Sixes Wild: Echoes

In the first sequel to Tempe O’Kun’s Sixes Wild: Manifest Destiny, which he dedicates to Sophie “for courage” and Megan “for the sass,” the perspective remains in first-person, ping-ponging between two of the protagonists and narrators of its predecessor, the bat sheriff Jordan Blake and the rabbit gunwoman Six Shooter, the latter finding a lead to treasure in the Arizona desert, which leads to the acquisition of an engraved tortoise idol. The two celebrate their find with fornication, with plenty of it occurring throughout the book, which, while unnecessary, is well-described.

A lead on the lion Hayes, who stole the companion firearm to one of Six’s guns that once belonged to her father, takes the bat and the rabbit to the middle of nowhere in California, where they find Fort Calico and obtain a little more information about the location of the hare’s stolen armament, which she vows to retake. In the sequel, as one can probably infer, Blake and Six intensify their flourishing romance, with the two heading to Texas to catch an Italian opera from the seventeenth century starring bats, which, while to her incoherent, does give a little insight into the habits of the flying foxes.

Six also helps Blake with occasional odds and ends such as fighting the Pine City Marten Gang, trying to retrieve gold bars from king scorpions, and attending a stag dance in Prescott, which the author indicates was a prospective capital of the Arizona Territory. A meeting with the territorial governor comes as well, along with a meeting of Arizona’s indigenous coyotes, concluding with an enigmatic narrator, likely a rabbit due to description, in the epilogue, indicating the story of Six is not finished. Overall, this is a good anthropomorphic story, with little confusion as to the species of characters, and is recommended to adults who enjoyed its predecessor.