LOVED it, great writing for any genre. Disturbing

This author is new to me, but I'm hungry for more. I feel like I was there with Jo on the streets of NYC. I was taken thousands of meters under the sea. Great story, and the narration was excellent. What else can I say? Get it!

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4 people found this helpful

Lots of plot threads but minimal explanation

Here we have an ambitious tale with decent characters that opens several great plot lines. Unfortunately, none of them are sufficiently explained.

Matthew DeWolf gives us a solid audio performance that falls several steps short of stellar. His voices are distinct, though some of his accents are a little off and his female voices leave quite a bit to be desired. His vocal inflections are mostly on point, and though they are subtle his tempo shifts are effective.

The story opens with a prologue that does a great job of setting up ONE of the plot lines in the book.

After this we are introduced to a number of characters very quickly. Some are intriguing, others less so.

Over the course of the book, lots of different storylines are explored in varying levels of depths. In the end they do all tie together, though even having finished it there is little to no explanation as to just how they interrelate.

As other reviewers have noted, there is a lot of influence from various films from the 80s here, some are obvious while others are a little more subtle.

Now, I didn't get the "Alien" vibe that some reviews did, but I expect that is largely a matter of personal taste.

Based on the vague hints dropped throughout, I feel like there should have been a book before this one. There is one character in particular who has a largely undeveloped background but there are enough hints to suggest that he has a very complex history that directly relates to this story.

The prose itself is rather old fashioned, but no more than a reader should expect from a book originally published in 1991. With that in mind, the writing is skillful and error-free.

My major issues with the book are with the lack of explanations. There are at least two different creatures involved here and it's not really clear how they relate, even considering one helps and enables the other.

There's also a strong Cthulhu-eske suggestion here, but that is not really explored either.

In addition to that frustration, we have rapidly shifting POVs without any real indication that the POV is shifting.

All that aside, when we finally get to the end things are reasonably wrapped up and satisfying, though there is still a wide open storyline available for exploration in the second book.

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An entertaining b-movie matinee

I enjoyed this one. It reminded me of a cheesy creature feature matinee that I would fake sick to stay home and watch while eating copious amounts of potato chips, chugging 2-liters of Dr. Pepper and getting wired out of my mind on packages of fun dip.

Yeah, sounds like I was talking about when I was a kid, but that was last Tuesday :)

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3 people found this helpful

Hi, hum

Schlock, predictable plot not done well. Just not remotely credible. In hands of skilled writer might have been salvageable. As is, not remotely so.

Uninspired narration.

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“A classic & brilliant Cthulhu Mythos novel.”

WURM by Matthew Costello • “A classic & brilliant Cthulhu Mythos novel.” • The good news is Matthew Costello is not some hack cranking out a pile of lukewarm end-of-the-world-by-zombie books. • The even better news is WURM is a solid piece of literature that tells a right scary good tale of grotesque monsters threatening humanity, and yet at the same time, it discusses the intellectual, spiritual and psychological challenges of the human condition in layman’s language without sounding too preachy, or like a University lecture on philosophy. • Any “Monster Book” that can do that is a darned good “Monster Book”! • Another highpoint is the narration by Matthew DeWolf is highly professional story telling. • You get all that, plus it has an awesome piece of kick-@ss Lowbrow Art on it’s cover. • I’m Old Man Parker, and I highly recommend this novel.

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Great read

Creepy gory and captivating. I enjoyed every moment of this twisted tale. The worms are coming and they can be anyone and everywhere.

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Good story, poorly structured

Really wanted to like this one more. Very good story concept. And it is well written. The writing itself isn't the issue. It's how the story is structured. Once you get into the meat of the story the chapters get short, and jump from character to character, sometimes to a character who only shows up once or twice, and nearly each chapter ends with a little mini cliff hanger. At some point it gets both annoying and a little bit confusing. And finally, this great big plot point happens, and that's it, the story comes to an end, and wraps up with a way too neat epilogue.

Maybe I'm being too harsh. But if so, it's because there is a ton of potential here. Structured better this could have been a great horror story. As is, it's just okay.

Finally, "just okay" also is a fit description of the narration. I've certainly heard a lot worse. But I've also heard much much better. This is very middle of the road. Easily listenable, but nothing that brings anything special to the story.

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2 people found this helpful

Wurm

Excellent old time creepy monster story.Samples of a worm from a deep sea exploration identify a new worm that lives around the black smokers.Is it safe to bring such a thing to land?Precautions have never been taken and we're about to find out what happens when no one listens to a scientists recommendations. Matthew DeWolf was a very good narrator.I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.'

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wow..

I'll be honest, before I even started listening to this book, I was hooked with DeWolf's narration of the sample.
Once I jumped into this book though, wow, blown away! This story takes place in 1991 so you have to be able to step back and think about things as though it's 1991 (few if any cell phones, internet was still new.. etc) If you can get into this mindset, you'll enjoy the book that much more.
Now.. If you're into lovecraftian horror then you've come to the right place. The author doesn't shy away from some pretty gory detail which helps bring the scenes of horror our poor characters find themselves in, into some spine tingling detail. As I've said, the narrator did a wonderful job on this book and his style of narration helped bring the book to life.
Look forward to more horror from Costello and definitely more narration by DeWolf!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

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1 person found this helpful

A rather long wurm!

The oceanic research ship Achilles is exploring volcanic vents and the creatures that live there, deep on the ocean floor. What they discover is much more exciting than they ever imagined. It’s also something that’s been buried deep on the ocean floor for millennia and is very dangerous. The Achilles brought it up from the depths. The effects of this discovery range from mass hypnosis, to mass hysteria, to violence and death. The tale becomes quite complex, so many characters, so many POVs, and I wonder if it is all necessary. Eventually, we get to the good parts, but it took so long to get there. Three.point.five. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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1 person found this helpful