Scorpion Swarm

By: Michael Cole

Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan

Length: 7 hrs

Publisher's Summary

When a terrorist organization take control of an island research facility, Rob Cashen and his band of mercenaries are recruited to eliminate the terrorists and rescue the hostages. Upon arrival, they realize something has gone horribly wrong. Terrorist outposts are in ruins, guns and equipment are left abandoned, but no bodies can be found. In the ensuing investigation, Rob discovers the horrific consequences of genetic tampering.

Hordes of giant scorpions have taken over the island. Their hunger is insatiable, their numbers are increasing, and their food supply is dwindling. Armed with razor-sharp claws and javelin-like stingers, they mercilessly slaughter anything in their path. Now the team must fight for survival as the horde of scorpions pursue them through the jungle.

©2019 Michael Cole (P)2020 Tantor

Title Says It All

You get exactly what you pay for here. It's not good. It's not terrible except in the fun way. I grew up on bad creature feature films so this was a B-Movie nostalgia trip to me. All of the characters were stock cutouts from better action and horror movies. The dialogue was painfully 80s, but in the sort of way that makes you smile. The villain was two-dimensional. You could tell who was going to die and when without effort, and the betrayal at the end was the most logical thing in the world. The monsters were the most fun the book offered, and while their origin is run of the mill for today (genetic science gone wrong, with gene editing taking the place of radioactivity from 50s monster movies) the use of ants and tarantula hawks as the basis for the scorpion's xenomorph-like structure and powers worked well enough, even if the way the colony and live births were not scientifically accurate to fire ants or parasitic wasps respectively. All in all, it's good, dumb fun. Enjoy it for what it is or find something else more to your tastes. If I were to offer advice on how to make this more than what it was, I'd say that the author should consider one of two directs. One would be playing full tilt into the clichés into direct satire. The other would be to take the work more seriously and define his characters as more than just their archetypes. Alien, Aliens, Predator (I suppose you could argue the third one as well), and other higher quality horror and action movies actually offer us good, memorable characters even if the situation is unbelievable. We care when they die and ground ourselves through them. Here, it didn't matter, not even to the characters in this story, who didn't stop quipping or give a second thought to their dead friends except when setting up why we're supposed to hate the villain.

Half a story

If you read his other book, The Pilot, then this book is basically a dollar store version of that book. Even down to details that were small and could have easily been changed. even the characters were basically shadows of the previous books. Felt like it was ground the author had already tread very heavily and had nothing even interesting to add as a twist. Side by side the books are identical. Read the other book, its considerably better then this one.

Hmmm

This book was not as good as his other books I must say. Seems like it was just write to be a B action movie. Corny in alot of spots for sure.