In the 30s, a small village lives quietly but everything changes by the arrival of Martians. Wild's End proposes to follow the reactions of a group of inhabitants or rather animals because this new release of Kinaye mixes science fiction with an animal story.
A ship in the middle of the cottages
At the beginning of Wild's End, two friends return from the evening quite drunk and see a comet fallen from the sky. Intrigued, the clever fox Fawkes proposes to his friend Bodie the weasel to go see if we can enjoy this celestial fall. Only one of them survived. Indeed, Lower Crowchurch is a community that lives in the peace of the 30s but death comes brutally by this alien invasion upsetting the inhabitants. The next day, the mastiff Mr. Slipaway finished renovating his cottage. He has just arrived in the village and is greeted by white rabbit Gilbert Arrant and a weasel Peter Minks. This former veteran remains distant. Even if this duo of friends is very curious, they are also open by inviting him to the King's Arm pub for the election of the village festival committee. At this meeting, the fox returns abruptly interrupting the election with the account of his late evening. Alas, no one believes the notorious alcoholic of the village from a family of good-for-nothings. Unlike the inhabitants, Slipaway immediately spots the truth and the dangers because having fought wars abroad, he spots the clues: Fawkes has blue blood on the garment. The mastiff becomes the scout of a group that must unite to hunt these strange lights. The choice of animals in Wild's End is not due to chance but it is according to the character: a mastiff is grumpy, a weasel is a curious journalist.
Wild's End or Wells on the Farm
This previous summary may be reminiscent of a classic novel. Indeed, Dan Abnett adapts in Wild's End The War of the Worlds of H.G. Wells. The alien threat looks like giant metal spiders. They send mobile lamps that behind their harmless appearance are nevertheless deadly. As in the novel, the beginning is very strong because we never see the aliens. Moreover, these aliens have no other motivation than to kill all the inhabitants. We also find the atmosphere of the classic stories of this time. A group of gentlemen farmers team up to solve a mystery. The mastiff hides a secret because he admits to knowing precisely how a house burns. Unlike the others, this stranger listens to all the visible or excluded personalities of the village and sees what is wrong. A touch of modernity appears through the character of Susan Peardew, an independent agoraphobic writer. This writer shoots at the mobile lamp. She immobilizes him for a moment but this forces him to participate in a chase between an animal quartet and the lamp. The reading pleasure of Wild's End is enhanced by amusing elements placed at the end of each chapter : the map of the village or excerpts from a local newspaper, a hiking guide and a diary. These pages extend the reading and densify this universe. Wild's End is a three-volume series that launches here successfully. Action-oriented, the reader enjoys discovering the vast gallery of characters in this rural community and then follows a motley group trying to warn the world of the threat: a former soldier, a woman writer, a child, an alcoholic and a journalist. The vicissitudes are numerous because anyone can die. You can find the chronicle of Fallen World by the same screenwriter on this link as well as Pilu des Bois by the same publisher.
