Fury of the Orcas by Hunter Shea

 Greetings Stack Worms! 

I just finished Fury of the Orcas...this morning! And, I um, have some mixed feelings about this book. They are mostly lukewarm feelings but at a point, I actually get physically mad. I didn't realize I was this mad about it until I started talking about it with my girlfriend. This book is Adult Animal Horror. Anyway, let's get the "boring" parts out of the way. 

TRIGGER WARNING!!!

- Animal death. Lots and LOTS of animal death. 

- Gore 

- Guts

- Blood 

- Swearing 

- Drug usage  (pot)

- War

SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chet Clarke, a vet/marine biologist, who has dedicated his life to preserving the lives of orcas in capture is taken on a ride. Starting when an orca commits suicide by jumping the safety barrier between pool and audience seating. Rosario, an orca trainer (and Chet's girlfriend), has had it with orcas being captive and treated as entertainment. Chet and Rosario are unaware of just how much orca death they are going to have to deal with over the next few days. A friend from Barcelona calls Chet to help with an orca birth, however, something goes wrong and Barcelona's orcas go mad at the same time killing 7 people. This causes the baby to be miscarried and the adult orcas euthanized. Ivan, the orcas' handler, is pissed. Even though, people that worked for him were killed he still didn't want to see the animals put down. He loves orcas and any of their deaths upset him. Ivan speaks with Chet about what happened and asked him to work with Raquel, his lab tech, to operate on the corpses. Chet and Rosario help Raquel as much as they can, but the labs come up with nothing. The orcas have a clean bill of health. So what is causing this? After two other attacks, one on an oil rig and at another marine park in America, Chet is contacted by a conspiracy theorist (also a Caltech scientist) named Jamel. Jamel alerts Chet to a possible mind-controlling weapon called HAARP; he advises that the sonar (?) is in Russia. And, of course, Jamel ends up being right. It's the Russian's fault. The Navy who started the HAARP program decide to destroy the HAARP facility in Russia with their own HAARP; which creates a severe hail storm taking out the satellites and an earthquake to swallow up the building. This starts a world war via mother nature. But the orcas are saved. Rosario, Chet, Ivan, and Raquel are all alive and horrified by the new catastrophe on their hands. 

LIKES: 

- ORCAS!!!!!!!!!!! I love orcas. Always have and always will. 

- Raquel and Ivan are basically me, just as one person. So, yeah, I love them. And they're badasses. Raquel (jokingly) tries to run over cops and steals a SEALS gun to shoot at prehistoric sharks harming the orcas. She and the orcas work together and actually kill one of the sharks too. Ivan basically tells the military to takes its lies and to shove them up their ass. Best characters. 

- Jamel has a cat; unfortunately, I think the military in the end kills the cat by destroying Jamel's house and killing him. 

- Rosario points out the fallacy that custodians aren't smart, or lower than others, in the best way possible (but that was only after she dismissed Jamel after originally found out he was one). 

- Did I already mention Orcas? Because you know, the reason I fucking read the book, was for the orcas. And because I have this need to own all Orca Horror books. Which there are only three and I have them all. THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE!!!!

DISLIKES:

- Rosario and Chet kind of get Jamel killed.

- THE FUCKING RUSSIANS WERE THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM!!!!!! ARGH!!!!!!!

So, we've gotten to the part that pisses me off. I get that the Russians are a bag of dick, but so are Americans and a lot of other fucking countries (as the story later shows), so why couldn't it have come from a different country, to begin with? And no I'm not mad because the Russians are the villains (psst! Wanna know a secret? All humans are villains). No, I'm pissed because I was hoping that the orcas would have agency in this book. Like in Orca. The title led me to believe that the orcas were doing this on their own. That they decided enough was fucking enough. BUT FUCKING NO! THE RUSSIANS ARE AT FAULT!!! FJKLASDFJKLASDFKLASDFLKJASD!!!!!!!

However, that issue only brought down the book by two stars, I rated Fury of the Orcas 3 stars because the rest of the book was...fine. It was a good read. Short. It would have gotten 5 stars if the Russians were a red herring and humans just had to face that fact that we've fucked up and nature has decided to take us the fuck out. David Irons had the balls to do it in Wolf Moon. But meh. I'm sure others really love every inch of the story. It's just that one glaring problem. 

That's it. I'm done. 

Toodles!