Revenge asks very little of the reader. Establish a wound. Point the wounded party toward whoever made it. We handle the rest quickly because the arithmetic feels good, and we have been practicing it since we were old enough to be treated unfairly. Scott Hawkins gives you that arithmetic early in Blacktail, then spends the rest of the book taking the calculator apart on the table in front of you.

Last year, I found myself at odds with the majority of moviegoers who saw Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.  The reactions generally ranged from apathy to vitriol—how dare they stain the reputations of such loveable public domain characters? That film garnered only 50% approval from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, and a shocking 3% from critics.

It’s hard to imagine that Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey could be any further from the vision A.A. Milne had for his characters in the Hundred Acre Wood when he created them in 1926. Now that the characters are in the public domain, however, it didn’t take long for writer/director Rhys Frake-Waterfield to bring the children’s tale to its inevitable, horrifying conclusion.