To be completely honest, I would not have touched The Nest with a ten foot pole back in the early 80's. I'm pretty sure I saw it on the shelves of bookstores. Especially used bookstores, which is where I spent most of my reading cash back then. I'm equally sure that I dismissed The Nest with barely a thought.
Now it's a few decades later. I still read what I consider to be the cream of the horror fiction crop, but once in a while I like to wallow in a bed of vintage, smelly cheese.
I recently finished a great book, and I was floundering around trying to figure out what to read next. I thought that it might just be the time for some bad old horror.
The Nest is one of the selections of Valancourt Books and Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks From Hell line of reprints. These guys are doing the genre a great favor by releasing old books, some of which are prohibitively expensive to find in their original forms, in nice, tight, digest-sized paperbacks.
The plot of The Nest is fairly basic. Very large mutant cockroaches run amok in a small island community. That's about it. The writing is pretty straightforward and pulpy. Think early James Herbert, only not as good as The Rats or The Fog.
The meat of the matter in The Nest is marauding, hungry cockroaches on the attack. This frenzied book is an absolute ten on the squirm-o-meter. There are numerous lovingly executed scenes of cockroach carnage, as the repugnant creatures feast upon human tissue.
Author Gregory Douglas (that's a pseudonym; who can blame the guy for not wanting his real name on this book) has done his research and there are scientific explanations for the roach phenomena. Believe it or not, these are some of the most entertaining parts of the book.
If there is any depth or resonance in The Nest, it is in the depiction of a small community of eccentric figures uniting to battle the disgusting onslaught of roaches.
I probably had a lot more sense back when I was first reading horror. The Nest falls way, way, way short of the work of writers like Grant, Tessier, Campbell, Straub, King, and the others I was reading. The characters are minuscule and thinly drawn, the prose is purple, but damn it, my interest was held. As crude and raw as The Nest is, there is visceral power in its pages.
If you are the type of person who would be interested in a book about oversize mutant killer cockroaches, chances are you will enjoy The Nest. If it sounds like something you'd spray with poison and dispose of with gloved hands, I'd recommend avoiding it.
Written by Mark Sieber
Now it's a few decades later. I still read what I consider to be the cream of the horror fiction crop, but once in a while I like to wallow in a bed of vintage, smelly cheese.
I recently finished a great book, and I was floundering around trying to figure out what to read next. I thought that it might just be the time for some bad old horror.
The Nest is one of the selections of Valancourt Books and Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks From Hell line of reprints. These guys are doing the genre a great favor by releasing old books, some of which are prohibitively expensive to find in their original forms, in nice, tight, digest-sized paperbacks.
The plot of The Nest is fairly basic. Very large mutant cockroaches run amok in a small island community. That's about it. The writing is pretty straightforward and pulpy. Think early James Herbert, only not as good as The Rats or The Fog.
The meat of the matter in The Nest is marauding, hungry cockroaches on the attack. This frenzied book is an absolute ten on the squirm-o-meter. There are numerous lovingly executed scenes of cockroach carnage, as the repugnant creatures feast upon human tissue.
Author Gregory Douglas (that's a pseudonym; who can blame the guy for not wanting his real name on this book) has done his research and there are scientific explanations for the roach phenomena. Believe it or not, these are some of the most entertaining parts of the book.
If there is any depth or resonance in The Nest, it is in the depiction of a small community of eccentric figures uniting to battle the disgusting onslaught of roaches.
I probably had a lot more sense back when I was first reading horror. The Nest falls way, way, way short of the work of writers like Grant, Tessier, Campbell, Straub, King, and the others I was reading. The characters are minuscule and thinly drawn, the prose is purple, but damn it, my interest was held. As crude and raw as The Nest is, there is visceral power in its pages.
If you are the type of person who would be interested in a book about oversize mutant killer cockroaches, chances are you will enjoy The Nest. If it sounds like something you'd spray with poison and dispose of with gloved hands, I'd recommend avoiding it.
Written by Mark Sieber
28 Comments
Linear