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Looking Glass Portal, Larriane Wills, 2007, ISBN 9781934041185 Garrett is your quintessential modern-day cowboy loner. He has spent the last 12 years cutting ties with everyone in his life, including his ex-wife and daughter. He is in constant physical pain, due to a non-removable piece of glass stuck in his spine; Garrett has saved a bullet for the day he is paralyzed. One day, while out on the range fixing fences, Garrett is attacked, and shot, by a being that looks like a pig on two feet. Next thing he knows, he is in a gray, featureless room, being attended to by a giant bumblebee called a yantz. It sprays an organic substance on Garrett to replace the flesh and bone destroyed by the upright pig. He finds himself, along with his horse, on a Thornn research vessel, one of many hunters from civilizations all over the galaxy. The other hunters want a piece of Garrett, the sooner the better, but the yantz bandages constitute a very effective Do Not Touch sign. Those who ignore the sign are swiftly dealt with by the yantz. Garrett is more than ready to do battle with the other hunters, once the bandages come off. Among the hunters is Freet, a humanoid who looks, and talks, like a stereotypical Native American. The two are not friends by any means, but they manage to get along, with help from translator earpieces, which both are reluctant to wear. Included in the array of animals on the ship is the glemm, a large spider that can understand Garrett and sometimes takes his words a little too seriously. A couple of times, the animal cages get opened, forcing Garrett, Freet and some of the other hunters to hustle the animals (ranging from small and harmless to big and ornery) back to their cages. At the end, Garrett learns that his estranged daughter is physically a lot closer to him than he thinks. This very interesting story belongs somewhere in that large gray area of Pretty Good or Worth Reading. Paul Lappen is a freelance book reviewer whose website, Dead Trees Reviewhas over 600 reviews on all subjects, with an emphasis on small press books.
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