Book Review: "Burnt Fur: Twisted Tails of Horror" (2020)

When I first got my grubby little paws on Burnt Fur: Twisted Tails of Horror, I thought I had an idea of what I was getting into. I read a lot of anthologies as well as write for them; with a theme as wide as animal horror, I expected variety. It’s a pretty in your face understatement to say that I got more variety than I bargained for as well as an education in the unique and disturbing aspects of bestiality up to and including the use of the vicious corkscrew dick sported by ducks.

Okay, so I may have gone down the rabbit hole a little bit of my own volition on that one. Judge me if you wish, but that shit is its own category of sickeningly fascinating.

You won’t find the cute, fuzzy animals you’re seeking.

Ken MacGregor has compiled a fourteen story collection that’s heavy on a couple of the expected tropes given the collection’s theme. Werewolves and furries abound, it’s true, but don’t roll your eyes yet- just when you think it’s ANOTHER of those stories, another talented author comes along and turns the concept upside down and bastardizes it. The idea of animal wearing a person suit made out of dick skin (“6 Dicks” by Rachel Lee Weist) makes my brain scream in a place that’s intimately awful. In that story alone, there’s also a healthy dose of glory hole action and trash pile freakiness, yet it manages to end in such upbeat fashion. How about were creatures of an entirely different ilk using werewolves as playthings (“Ware the Deep” by Stephanie Park)? What if your pet pot-bellied pig fessed up to fucking your wife (“Oh Piggy, My Piggy” by Matt Scott)? Is eating your mate the secret to a girl’s happiness (“The Molt of a Diminishing Light” by Michelle Goddard)?

Make no bones about it, the horror on display in Burnt Fur will be a bit on the extreme side for those who like their horror on the safer side. There’s bestial rape that makes the eyes burn (the snout-fucking in Thurston Howl’s “Five Nights with Teddy” is a new one on me). Elliott Arthur Cross shows he knows how to do graphic sexual violence and general wrongness towards stuffed animals all wrong and yet so right with “Randall Rabbit” (a.k.a. the definition of the expression, “It’s not for everyone”).

By the way, that’s a compliment. I’m not judging. This is a collection designed to push boundaries, and it doesn’t just push them, it obliterates them. And yet…

There are tales like “The Moon in Her Eyes” by Sarah Hans that unexpectedly pierce your heart where an abused girl draws the eye of a werewolf, but she may not be the one in danger. It’s a heartfelt story that increases rapidly in tension before a heartwarming conclusion bathed in warm blood. “The Willingness of Prey” by Paul Allih serves as a twisted commentary on both masochism and assisted suicide. “The Others” by C.M. Saunders is ultimately sweet and a little sad while being anchored by one mindshattering concept of reality and the monsters that live behind it. “The Victims” by James L. Steele is simply one of the most beautiful fables I’ve read in my life. Sure, it’s violent as hell, but amidst all the breaking (and rebreaking…and rebreaking) bones and the oceans of gore is a straight up cool tale of how wolves made the ultimate sacrifice to make our planet safe from evil.

Rue K. Poe gives you the standout of the entire collection with “A Concubine for the Hive”, a tale that starts off with an unhappy wife offing her husband with bee attractant only to end up the queen in a hive that proves it’s really one big gangbang in a bee colony. It’s nasty, pornographic, quick, & vicious as fuck, a lascivious tale reminiscent of early Stephen King with his claws out. I literally read it over again the next day on my lunchbreak, and it made me feel better about my drone job.

Burnt Fur: Twisted Tails of Horror is full of graphic sex and extreme violence, and the two are often intertwined. Bestiality is unavoidable in a collection like this, and these authors don’t give a rat’s ass about your feelings. Frankly, I appreciate that. It’s a collection that keeps the theme front and center in the best and most audacious way possible while generally avoiding the ups and downs of many anthologies by understanding the importance of empathy in horror. After all, we all want our animals to be good boys and girls.

None of the animals here fit that bill.

Grade:

4.0 out of 5.0 stars