The CorpseRat King

There’s a lot to like about The Corpse-Rat King. Lee Battersby is an accomplished writer and skilfully creates well-rounded characters, detailed settings and worldbuilding, and well-imagined action and incident. There’s a refreshing maturity he brings to characterisation which gives his protagonist in particular added depth. But it isn’t easy moving from writing short stories to novels. A great deal of the incident that occurs in The Corpse-Rat King doesn’t progress the plot, and the plot itself lacks sufficient complexity to support a story at novel length.