The Conqueror Worms by Brian Keene Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Conqueror Worms
Book Review: Choose Your Fate: Eaten by Zombies or Worms
Summary: 2 Stars
Keene's "The Rising" was an entertaining pulp novel, a fun zombie book that ultimately suffered a bit from its omniscient super-powered demonic zombies who were unbeatable. Keene's second book "City of the Dead" was an entirely gratuitous sequel in which the lame pessimistic ending of the first book was rewritten to allow the characters to escape and then finally die in another lame pessimistic ending at the conclusion of book 2. Again, the perfectly competent, relentless, and brilliant zombie opponents sort of made the outcome pretty much guaranteed.
So what have we here? Another zombie novel but with worms and sea monsters in the zombie role. Once more, our characters are all doomed because the end of days scenario they are in is inescapable and bleak. Our narrator is an 80+ year old codger, an interesting protagonist, but one who alternates between unrealistic action movie feats of heroism to complaining about his lumbago, a combination that will irritate and / or inappropriately amuse the average reader.
Besides our mixed blessing of a narrator, we have some other young dude with far less personality who relates a second tale right in the middle of AARP Wormhunt. The split narrative does not work very well, as the middle section involves a disparate group of disposable central casting stock character being made into monster chow in flooded Baltimore. The colorless second narrator and the clichéd large cast of pre-doomed fodder makes this section a chore to read. And the connection to the main plot is tenuous, only proving that nasty unbeatable foes live in the ocean as well as the land. (What, no monsters in the air section?)
Anyway, as with the zombie books, the enemies are unbeatable, the setting hopeless, and the characters mainly generic. The limited fascination of guessing who will die, when, and how peters out quickly, like a Lovecraftian version of "Clue" ("Priscilla Love Interest, in the Bedroom, with a Tentacle!"). The big worms are not intrinsically more fascinating than the zombies as menacing adversaries, though at least we are spared the "ha, ha, ha foolish humans I am invincible!" monologues of the lead zombie in the earlier books.
Ultimately Keene is a fun writer rather than a great one, and even with that limited expectation, he is not really exercising himself here. His bleak existential zombie / worm apocalypse scenarios are ultimately not worth the reader's effort unless you like to see the same unhappy outcome time and again, like Charlie Brown and Lucy's football. The arthritic elderly protagonist aside, there is little new to Keene's fans here, and such folks may find themselves getting a bit bored by the same old same old here. Readers new to Keene's limited imagination should probably read "The Rising" and then wait for him to find a few new plots and stylistic expression.
Book Review: Classic and New
Summary: 4 Stars
Still a creepy story of the end of the world but lacking and misleading. I was really looking to the beginning of the rain and slowly watch the charactors demise in attitude and begin to fear and doubt. Plus the story side tracked with other survivors stories of a giant ancient squid with a mermaid for a wife. I liked this side story over the worm side of it but the title through it off with The Conqueror Worms. So it turned out that their was more to it than the worms. The only real problem I have with Brian Keene's Stories is that they're too short. I'd enjoy much more detail and charactor build up. His stories always start without a begining and without a full intro to cause and the sequence of events leading up to the antagonist.Book Review: Compelling take on the end of the world
Summary: 4 Stars
In The Conqueror Worms, it has been raining for over 40 days. Everything is flooded except for high elevations. The first half of the book is told by an 80 year old man living in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia, Teddy. He is joined by his best friend Carl, when Carl's house is swallowed up by a sink hole. They soon find out that besides the rain and flooding, they have to deal with giant worms coming up from underground. Then there is a helicopter crash near Teddy's house and they are joined by two more survivors of the end of the world. Part two of the book is told from the point of view of one of the newcomers, Kevin. He tells the old men what happened to them in Baltimore where they came from. Living with a dozen or so others at the top of a high rise building, they were surrounded by the ocean and found out there were monsters in the water as well. The third part takes you back to West Virginia where they battle the mother of all worms.
I really enjoyed The Conqueror Worms. I'm a sucker for an Apocalyptic story and the world Keene presented was a vivid one. Writing from the first person did take away a little of the force of the story and changing to someone else's view halfway through was a little jarring. The two parts never jelled seamlessly. It seemed like two different novels. I also liked that while possibilities were presented for what was happening, nothing was resolved. The ending was open which I've always found to be perfect for this kind of story.
Book Review: Conquering Worms and Tobacco Cravings
Summary: 3 Stars
Brian Keene exploded from out of obscurity with his zombie epic - The Rising and City of the Dead - and followed it up with a decent novel, Terminal.
Now Keene comes out with a solid B-movie type of novel - The Conquerer Worms. Kind've a mixed blending of The Rising with Terminal. The book is not his best, but still an original and fun and exciting read, nonetheless.
Starting out with an old man living alone up in the Virginia hills, Teddy Garnett is stranded due to the ever-growing torrential downpour of rain that never stops. Fighting loneliness and battling a huge bout of tobacco nicotine cravings, Garnett soon learns that those problems are the least of his worries.
With his best friend, another old man who is simple minded, they try to fight off the pangs of depression setting in due to the extreme weather. Entire cities, and all of civilization is drowning in newly-formed oceans from the continous downpouring rainfall. Then the worms come. Fish hook sized at first, then dog-sized, until they meet up with the grad daddy of them all - The Behemoth!
The best part of this novel is the middle part. Where the main character, Garnett, listens to the tale of survival from Kevin, one of a few survivors of a crashed helicopter on Garnett's front lawn. This is where the story really shined for me. There is everything from mermaids and sirens emerging from the depths of this vastly growing world ocean, calling the men, (and lesbians!), to their watery deaths in their loving embraces.
This mythology, along with more awesome creatures and satanists sacrificing innocent women and children on roofs of skyscrapers, appeasing their water gods, all made this ection of the book a true treat and thrill ride to read. One small surviving group battling a large foe of satanists who worshipped the coming of the water gods, made for thrilling reading.
And things just continue to grow worse. This was a fun and interesting read, finding out how this small group can survive this overwhelming apocalypse. It will surely grab readers attention thru many nights to come.
Although not his best, Brain Keene still manages to create a believable, catastrophic world, full of water and worms...and more. I felt the very presence of this world, especially when reading on rainy, stormy days as I was. Made it all the more real.
Highly recommended reading.
Book Review: Conqueror Worms....interesting concept!
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the first Brian Keene book I have not given five stars. I am debating why....I guess it is because it took me awhile to get through it and I am an avid reader. I lost interest...went to another book than came back. The good thing about the book is the "end of days" theme, very interesting. I had to get through this book to see what happened so I guess you could say it is worth four stars. Highly recommend if you like campy tales and unusual monsters oh and I must not forget....LOTS OF WATER!!