‘Kapuzine And The Wolf: A Hortatory Tale’ by Laurent McAllister

McAllister is the pen name for Jean-Louis Trudel and Yves Meynard, two writers who mostly work in French. This is a shame because I don’t speak French and this is one of the best stories in Witpunk. After everything I have already said about the anthology this is damning with faint praise but ‘Kapuzine And The Wolf’ is a good story fullstop.

It recasts Little Red Riding Hood (and some other more generic fairytale elements) into a post-collapse culture where resource consumption has finally hit the wall. Interestingly it inverts our modern expectations and makes the heroine part of a consumerist enclave, holding out against an environmentalist hegemony – the Gardeners – who want everyone to return to nature. The distrust and disgust Kapuzine feels towards greenery is wonderfully evoked and nicely contrasted against the way she is persuaded to carry out a terrorist mission against the Gardeners on behalf of the Woodcutters; her elder sister promises to let her have her first cigarette even though she isn’t yet 13. This cigarette takes on particular significance when, in the course of executing her mission, she is captured by the Wolves, the genetically-modified secret police of the Gardeners. The torture and imprisonment which follows is when the story is at its most exhortative and moving.

The story in reminescent of Michael Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Daughter in its blending of science fiction and fantasy and, in particular, its juggling of the modes of fairytale, bildungsroman and contemporary literary fiction whilst maintaining a remarkably effective and consistent tone. McAllister adds an extra layer to this by making the story political propaganda within the world of the story itself. Witpunk definitely went out with a bang.

Quality: ****
Wit: ***