Title: It Looks Like Dad

Author: J. Krawczyk

Release date: April 23, 2023

Huge thanks to the awesome Chris for sending me an eARC of this one!

It seems preposterous to consider, but Toronto’s Little Ghost Bookstore will be be turning one in April of 2023. When I think about that, my struggles to comprehend. They feel like they’ve been an integral part of the book community for years already and I consider myself very fortunate to have a couple of my books on their shelves.

As they’ve continued to grow and expand their offerings, we’ve now seen the announcement of launching their own small press and ‘It Looks Like Dad’ by co-owner, J. Krawczyk, is the first release in that line.

I went into this one COMPLETELY blind, knowing just the title and the fact that there was a big-ass spider on the cover!

What I liked: Look, going in blind for this was probably a blessing and a curse. I mean, on one hand I experienced this WTF! novella fresh and was just blown away. On the other hand… I need to kind of tell you some of the stuff that goes down here, so if you read past this point, I’m kind of ruining the ‘blind’ aspect for you!

This novella is essentially a scaled-down Michael Crichton story mixed with a Hunter Shea rampager to give us a phenomenally high-paced, emotional piece. When I say scaled-down though, what I mean is that Krawczyk gives us 600 pages of information in a 200 page story and does a fantastic job of simplifying it and never once losing the reader with hard-to-understand physics and spatial science. It really helped to amplify the story and the craziness going on.

The story follows Kaitlin, who gets a call that her husband has been arrested. It can’t be possible, she thinks because he’s on a work trip, but when she goes to the jail, there he is. Only it isn’t him. It’s a version of her husband from an alternate timeline. And he’s here to try and save his alternate wife and daughter from the apocalyptic event about to happen.

Even within the short page count, we get treated to a Hollywood blockbuster movie with how much action and movement takes place within. It hummed along and the character of Rudy – aka the giant-ass spider – was a cherry on the top.

The ending, while kind of what we expected, works really well and keeps the science aspect alive and well.

What I didn’t like: Going in blind, I was worried at first with how much of the science aspect we would be exposed to. Saying that, don’t let that turn you off, J. does a solid job of keeping things simple and understandable. I know science based horror-novella’s can turn people away, so don’t let that be a worry.

Why you should buy this: Well, here’s a two-parter. The first – by buying this you not only support small press but also small business (and a Canadian small business as well) owned by two of the nicest people out there. The second – you’ll want to buy this considering A) the cover B) the insanely great story within and C) that this novella was a blast from start to finish and absolute hits all of the high notes. I had so much fun with this one and I think J. Krawczyk has hit a home run here!

5/5

Goodreads link:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123274155-it-looks-like-dad