Blood Moon Big Top

The beginning of the story was promising, and I really loved the main character's stage name 'Marbles', which by itself is creepy enough (yeah, mild case of coulrophobia speaking here). However, once the killing started it became very gory - which is completely fine by me - but nothing more. The 'transformation' of Marbles fell somewhat flat and seemed thrown in as an afterthought to rectify the previous bloodshed.

I was honestly disgusted by the choice of his first human victim and his weak reasoning why that was OK at that moment. There seemed to be a contradiction here: either he was so far into feral mode that he wouldn't have been able to reason in such a comprehensive (and disgusting) way at all. Or he was only halfway there and still had some of his human senses, which makes his flimsy declaration all the more horrible and inexcusable. While he was a loner from the start, hating to be with people and keeping to his own, he didn't come across as a full-blown misanthrope (as was proved at the beginning by his caring for the boy instead of leaving him be). I was not fully convinced by the description of his mind being taken over by pure animal instinct, blending out all other thought or reason.

At the end though the story seemed to have found its own steady rhythm as the transformation was completed and Marbles went into full-blown full moon furry wolf mode, culminating in a gruesome blood frenzy as his last on-stage performance.

While the writing was not perfect and could use some editing, there were a couple of sentences that caught my attention, e.g. the 'inside out - outside in' wordplay seemed fun at that moment. Did I mention that I love the awesome cover? Someone did a great job here! Though I hate clowns, somehow I can't resist those creepy pictures...

While the clown theme did not feature as prominently as I hoped for, it made a fascinating addition to this nasty little werewolf story.