the Conqueror Worms

I've never read horror fiction before. This was my first foray in the genre. I gotta say, I thought the Conqueror Worms was pretty damn good. Evidently Brian Keene is heralded as the next Stephen King. I wouldn't be able to validate that because I've never read Stephen King, either!

I think I saw my friend, Mike, post about it on Facebook and I thought fuck it, I'll give this a whirl. I picked it up used on Amazon for a couple bucks. Mike turned me on to Love Sex Fear Death and it was rad, so I thought I'd give his book recommendations another go.

The Conqueror Worms is about rain. Lots of rain. It's been raining torrentially all over the globe for about 6 weeks. Hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, you name it. Islands are submerged like Atlantis. Coastal towns are long gone. The only survivors on Earth are the people who live on high ground like the mountains. This book is written from the perspective of one of the survivors. An octogenarian who's scribbling down what he can remember since the flooding began.

Needless to say, the world is grim. It's like living in an Immortal song.

Shit gets crazy. You don't need to know anything further about the plot. It's an apocalyptic story with a slow burn. I really appreciated the slow pacing. The first half of the book is all leading up to a crescendo. Once the cymbals clash, the tempo of the book starts to pick up and there are more peaks and valleys. It's cool.

I'd definitely recommend this book. It's not overly sci-fi or fantasy based. Clearly you can see based on the cover it's not a likely story, but it's not so over the top that it lost my interest. It's about how real people face real tragedies. When the world is going to shit and Satanists are surfing down main street...What do you do? What do you do?