Karen S. Wiesner: Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Hatching Series by Ezekiel Boone

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Hatching Series by Ezekiel Boone

by Karen S. Wiesner

Despite my avid fear of spiders (little bitty ones and big ones alike; monster queen ones? well, let's not even go there, except within this series), I couldn't resist something that was described as "Independence Day meets World War Z, only with spiders". In other words, apocalyptic stakes riddled with horror galore. I love horror and end-of-the-world stories. I took a chance of ensuring myself lasting months of nightmares all including the creepy-crawlies lurking around us, mostly unseen.

I devoured the first book, The Hatching, in almost no time at all, all the while feeling like I was about to be devoured by some arachnid monster creeping up behind me--and what the heck was that moving along my leg?!! I couldn't put this book down. Readers were taken all around the globe, given a piece of the puzzle from multiple angles. It starts in the heart of a Peruvian jungle, where tourists get the surprise of their lives when an ancient, long-dormant evil awakens…and feeds. Meanwhile, FBI agents are sent to investigate a fatal plane crash in Minneapolis with gruesome connections. Mysteries crop up around the world: Disturbing seismic patterns in India are stumping scientists in an earthquake lab. The Chinese government unfathomably decides to drop a bomb in a region of their own country. A package from South America arrives in a DC lab, and all hell breaks loose.

Mike Rich, an FBI agent, is an engaging main character. On the personal front, he's dealing with an ex-wife who's remarried, something that still wrecks him, and being a father to their daughter Annie while juggling a demanding job that barely gives him time to breathe. Professor Melanie Guyer is fascinated with all things spider, and she's also a loveable slut. The attraction between Mike and Melanie, after they meet through their work, is fun and an enjoyable reprieve from all the action and tension in this otherwise non-stop nail-biter.

Finishing the book was torture for me because I purchased it after it first came out--July 2016. At that time, I had no idea when the follow-up would be released, but I waited about nine months (April 2017). At that point, I was still interested in reading it so I went ahead and purchased it. Skitter was nearly as good as the first, but not quite as compelling. I still liked Mike, but Melanie's insistence on treating sex as unemotionally as she would a mindless massage was really starting to wear on me, especially since Mike was so lovable and her inability combined with unwillingness to commit to anything serious put me off rooting for her or Melanie and Mike as a couple. Zero Day came out in February 2018. I did buy it, mildly enjoyed it, but I think the huge lapse in waiting from one book to the next really harshed my initial buzz. I do intend to read them again back-to-back, as a series, instead of a drawn-out marathon of patience, like my first time around. Now that all the books are readily available, it's a great time to binge-read them again. The stories would also make an amazing movie series.

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

Catalogs of Apocalypses

I'm reading a new anthology called APOCALYPTIC, edited by S. C. Butler and Joshua Palmer. Not surprisingly, the stories tend toward downer endings; optimistic viewpoints on worldwide devastation are few. So far, my favorite piece, "Coafield's Catalog of Available Apocalypse Events," by Seanan McGuire, isn't exactly a story, because it has no narrative arc. It comprises a humorous A to Z list of alternatives offered to customers who have "decided to end the human race and possibly the world," promoted by what appears to be a sort of disaster-scenario catering service. Q, by the way, stands for "Quantum," and Z, of course, represents Zombies.

TVTropes has a page listing all major scenarios for the destruction of the human race, Earth, the solar system, or the universe:

Apocalypse How

Disasters are classified according to Scope (all the way from local or city-wide to universal, multiversal, or even omniversal) and Severity (from societal disruption or collapse up to physical or metaphysical annihilation). Examples of each possible permutation are cited, and there's also a list of pages for the most common causes of disruption or destruction.

Back in 1979, Isaac Asimov published A CHOICE OF CATASTROPHES, an exhaustive survey of possible ways our species, our planet, the solar system, or the entire space-time continuum might end or at least become uninhabitable. He categorizes them as catastrophes of the first through the fifth class, from universal down to local. The first class involves the entire universe. Second, the solar system could be (indeed, eventually will be) destroyed or rendered inhospitable to life. Third, life could become impossible on Earth. Fourth, the human species might be wiped out while some other life survives. Fifth, humanity could survive the destruction of our civilization. The fifth class is the type most often portrayed in "apocalyptic" fiction featuring plagues, zombie hordes, meteor bombardments, etc.

I'm not sure how the word "apocalypse," which is simply Greek for "revelation," got its popular meaning as the cataclysmic end of civilization, life, or the world. Most likely the connotation developed that way because what the "apocalyptic" biblical and extra-canonical prophecies usually revealed was the destruction of the present world order and sometimes Earth itself. When Buffy saves the world "a lot" and the Winchester brothers in the SUPERNATURAL series prevent multiple apocalypses, it's life on Earth they're usually saving.

Anyway, an author who wants to destroy civilization, humanity, organic life, the world, or the universe has a plethora of methods to choose from.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt