Click on either of the cover images above to see larger images.
"Jaws goes inland. ... Lots of gore, a nicely controlled pace." - Kirkus Reviews
"Believably frightening." - Rocky Mountain News
Published by Franklin Watts in 1989. Hardcover.
Reissued by Wildside Press in 2000. Trade paper.
So what about those giant, rampaging monsters? As we all know, the giant
ants and gila monsters and so on wouldn't work: They'd be unable to lift
their own weight off the ground, and they couldn't breathe. In general, what
works at ant size wouldn't work at Godzilla size. Even if it did work,
the giant beast wouldn't be super strong, but superweak.
Why, you ask? Why? Read Ursus and find out. One of the biologist characters gives another character a lecture on the subject.
I decided to invent a small monster - that is, start with something that's strong and dangerous at its normal size and shrink it, ending up with a really strong and really dangerous little ... what? It seemed to me that the most dangerous possibility would be a horde of tiny elephants, but I suspected that most readers would laugh instead of shiver.
I finally settled on bears. And I didn't make them really tiny. More like large dogs. And even more intellgent than real bears. And given to hunting in packs. (They're mutations. And throwbacks. The same biologist explains all of that, too.) If you don't find that image disturbing, read a few books about real bears, and then you'll be disturbed. You'll stay in the city, too. Oh, except that my invented minibears decided they prefer the city. More meat there.
Read Excerpts
To read Chapters One through Three of Ursus in PDF format, click here.Please note that this PDF version was produced by me directly from the original Word file. Its purpose is purely to hook you on the content and send you racing off to buy the book. The published book looks the way a book should and is far, far, far prettier than this. Oh, yes, it's weeeellll worth the money.