The Conqueror Worms

I have been a fan of Keene's work for a while and really liked his zombie books. As an avid fan of end of the world style fiction I was still a bit put off by the cover and promise of killer worms. Nevertheless, I was stuck in a small town during the holidays with little reading options, and the local bookstore had this. Long story short, I decided to pick it up. Once I got started I really loved this book. The premise is handled well and never becomes silly. I also found the divergence to the side characters and their journey well used by the author to show us his nightmare version of earth. Finally, the characters were much better and less stock hero than the folks in The Rising/City of the Dead books. Overall this is a pretty tight little action packed apocalypse book. And as a side note I don't remeber the ridiculous scene from the cover were giant worms attack buildings.

Sea creatures, huge earthworms, flooded cities--Brian Keene's The Conqueror Worms is a topnotch post-apocalyptic story that fuses Christian and Cthulhu mythology. It's short, which is a little disappointing, and Keene opens with a whole chapter of slow-paced exposition--but that exposition develops the main character into a fully fleshed human being. Overall, an excellent read.

I have to say that I really enjoyed reading "The Conqueror Worms". There's nothing happy going on. You pretty much know that things are not going to get better. So instead you can really dive right into, "what if this really happened?" It's escapist fun. I plowed right through this in a 2 night session. The story is cut into two parts. It almost seemed like the main story line wasn't enough, so a second one was fleshed out. Regardless, it works. It's fun... for the end of the world.

Okay...Brian Keene has picked some pretty nasty things to write about but now he tops it all by a book that could have been called the Attack of the Giant Slime Worms. Very nasty stuff here, but so well told that you just can't put the book down. I give it a thumbs up.

This book was truly a page turner. The old codger who is the main character is quite a refreshing change from characters who are in their late teens or early twenties. However, there are enough characters of all ages to go around. The book has some great creatures and a nice supernatural undercurrent as well. Enjoy!