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The Hatching cover art

The Hatching

By: Ezekiel Boone
Narrated by: George Newbern
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Summary

Deep in the jungle of Peru, a black, skittering mass devours an American tourist party whole. FBI agent Mike Rich investigates a fatal plane crash in Minneapolis and makes a gruesome discovery. Unusual seismic patterns register in an Indian earthquake lab, confounding the scientists there.

The Chinese government 'accidentally' drops a nuclear bomb in an isolated region of its own country. And all of these events are connected. As panic begins to sweep the globe, a mysterious package from South America arrives at Melanie Guyer's Washington laboratory. The unusual egg inside begins to crack. Something is spreading....

The world is on the brink of an apocalyptic disaster. A virulent ancient species, long dormant, is now very much awake. But this is only the beginning of our end....

©2016 Ezekiel Boone Inc (P)2016 Orion Publishing Group Limited

What listeners say about The Hatching

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

I need more cats

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The ending.How can it end like this!? Does the author know how much electric costs?If i don't sleep soon i'm going to start hallucinating and see spiders climbing the walls, scuttling across the floor, behind the curtains......(i just frightened myself again)

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

How the spiders traveled

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Voices are ok, The women don't sound like squeaky toys

If this book were a film would you go see it?

You crazy! Of course i wouldn't sit in a dark cinema with rows and rows of seats in the pitch dark with exits all the way in the back. I would Watch it at home with a cushion, rolled up news paper, lights on and a back up torch....and a flame thrower

Any additional comments?

I need to know more.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Be Prepared to Invest in a Trilogy!

This is Alexi Zentner's first book under his new name Ezekiel Boone. The first thing to note is that this is the opening book of what the author says will become a trilogy - at the time of writing this is not clear on the Audible website. The book makes much more sense in that context than it would as a stand alone novel. It would also make more sense in the right category which should be sci-fi or horror rather than Crime and Thrillers where it resides at the time of writing!

Much of the first part of this one Boone spends introducing us to the wide cast of global characters that will cover this story. it's very much in the style of his self-confessed influence Stephen King as he gives the characters depth and persona. The horror once it starts and we head towards a new kind of apocalypse is strong and actually exciting. Apparently these spiders come in waves, each more scary than the last.

The ending of this book comes at a sensible point, given that it is just the starting point of a trilogy. As a stand-alone the whole thing must have seemed poorly balanced.

So, I'm in for the ride and look forwards to where Mr Boone plans to take us in "Skitter"!

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

OH MY GOD GET TO THE STORY!!

Well if you want to waste 8 hours of your life you should go watch paint dry as it would be more interesting than this book! For a book that goes in to incredible detail about every character you would think they would be of some importance to the storyline...wrong. Half of them are not needed, will not be reading the following book.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Surprisingly entertaining

Enjoyed this so much I bought the sequel immediately which isn't like me.

Once I had got past the kids saying the narrator sounded like Kermit the Frog (check sample) this was a good adventure with premise to grow in the sequels.

Good character development and pace, the story, while not 'horror' is a good action/adventure.

If you're after a horrific, tense thriller I don't think this is 100% for you, but it's a good yarn nonetheless.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

In essence a zombie story

This is an ok yarn, basically a zombie story but replacing re-animated dead with spiders. Bit disappointed that it just stops, rather than concluding. It is obviously setting up a series. Reasonable listen nonetheless.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Kingesque

Reminiscent of Stephen King, Boone has a way of putting you right there in the midst of the action. This is a story that will remain with me but I fear that it is only the beginning of a much longer story. In which case, I look forward to the next instalment.
The performance was excellent (except for the pronunciation of a few Scottish/Gaelic names). Newbern has a voice well suited to narration and I hope that he performs the next episode.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Creepy Crawly

Quite scary, makes you itch and look round for spider webs. Well read and a good horror story especially if you don't like spiders.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good Setup For What's to Come

Really well performed and as a story, it has a nice scientific build to the realities of something unreal.

Ends a tad abruptly, but at least I know there's more!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Very good start

Very similar structure to World War Z, and as it’s part 1 of 3, it’s a lot of build up, slow to start but it builds and build until almost a mini climax, but as it’s part one, more to come, very much enjoyed it and the interweaving characters and how they meet and what purpose they serve, looking forward to seeing where it goes.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Average pulp horror - but unfocused plot

This isn't a bad book, but it's not great. I've been reading a host of pulp horror monster books lately and while this isn't the poorest, it's middle of the road, and in many ways more forgettable than the poorer written ones.

The biggest problem is that, although not clear on the cover, its a trilogy. In the strictest sense. Yes, in many horror books have that "Oh, one got away" equiloge that leaves it open for sequels. However they still within that book tell an arc with a beginning, middle and end. Hatching didn't, it ends at the midway point, so abruptly and with no plotlines resolved, it may as well have had "To be Continued" on the last page. If you wish to know how the story ends, you must pick up the sequels. In constrast, the other creature feature books I've been reading lately almost all end with a "some are still alive!" epilogue, and some indeed do have sequels - but the books themselves tell is a complete arc/story, I don't have to pick up sequels if I don't wish to finish it.

I'm a big fantasy fan - I'm used to multi-volume fantasy books, and like long complex stories. I think if Hatching been clearer it's a "part 1" I'd feel better about the abrupt ending, but for a creature feature horror I'm just used to a more complete experience with the option of picking up the sequel.

The related second problem is the vast cast. The story has about 10 view point characters - and, yes, like most horror a number exist only to die. But about 6 are there for duration of the book, and the story keeps jumping between their often unrelated stories. Perhaps in sequels some of them will play a larger role, or their subplots converge, but for this book in itself, many of the characters don't advance the plot. The Scottish characters for example, are given multiple chapters of development but contribute nothing to the story other than to tell us when the spiders reach Scotland. They in no way advance the main plot being taken forward by some of the American characters. The pages devoted to them could have been cut, and the story remain unchanged.

This is also true of the doomsday prepers, although I do know from looking at the blurb of other books their arc will join the main story by book 3. So the story being split into 3 books has left book 1 feeling unfocused. Many book series have large casts, but is this why they don't introduce every one in book 1 - because if they are introduced before they can impact the plot, their chapters are just filler.

I saw one review of book 3 that said the trilogy is 1000 pages long, with a good 400 page book in there. That sounds fair. Book 1 wasn't bad, but it was padded, unfocused and felt incomplete. So much so I have to think, if the author cut the bloat, does it really need to be a trilogy?

I'm honestly lukewarm on whether to move into the others.

On the udiobook narration, it was fine. Although as a Scot I rolled my eyes at the accents the narrator uses for the Scottish characters. It's not the worst, but to me they sounded more Irish - I have no idea what an Irish person would think they sounded like. Honestly don't know why audiobooks keep doing this, but in so many I listen to the narrator will just use their own accent for every nationality under the sun, but when the Scot is introduced the narrator decides to try their best impression of us. And they can't. This certainly isn't the worst, but when the narrator isn't trying to do imitations of Peruvian or Indian accents, and every American regardless of state had the same accent as the narrator, why add the fake Scottish accent?

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