Subhuman

Unit 51, Book 1

By: Michael McBride

Narrated by: Neil Hellegers

Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

They are not human.

At a research station in Antarctica, five of the world's top scientists have been brought together to solve one of the greatest mysteries in human history. Their subject, however, is anything but human....

They are not natural.

Deep beneath the ice, the submerged ruins of a lost civilization hold the key to the strange mutations that each scientist has encountered across the globe: A misshapen skull in Russia. The grotesque carvings of a lost race in Peru. The mummified remains of a humanoid monstrosity in Egypt....

They are not friendly.

When a series of sound waves trigger the ancient organisms, a new kind of evolution begins. Latching onto a human host - crossbreeding with human DNA - a long-extinct life form is reborn. Its kind has not walked the earth for thousands of years. Its instincts are fiercer, more savage, than any predator alive. And its prey are the scientists who unleashed it, the humans who spawned it, and the tender living flesh on which it feeds....

©2017 Michael McBride (P)2017 Tantor

Cool story idea but the path to hell is paved...

with adverbs... and alliteration.

I was pulled in by the premise and several reviews that mentioned this being a kinda Alien meets the Thing set in the Mountains of Madness and to that degree, I enjoyed the story line. Characters and situations were pretty neat and right up my alley...

Now to the issues - alliteration, adverbs and thesaurus usage. Some of the science (see the alliteration rubbed off on me) quickly (adverb) got my blood pumping and I hurriedly (adverb) raced to review some serious science (alliteration) books from my past... :) In all seriousness, I enjoy a descriptive author but the constant alliteration and adverbs got on my nerves after about 10 minutes. There were also instances were a $0.50 word would have sufficed but instead a $2.50 word was used. If I get a $2.50 word from a fictional scientist I can overlook it, but when everyone speaks in thesaurus-speak and when transition paragraphs use these a lot, it gets a little annoying.

All that being said, I enjoyed the book overall. It was a really nice and fresh take on a science-y monster story. I prolly won't continue in the series though due to the writing style issues.

Great story.

I enjoy listening to. What it's like in the Antarctic. Interesting idea about. Aliens. Enjoy.

A slowly evolving surprise

Interesting story that doesn’t expose its surprise until the very end! Enjoyable with a surprise that will sneak up on you!

An invasion of a different sort

This book takes a, I believe unique, variation on the ancient aliens idea. Mix in crop circles, elongated skulls found around the world, the 1940's Operation High Jump...add an alien agenda and a remote Antarctic research station, and you get this book.

I believe that this book was written primarily to kick off a series, so expect it to be long on questions and fairly short on definitive answers.

Even so, the book is entertaining and the characters drawn pretty realistically. The book, in my opinion, does suffer a bit from the setup format, but not fatally so. The narration is a bit stilted and feels very much like someone reading versus performing the story. Yes I know that sounds odd since it's an audiobook and someone reading it is kind of the point. It just felt like it needed something.


Will I get the next book in the series? Yes, I think the story needs a chance to show what it can do, now that the setup is done.

I give it a better than average recommendation.

Alien meets, Descent, meet Dracula, meets the Walking Dead, meets The Thing.

In spite of being a total smorgasbord of sci fi and horror classics, it’s still pretty entertaining.

Great story

author did a great job painting a visual picture of horror. Very detailed and a awesome way to spend an afternoon listening.

Subhuman is WAY above parr

Subhuman wrangles together multiple branches of science in a more-than- clandestine attempt to solve a massive mystery at the bottom of the world.

These brilliant minds brought together by one of brilliance and possibly madness, investigate the potentially greatest finds of science - one that might be THE most revealing about the human race.

The narration is great. Neil Hellegers does a fine job mixing different voices and different levels of fear.

If you like your sci fi realistic with relatable layman explanations but full of a great story, sweeping and magnificent battles and shocking spins, this is the story for you!

23 chapters too many of minutiae

I rarely write reviews and I almost always love my audiobooks! I generally like my McBride thrillers.
But I feel like I should warn whoever buys this one ahead of time what they’re in for (without any spoilers). A little bit of background in a book for character development and to set the scene is terrific. But I was at chapter 24 before any action of any sort of scary/thriller nature ever got going. It was a lot of (*yawn) scientific background that, to be honest, I just tuned out. I felt like I was back in a college science course. That’s not a bad thing, but I wanted to buy a thriller/horror book and this was not feeling like that.
Thankfully, at about chapter 24, I believe, things started to get heated up~ and then it was very exciting. So if you can stick with it for a pretty slow, pedantic detail-laden first half, you will be rewarded at the end. I also would suggest to Mr. McBride that he hire a professional narrator. He’s not bad, but I think the book would benefit from that.

Great read

I enjoyed listening to this book and look forward to listening to Forsaken, the second part to this book. I'm not a huge sci-fi fan but this borders on the line of sci-fi and reality. It's actually believable. The author definitely does his research before he writes a book and that helps a lot. I would definitely recommend.

I usually like books like this.

Would you try another book from Michael McBride and/or Neil Hellegers?

Unfortunately this book needs to go back for two main reasons: the story is loaded with pseudoscience nonsense and the narration makes the story difficult to follow. I don't mind ignoring some silliness in favor of a good adventure. This story make that too hard to do; lots of smart people being dumb and too much "science" nonsense. The cadence of the narration made it very hard to follow.