The Brain Eaters

By: Gary Brandner

Narrated by: Sean Duregger

In Milwaukee, a regular at Vic’s Tavern suddenly smashes a beer bottle and carves up the other customers.

In Manhattan, an easygoing cabdriver goes berserk and hurls his cab into a crowd of pedestrians.

In Seattle, a young bride slashes her husband in a busy restaurant, then flings herself through a plate-glass window.

At first, these shocking incidents appear unrelated. Then a disturbing pattern emerges - the agonizing headaches, the violent tantrums, the faces erupting with sickening lesions, then the final, fatal outburst.

The epidemic spreads. The nation panics. The Brain Eaters devour America.

Their hunger can never be satisfied.

©1985 Gary Brandner (P)2020 Mark Alan Miller

A pulp story with a stellar narration

The story is a standard fair pandemic story. The strength there is the visceral depictions of violence and gore. It also does a good job of building tension as the illness spreads.

Unfortunately, the story has a few flaws, in particular the narm-worthy dubbing of the illness as Brain Eaters, the almost bored description of growing unrest and chaos instead of showing it, and lastly the fact that I personally find Cory unlikable. (He comes across as a stubborn, cardboard cutout of the journalist looking for the big story trope). While we're at it, add to that an ending that rushes to resolve everything in a Hollywood happy ending barring the pile of corpses.


The flaws are largely diminished by the fact that the narration is superb! Outside of a few accents that sound a little wonky, it elevates the story and makes it an extremely enjoyable experience.


Full disclosure: This audiobook was given to me for free at my request and I provided this unbiased and voluntary review.

Old Time Horror

I did not realize I read this book years ago until I started listening to it, it was much better b being read to you. This is an old time horror about parasites getting into you, at first you experience flu like symptoms and severe headache then you become extremely violent and kill other or destroy yourself. My favorite characters were Corey and the doc. Recommend if you enjoy older horror with good narration. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. Thank you

Very good, but a little outdated.

I liked this story a ton, but the characters weren’t all that well written and likable. I’m not saying characters have to be likable for me to enjoy a good story, but one of the main characters, the protagonist Corey, was a huge dick and I wanted him to die so badly, but, and not to ruin anything, Corey is the hero of this story. So, of course, there was no way he wouldn’t get the girl in the end. Overall, i’m giving this story three and a half stars, round it to four. BUT, I really want to say that the performance for this was out of the park! Excellent narration! Gotta applaud the narrator for this one! Great narration and a pretty good, but outdated story.

The title pretty much says it all.

This is a pretty good little horror book and the reader has a pleasant voice. A little mystery, a lot of violence and some romance. What more could you ask for?

3.5* - good gore, less focus on societal impact

My thoughts align with some of the other reviews here. I thought it wasn't a bad story at all, definitely didn't feel like I was wasting my time. It definitely has the texture of a story set in the 80s, with technology and pop culture references of that time. Interesting twist, the role of the Russians, but consistent with socio-political changes occurring in the 80s. I wasn't particularly impressed with the story's protagonist (perhaps because he was young and somewhat immature), but his character was well written and developed. A bit convenient, how he was able to connect the dots and understand what was happening before anyone else, and how it took a little while for medical examiners to realize that something unusual was happening. The strongest parts of the story for me were the transitions in the characters as they were infected - there was good gore there. It's disturbing to think about how easily and quickly infection can spread.

And that's where I wish the story had gone into a bit more detail. It wasn't the goal of the story, to trace out the spread and impact on society. Instead, the lens was focused on specific characters. But I have an interest and a curiosity about the broader context, especially when the topic of the story is a contagious infection - how that contagion expands through the population, and what does the government and authorities do about it. I wish there was more of that broader picture in the story. This wasn't totally absent from the story, but my personal preference is to have more of it. I think it's because the killer was a type of contagion and the mind automatically starts to think about where and how fast it will spread.

The narration was good for this story. I imagined the protagonist to be a somewhat self-centered young adult man and that's how the narrator painted the image in my mind. The other characters were voices well, no complaints there.

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