Two estranged, combative brothers hang out in the mountains.

(from Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned)

I’ve read this story before. In a way. I really dug it when I read it in May of 2007, but the author has since had a change of heart about the thing. In a little promotional pamphlet preceding the release of Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Wells Tower tells how he was never quite happy with the way “Retreat” came out. “Horrified” is the way he puts it. So here’s the story again, told from the perspective of Matthew the rich-ish smug angry jerk, instead of Stephen the young, angry frustrated jerk. I still like em both, and still like Bob, the workaday mountain man who gets to observe the brother’s jerkiness from a (nearly) safe distance. So, fine. Good story again for the first time.