Review: THE NEST by Gregory A. Douglas

Publisher Valancourt Books
Length 9hrs 59mins
Format audio

Published 1980 (audio - 2019)

Series standalone
My Copy I bought it

My Review

Well, that was creepy. 

The Nest is for cockroaches as Arachnophobia is for spiders. Damn near sure to induce entomophobia, this 1980's creature feature horror brought back to life thanks to Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell and Valancourt Books is a spine tingling, disturbingly good piece of fiction which, thanks to the authors extensive research, reads scarily plausible - yep, even with these menacing cockroaches reaching the size of 8 inches in the book, somehow this feels like it could happen, making the story that little bit more horrifying.

Set on an isolated island with a small community, The Nest follows the speedy evolution of a subspecies of cockroaches, leveraging off other well known insect characteristics such as the hive mind of ants, and the workers/soldier classes of termites. Without spoiling, there's some further evolutionary goodies which the author throws in the up the horror ante but I'll leave that surprise for other readers. 

Naturally, these advanced cockroaches venture out of their nest to wreak havoc on the islands inhabitants, essentially making this somewhat of a survival horror with scientific elements spattering throughout for plausibility. 

The steady stream of blood, scenes of overtly graphic gore, and surprisingly good level of character development, make The Nest one of the better horror novels from the saturated 80's mass-market. 

My rating: 5/5 stars.