• Wicked Bugs

  • The Louse That Conquered Napoleon’s Army and Other Diabolical Insects
  • By: Amy Stewart
  • Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
  • Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
  • 3.8 out of 5 stars (404 ratings)

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Wicked Bugs  By  cover art

Wicked Bugs

By: Amy Stewart
Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
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Editorial reviews

Award-winning author Amy Stewart's Wicked Bugs is a compendium of every little critter you never want to run into, with interesting history lessons thrown in along the way. Ever hear the one about the guy who committed suicide by Black Widow? How about the time Darwin got some beetle juice squirted into his mouth? Bonus: have enemies? This book will teach you how to coat an arrowhead with poison from various insects and other potentially toxic compounds.

From spiders to stink bugs, this book is not for the faint of heart. Want to have nightmares forever? Picture a locust swarm larger than the state of California. One of the most compelling chapters is one that focuses on zombie bugs, particularly the parasitic Jewel Wasp, which injects venom directly into the brain of a cockroach, then forces the roach to do its bidding.

Coleen Marlo handles the text with an encyclopedic accuracy, narrating swiftly through all manner of latin phylum, order, class, and species with the greatest of ease. In the end, you're thankful that she can keep it clinical, just for the sake of minimizing the sometimes graphic nature of the content.

A big part of the message here is that bugs are more powerful than we give them credit for. Stewart posits that lice, not the harsh Russian winter, may have been the downfall of Napoleon's army. She also implies that Formosan termites may have been responsible for breaking the levies and causing the widespread devastation of Hurricane Katrina. If you had any doubt about it before, you can put it to rest now; bugs really are wicked.

Creepy? Yes. Morbid? Sometimes. Informative? Most definitely. Gina Pensiero

Publisher's summary

In this darkly comical look at the sinister side of our relationship with the natural world, Stewart has tracked down over one hundred of our worst entomological foes - creatures that infest, infect, and generally wreak havoc on human affairs. From the world's most painful hornet, to the flies that transmit deadly diseases, to millipedes that stop traffic, to the Japanese beetles munching on your roses, Wicked Bugs delves into the extraordinary powers of many-legged creatures.

With wit, style, and exacting research, Stewart has uncovered the most terrifying and titillating stories of bugs gone wild. It's an A to Z of insect enemies, interspersed with sections that explore bugs with kinky sex lives, creatures lurking in the cupboard, militant ants, and phobias that feed our (sometimes) irrational responses to bugs.

Wicked Bugs is a fascinating mixture of history, science, murder, and intrigue that begins - but doesn't end - in your own backyard.

©2011 Amy Stewart (P)2011 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Stewart amusingly but analytically profiles the baddest bugs around in quick but attention-grabbing snapshots of little creatures that pack a lot of punch." ( Booklist)

What listeners say about Wicked Bugs

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

bunch of little articles

This is filled with lots of interesting and disturbing things about bugs. As I listen to it, I started getting itchy and stingy feelings. Insects are so different from us and live so different from us, it is like reading scary SCI Fi.

I think the book would have been better if she would have left out some bugs and spent more time with the more interesting bugs. This book is like a warm up band, it leaves you wanting more, unfortunately there is nothing to follow. The narrator sounds like she is speed reading, I don't know if that is her style or that is because of the way the book is written. Sometimes I got confused on when we had moved on to another bug or when we were going through the relatives of the last bug. Now I am going to look and see if there is an author who writes more in depth on the subject.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Too Many Bugs not Enough History

Though the introduction claims this book is NOT a reference guide or to be used as one, that is how it is written and how it reads. It reads like an arbitrarily put together reference guide on "bugs," (in the broad sense), written by a non-scientist/non-doctor.
The book is long and gives a survey of hundreds of "bugs," to the point where they blend together and get confusing. As one reviewer said it would be better on paper.
As a result the individual entries/chapters are short and often contain only basic information.
From the title "The Louse that Conquered Napoleon." I was expecting detailed and interesting histories highlighting 10 or 20 bugs, and how they have changed human history.
Instead the chapter on the louse was only a few minutes long and simply said that Napoleon's army may have been weakened by Louse and the diseases they carried, so that they were overcome easily by the Russian winter. Then she moves on to another bug.
The narration was great! And the information was interesting if a little repetitive, so I give it two stars for that. But in general this book is a short bug encyclopedia written by someone who professes not to be qualified for such an endeavor and so it is not worth it.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

fascinating and creepy

This book was fascinating and well narrated. Lots of information on bugs and their habits and the diseases they carry. I started this book during a power outage due to severe thunderstorms. Quite creepy.

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12 people found this helpful

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

Don't bother

This might be better as an actual book rather than an audio book. What captured me in the title was "the louse that conquered Napoleon's Army," and I was thinking there would be good and quirky info about that. Well, not really. Each chapter gives technical info on some kinds of bug, and there is a story to go with each one, but the scientific info far outweighs the quirky info. I can imagine reading this book in print and being able to skim through the scientific info to get to the quirky stuff, and getting through it all during a short trip to Starbucks. Sadly, in an audio, there is no skimming, or at least it's very difficult. Also, the chapters on the audio did not match up with actual chapters, so skipping ahead to the next chapter didn't work. I'm sorry I spent a credit on this. It was definitely not worth it.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Not enough....

I find the subject matter of this book fascinating and was looking forward to a good creepy bug book to haunt me for a bit. Unfortunately, it missed the mark two ways - 1) Not enough scientific detail - the descriptions of the insects and their behaviors were too brief. Fewer insects with more detail on each would've been better. 2) Not enough anecdotal or cultural references to make listening fun for more than a couple of hours. If there had been more "fun" stuff, I wouldn't have noticed the lack of educational content.

Although I was disappointed, I'm giving this selection 3 stars overall because I did enjoy sections of it, and it kept me interested enough to listen all the way through.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

I'm scared and nauseated

Really don't listen to this while eating. And now I'm totally afraid to travel to anywhere south for fear of picking up a parasite, or to eat anywhere other than home and to be sure to cook my food thoroughly. Because with my luck I'll get a dreadful disease from a bug; Ms. Stewart happily points out. And if this isn't all enough, one would think at least think this an interesting book on bugs, but it really didn't hold my interest. It wasn't so much the content per se, I think. I felt as though it all moved along almost too quickly so that I wasn't able to take in what was being presented. Oh well.......

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

All fluff no meat

I kept waiting for the 'meat' in this book -- it is not in depth enough and written more as a coffee table book -- also the author should hire a better reader for her material.

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

Tick, tick tick, like The Tell Tale Heart by Poe.

Would you consider the audio edition of Wicked Bugs to be better than the print version?

Easier to understand.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The ticking is the Death Watch Beetle that taps on the rafters looking for a mate.
The only character is the narrator and she is very good. She has a precise voice that is soothing and easily understood. That is what is needed for this book This book is a compenduim of many of the wicked bugs known and their habits. It is wonderful to listen to but you might not want to leave the house, much less travel too far. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

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3 people found this helpful

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

Wrong format for this book

An audio book is the wrong format for this book. It's essentially a list and short bio of various diseases and/or their vectors. An audio presentation is way too linear and cannot be indexed for what you want to see.

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2 people found this helpful

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

More Nightmares than Stephen King's Best

Would you listen to Wicked Bugs again? Why?

I'll definitely listen to this book again - so much information was packed into a very short read, I want to make sure I heard everything.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Was it the magots? The worms? The mind-controlling parasites? So hard to choose . . .

What does Coleen Marlo bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

This book, with the wrong reader, could have been dull, plodding, and full of dreadful mispronounciations. Coleen Marlo is a lively reader, and her ability to pronounce complex Latin names without hesitating is admirable. Definitely the right narrator for this book.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I woke up in the middle of the night with a nightmare that I had bugs in my body. I wouldn't recommend listening to this right before bed.

Any additional comments?

I'm planning on ordering "Wicked Plants" by the same author.

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2 people found this helpful