Return to the Center of the Earth

Center of the Earth, Book 2

By: Greig Beck

Narrated by: Sean Mangan

Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Mike Monroe and Jane Baxter barely survived their terrifying journey to the centre of the Earth. But a burning curiosity still tormented them about the origins of the pale creatures in the stygian darkness of the caves, and why were their dreams also haunted by something huge and monstrous that seemed as old as time itself?

Now, news of a Russian military expedition has forced their hands and also meant they must go back to a place they swore they’d never return. But this time they’re going with a team of highly skilled mercenaries and scientists to help them track the Russians and also help unlock the secrets hidden at the centre of the planet.

But what they find is something that evolution created in an environment vastly different to that of the benign world of the surface. And something that waits eagerly for their return.

©2020 Greig Beck (P)2021 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Exciting story

A great book and good audible book. At times the narration was filled with expression and feeling. However, at other times it was like listening in slow motion. I believe this would be most excellent Audible book if read at a faster tempo.

As Good as the First One

I found this version to be as good and gruesome as the first Of this two-part series. I’ll be interested to see if there’s another sequel..

In these caves the darkest reality becomes real

I thought the first book was dark but holy cow this book takes it to a whole new level. great story and a worthy sequel for sure. I'm incredibly curious to see if there'll be a sequel to this one.

5-star for sure. Would recommend this highly

Beck has a highly original take on a theme going back to Jules Verne. GREAT STORYTELLING, great dialogue, and all around hard to put down. Hard to put down!

Herb

Great story. Good narrating, thanks to speed boost

The story was fun. Fast paced and interesting. Lots of new monsters and expansions on some of the ones from the first book. On par with the first book, the physics are completely nonsensical, but that’s not what these are about.

Comment on the narrator. This guy sounds like he is intentionally reading the book slowly. It’s so slow that it’s tough to listen through. I listened to most of the book at 1.3x to make it sound almost normal. Without the speed modification, I probably wouldn’t have continued with it.

Great story

Love the story as it continued from the first one. Bit slow to start but kept me interested all the way to the end. Lots of gore and death. Politics were again a part of it but not too bad.

Great storytelling!

Looking forward to book 3 for sure. Going to also try other books by the same author.

Not as good as the first, unnecessary dark ending.

I ended up liking the first book a little more if only because I felt the ending in this one was unnecessarily dark for no real reason other then a call back to the beginning of the book.
The way one character, who was painted as a good person, ended up was pretty awful and soured the book for me a bit.
Overall not a bad “junk food” style book, will probably listen to the next one.

Fun story with a few caveats

I like this story a lot, it was a fun listen, with interesting plot and set pieces. The characters were good for the most part, but the dialogue got clunky at times.

A few problems I have need to delve into spoilers a bit but I’ll keep it under wraps as best as I can.

Spoilers:

The authors seems to be particularly mean to the female characters. There were several incidents and deaths I felt went beyond what was necessary. Sure, it’s a horror novel, but none of the men’s fate were as particularly mean spirited as several of the women, so that made me cringe a little bit. Especially since some of them were almost punishments for some action taken earlier in the book.

As I said, dialogue isn’t always great, and there’s a lot of info dumps along the way.

Lastly, the big creature at the end is repeatedly referred to as Dagon, from Lovecraft lore, but it’s described as looking very much like Cthulhu. So I’m not sure what he was going for there, but if you’re going to describe it as Cthulhu then call it what it is. I feel like he picked Dagon to differentiate himself from other similar stories, but if that’s the case, he should have made its physical appearance different from old tentacle face.

Otherwise it’s a fun, fast listen with some great lore and good action.

totally enjoyed

I love how Greig beck takes the story journey to the center of the earth and puts a twist in it or just brings it up to date, I loved it everything was perfect now I am starting the book three then I'm jumping into mysterious island the Greig beck version, it's like in my heart I know he will not disappoint,I love his books