A review by timinbc
The Builders by Daniel Polansky

4.0

Let's set realistic expectations here. It's a novella, and a short one at that. The author admits it's a one-note joke and an adolescent idea. It's stuoid. It's fun.

Just take "what if Cook's Black Company or Abercrombie's Named Men were animals?" and you've got this. The grim action, the sense that this probably won't end well, the snarky comments, ...

Occasionally the suspension of disbelief became a stretch Late in the book, for example,
Spoilera character's tiny bullets don't do much harm to a larger opponent (the fox)
but in other places the size issues don't seem to matter. Mice have rifles. Er, who made the tiny bullets and the tiny trigger mechanisms? What would be the striking power of an opossum sniper's bullet?

But no book can fail that has a badger with a Gatling gun.

Read it, it won't take long. At the end, throw it aside with scorn, but admit that - as another reviewer already noted - you're smiling a little bit.