From the utterly demented minds of Dave Freer and Eric Flint comes the short novella Crawlspace, set in their Rats, Vats & Bats universe (originally published by Baen, buy the first two here and here). And by twisted, I mean that in the most positive way imaginable.

Captain Rebecca Wuollet has just received the most hideous of jobs: chief of security on a rock about the be invaded by the alien Korozhet. Again. While the impending invasion is occurring in the background of the story, Captain Wuollet has an even tougher job: she must find whoever is murdering “joy” girls who work at the local dive. This is the real story of here.

Followed by the loyal Holmes (no, really… I can’t make this up. That’s why the authors are the demented ones and we readers are merely… twisted), a fellow HAR Marine sergeant, an artificially intelligent rat with a penchant for stealing, well, anything… and a bat who seeks to revolutionize and free the women who work as prostitutes, Captain Wuollet must race against time to prevent a lynch mob from killing every single Marine on that rock in order to find a murderer.

I loved Rats, Bats and Vats, and found the sequel to be just as funny. This novella is almost as fun, and with new rats and bats running amok, features a newer element to the universe. Crawlspace should be (needs to be) longer, as every story set in this universe is a guilty pleasure of mine to read.

A short review, true, but it’s a short story. And free. Yeah, you heard that right. Right now it is free up on Amazon Kindle.  So this is a must-buy, since you get it for — wait for it — free.

Go buy (take?). You’ll like it. The rats sayeth you shall because sometimes, the rats are the heroes…

—Reviewed by Jason