Full Verse Review: Heartworm by Lack Of Poochline

I’ll just come out and say it—Heartworm is weird. And I don’t mean “kinda weird.” I mean the strain of weird that stares a little too long on the bus when you glance up and feel it lingering. The weird that locks eyes but doesn’t blink. The bus is still. No sound. That weird old lady you barely noticed? She’s facing you now. She holds a leash. Her lips move, but the words you hear—those ancient, harrowing words—come out in chirps and growls.

She speaks through the poodle.

Or does the poodle speak through her?

It’s the kind of strange that sticks with you. The type you carry—into your work, your leisure, your dreams…

Into the psyche-detention you end up in when you start peeling back the skin on your scalp, certain you’ll find the hatching spawn of crazy that author pumped into you through metaphor and fable.

It’s the kind of odd that makes you wonder why you didn’t think it up first.

But then you remember—you only got on drugs after you started reading.

It drove you to them.

You used to be sane.

Far too lucid to cook up this straight serving of strange, now intrusively invading your imagination.

(I’m not blaming this story for my woes… I’ll leave that to the lawyers.)

All of that’s to say, Heartworm’sa touch touched in the head. By that, I mean, it’s absurd.

And I loved every moment of it.

Because beneath all that unblinking absurdity, the author knows exactly what they’re doing.

And they are doing it nigh flawlessly.

Heartworm bills itself as progression fantasy—and there are elements of progression in the work. Perhaps more so in the later chapters. And the story certainly bears the markers of a science-fantasy epic. But in the thirty meaty chapters I read for this review, it’s the author’s other categorisation that rings truer to me:

Weird fiction.

For those unfamiliar with the genre, weird fiction isn’t just about things that go bump in the night. It goes deeper—down to the conceptual level. The night may go a’bumping, yes—but it’s not a monster.

It’s a god.

Woven through unrealities, contradictions, faith, fear, and unknowable hunger.

Think Lovecraft. Think Blackwood. Reality is fragile, unknowable, and indifferent. Humanity cannot cope—cannot hope to comprehend.

But In Heartworm, there’s a catch. Humanity’s not the lamb to the inscrutable—they’re the tiger.

It’s the Automata who wrestle with the absurdity of the damned existence their creators bequeathed them.

And in that struggle, they grapple with questions all too familiar to the self-examining mind. They rise to balance on the tightrope stretched between a thinking being’s cry for meaning—and the cosmos’s silent reply.

I said already, and I’ll say again: I loved this novel. It’s brilliant in so many ways. But it isn’t flawless. It demands much from the reader—your full attention. Any lapse, and you’ll get lost.

But hey, lets not get too ahead of ourselves. We’ll get there, you and I…

(And I, and I, and I—the many voices left lingering in my head after this read. The white coats say they’re harmful, but I know they’re my friends.)

So, before the men with needles break through the barricades to my white-padded cell, let’s dive deeper into what made this story stand out for me—

and what you can expect should you choose to make the plunge.

CHARACTER & VOICE:

We follow the star-crossed quest of Dirofil as he journeys through his dying world to reunite with his love—so that, together, they can start the world anew.

Dirofil is a person like you or I.

He walks on two legs.

He breathes with two lungs (eventually…).

He loves—passionately and deeply.

And, his body’s made of slime.

He’s a Thinker—an Automata—a non-human player. But don’t get that confused with an NPC. The character work in this fiction is beautifully handled. The character of Dirofil is no exception.

He’s the fourth of his sibling.

The fourth Imagined.

In this world, there are Originals and there are splinters. Originals are bio-technological beings who awoke in their world shortly after its creation. Splinters are downgraded copies of their model.

Dirofil is an Original.

“He decided to give the inhabitants of the core six original names and bodies, and to shape all others after said group of siblings. They are to have titles indicating their nature as children of a mind: The First Pictured, The Second Envisioned, The Third Dreamt, The Fourth Imagined, The Fifth Conceived, The Sixth Conceptualized.”

He’s a bold Original. A daring Original. He’s contemplative. Hopeful—yet he rages. Against the blind injustice of his existence, he rages.

The voice of the story—often poetic, often surreal, and always suffused with tragedy—reflects this well. Sometimes, all at once.

“ He had forgotten the sea of dogs was as beautiful as it was ominous… It promised boundless love, softness unrivaled—not siblings that would never return… “I will never see their forms again. And you are to blame, wondrous thing,” he said, pointing at the sea. “I will create a world where you cannot take them from me… I will be a foul nematode in the heart of you, vile creation!” With this bold declaration he jumped, clawing his way higher, closer to the sea. ”

Even when Dirofil is being playful, his mind is still turning. He’s always moving toward his goals. Yet, as I’ve said—he considers those goals. He never loses sight of their cost.

““You were not supposed to be this difficult,” she blurted out… “All I see is an asshole on a power trip because he’s an Original who got a special eye.”… Dirofil blinked twice. “Do you expect me to tell you that you are wrong, Edala?… I am deeply sorry about them.” Dirofil rubbed his left wrist and lowered his gaze. “And, well, that this refusal has nothing to do with that. I simply despise the idea of ending up like them while I steer the leg.””

He’s a created being—born as exactly what he is, with no childhood to speak of. But don’t let that lull you into thinking there’s no character development. There is. It comes through contemplation. Through his growing understanding of who and what he is. It’s there in the way circumstance forces him to acknowledge—and tensely accept—what he’ll have to become to achieve what he set out to do.

He’s a fire in a bleak and hopeless world.

A fire that ignited the same verve in this reviewer—the verve that says: rage, rage against the dying of the light!

That cries: Here! This far—no further!

That will not give in. Will not give up.

Will not allow the doctors THROUGH THIS PADDED CELL—

and will hurl crayons and faeces until they get the point!

(On an unrelated note, the author of this story will be hearing from my defence team.)

Dirofil is certainly the protagonist—the character whose choices the narrative revolves around—but the story follows an ensemble cast.

I mentioned he’s the fourth of his siblings. But the other five are no less key to the whimsical charm of the story.

Even off-page, their presence looms large—reflected in the personalities of their Splinters, in the recollections of other characters, and in the legacies they left behind.

Their distinct personalities ooze from the pages… but the good kind of ooze. Like nectar from a flower.

Not the bad kind.

Not the froth and drool when you’re strapped to a chair, biting down on a rubber guard while they try to cure clarity with shocks to the brain.

Even the side characters come fully fleshed out. Each has a personality that could carry a story of their own. Had the novel focused on any one of them, I doubt I’d have been any less enthralled.

The character work is a true highlight of this novel—and in a story with this much merit, that’s saying something.

This entire review could have been centred on the characters alone, and there’d still be more to write.

But alas, I’ll end this segment here… lest I tarry too long—

and the doctors break in.

Narrative & Structure:

Unlike the events that led me here—fending off needles with crayons and paste—Heartworm’s narrative moves with clear purpose.

It’s a singular epic with a tight focus on Dirofil’s quest. The story’s lens might pan wide, but that’s only to give perspective to the centre strip.

The structure is mostly linear, but each chapter begins with a glimpse into the future, past, or present—quoted from fictional diaries and data logs. It’s a clever device, expanding the lore organically without drifting into clunky exposition.

It also creates dramatic irony: glimpses of what the characters have yet to learn, framed in humour or cosmic horror. Sometimes both. These snapshots hint at where the story’s been, where it’s going, and where it’s fated to end.

“The time is coming for this world, and whoever created it is not paying attention anymore. We won’t let the shadows of entropy eat the new world, devour it like they are to consume ours. The most destructive force of this ideal world are to be… pups.”

—Notes for Cosmopoiesis, Page 2.”

As I’ve already explained to my legal team, everything the author does comes off as deliberate. The pacing is just the same. Not exactly tight—though it doesn’t meander. It’s contemplative, but with no lack of momentum.

It’s like cruising through the strange part of town—windows down, radio static whispering truths, as it does. Leisurely, but just fast enough to outpace the real crazies out there.

You know the ones. Arguing with streetlights.

Completely unhinged.

I’ve never had a single disagreement with a lamp.

Most are very reasonable. The gaslights especially—they always see things my way.

As the flickering bulb above my cell brought to light, I may have digressed.

The point is this: Heartworm does excellent work with its narrative and structure. It keeps you hooked and reading at every turn.

Worldbuilding & Themes:

Imagine, if you will, the übern-hibern-flurb.

Is the image clear in your mind?

No?

Are you sure?

Try again—harder this time.

Still nothing?

Might it be I’m talking nonsense?

Yes?

We all agree? Nonsense?

Good. Then you’re ready.

Nonsense. Pure nonsense. That’s the world the author hurls us into.

We’re hurled into a dying world. A world where an arm, leg, or eye is an exchangeable part. Where sea ships have legs—not oars. And the sea itself…

Ah, that cruel mistress—

The sea is made of dogs.

No, that’s not a metaphor.

Yes, I really mean dogs. The barking kind. The growling kind. The kind set to extinguish the shuddering spark of sapience, soul, and substance with slobbering tongues and meaty breath.

“A whole sea had settled and grown between them. A sea that would whittle and gnaw at the alloy of his form, that would lick and sniff and savor his core once the slime and metal that surrounded it faded away.”

The world of Heartworm is ending. Not with bang—but with a growl, a bark, and a bite.

The sea of immortal pups is swelling to consume everything. By the time the story begins, the collapse is nearly total.

This is the unique setting of the story. And, dear reader. Let me tell you something…

It’s really weird.

But do you want to know what’s even stranger?

Despite the madness on-page, the story always feels grounded.

This is aided, in part, by the excellent crafting of lore. We’re on an alien world—something completely bizarre. But because the Automata were dreamt up by humans, they have knowledge—if not context—of our everyday.

Some could accuse the author of taking shortcuts. By framing the characters’ real-world references as preloaded memories, they reduce the burden of translating their own world.

And listen: before the trial date is set for this story’s effect on my mental health, I’ll accuse the author of many things.

But not that.

It’s clever writing, fully merged into the worldbuilding. The internal logic doesn’t falter, and it works to keep things clear.

The themes are no less expertly handled—woven through the worldbuilding and the contemplative prose.

This isn’t a story content to merely entertain. It wants you to reflect on existence. To meditate on being.

It asks questions—difficult ones.

Questions like:

If thinking makes me be… when my thoughts fade, was I ever truly so?

Can the resurrection of one justify the loss of another?

Does death give life meaning—or is it just unmitigated negation?

But it’s never heavy-handed. These questions don’t shout. They haunt. They whisper.

They linger.

You scratch your head. You furrow your brow. You wrestle with existential dread.

And eventually—with the police.

Because apparently, staring into the void and having the void stare back doesn’t justify indecent exposure—

or throwing kittens onto the motorway while shrieking “THE END IS ME!”

Even though it is.

(And for the record, the kittens were fine In a… cosmic sense of the word….)

Heartworm is touted as a progression fantasy. And yes—as I said earlier—there are elements of the genre. Dirofil is unique in the series (though not in the genre) in his ability to absorb the strange, mutating powers of the dogs that populate the sea.

In this way, he progresses. His might grows. His enemies fall.

But let’s be honest—that’s not what this story is really about. It’s a feature, not the form. Were the novel to omit the genre tag entirely, the only casualty would be its marketing.

CRAFT:

Time is short, and I’m nearly out of crayons. Before the white coats break in to reprogram my mind with punctures and pills, I’ll quickly get into the craft.

I said earlier—this work isn’t flawless. And the flaw, dear reader, lies here.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s tightly—often tunefully, sometimes even technically—written. But it can come across as overwrought.

Take this sentence, for example:

“The violent discharge made him lose his footing as it ripped the puppy off his soft grasp, sending him or her —Dirofil hadn’t bothered to sex the poor thing— hurling forward, spinning chaotically across the four or five meters that separated the Thinker from a gruesome fate, slipping through the dachshund’s flower of jaws and impacting right into one of the shoulder eyes, digging into the flesh, splashing gore everywhere, and injecting a whining and wiggling Labrador puppy into the Dachshund’s monstrous frame.”

A lot happens. All at once.

There were moments I had to re-read aloud just to figure out where we were and who was flying through what.

There is such a thing as a period. And when scenes start to sprawl, I’d have liked to see them more often.

I noticed a few typos along the way—but I won’t harp on about them. They raise a brow now and then, but they don’t disrupt the madness.

Ultimately, the craft may put some readers off. Not because it’s bad—because it’s not. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t demanding.

It demands patience. Imagination. Attention.

But if you have that to spare, you won’t just get your investment back—

The dividends compound. Exponentially.

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading.

You do.

Vivid characters who drip with personality. A fantastical setting that never loses its grounding. Thought-provoking themes.

And, of course—a whole lotta packing.

For your state-sponsored stay at the local asylum.

But all jokes aside… Lack of Poochline better lawyer up.

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