story for Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine whereas Lost Boy was published in July 2017, which is curious: was Pan the catalyst for Lost Boy?
But, whatever, glad to have them both as they're both definite must reads for all fans of Peter Pan and things Neverland, and Pan definitely deserves a place in the "Peter Pan and Neverland" hall of fame.
April 16, 2022
This is a Peter Pan retelling that is dark and short. Peter kills the lost boys when they start getting too old/big (around 15 years old). He has the other lost boys help hunt the older boys and dispose of them. Only Peter doesn’t age (they link his history to bring the Son of Odysseus /the Pan of mythology so I guess that is why?) One boy escapes the grizzly hunt (and gets severely injured along the way in the eye and hand). This former lost boy survives and becomes Hook. Peter is portrayed as being really creepy and rapey.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 26, 2019
This was such a really good retelling of Peter Pan. It mixes mythology with a little bit of Lord of the Flies. The attention to the darker details and how a child could descend into being both Pan's hunter and plaything was delectable. Such a good take on this mythos and the right length too.
May 19, 2020
Peter Pan is evil !
A whole new version of Peter Pan not the Disney version , this pan is evil as hell ! Great
A whole new version of Peter Pan not the Disney version , this pan is evil as hell ! Great
February 20, 2023
My favourite retelling of this classic tale. It's full of just the right amount of dark twists and turns and genuinely left me shocked.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews