Wild Ride by Willa Okati

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Nikos lives in a futuristic apocalyptic world. Earth is regressed to a primitive stadium, and people live in tribes, without all the modern technology. Paranormal creatures are seen as monsters to be hunt like the primitive men used to do with dinosaurs. When young men arrive to the threshold of adulthood, they need to face a monster, a Nightling.

Nikos is a Secret Keeper, almost a shaman for his tribe. He is mated by the tribe to Rand, an hunter, but he doesn't love the man. Nor the man loves him back, he uses Nikos only like a sexual relief body. Then one night during an hunt, Nikos meets Alexei and from that moment  Nikos realizes that he is different from Rand and from all the people on the tribe, he craves for something more than Rand could give him. Alexei return back a second time and this time he wants to bring back Nikos to what he calls their world; Alexei claims that Nikos is his real mate and that they are fated to be together.

The story is really too short, less than 60 pages, to fully develop all the elements it has: the futuristic world, the paranormal beings, the time travel... it can be only a fast taste of something bigger. So what I liked in it is above all the characters: Nikos is a nice man, with his own desires but with a very unselfish attitude; probably if for him, he would let them go, and lives the life other wants for him. Alexei instead starts as a dominant character to soon turn almost a comedian; he is not at all a leader, he is only a man in search of love. He has not the attitude or the predisposition of a warrior, probably, at the end, Nikos is stronger than him.

The story unfortunately stops quite quickly, and there is not so much insight in Nikos and Alexei's future life. I had the feeling that probably Willa Okati was planning to write more.

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