The Maw

A Novel

By: Taylor Zajonc

Narrated by: Neil Hellegers

For fans of Clive Cussler and Michael Crichton, a thrilling tale of an underground expedition to the deep...and the ultimate struggle for survival.

Milo Luttrell never expected to step inside the mouth of an ancient cave in rural Tanzania. After all, he's a historian - not an archaeologist. Summoned under the guise of a mysterious life-changing opportunity, Milo suddenly finds himself in the midst of an expedition into the largest underground system in Africa, helmed by a brash billionaire turned exploration guru and his elite team of cavers. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to finally solve a century-old disappearance of the famed explorer Lord Riley DeWar, an enigmatic figure who both made - and nearly ruined - Milo's fledgling career.

Determined to make the most of his second chance, Milo joins the team and begins a harrowing descent into one of Earth's last secrets: a dangerous, pitch-black realm of twisting passages and ancient fossils nearly 2,000 feet underground. But when a storm hits the surface base camp, stranding the cavers and washing away supplies, all communication to the outside world is lost.

As the remaining resources dwindle and members of the team begin to exhibit strange and terrifying abilities, Milo must brave the encroaching darkness to unearth the truth behind DeWar's fascination with the deep - and why he never left.

©2018 Taylor Zajonc (P)2018 Tantor

Worth every minute

It’s good. No politics, no socialist ranting, no swaying to one side of the isle or the other. Just a good story.

The Maw

I liked this audiobook very entertaining. Lots of action. Narrator was great. I’m looking for more audio from this author and the narrator.

Popcorn Fun.

A college academic is ordered to Africa when a billionaire makes that a condition of a grant. He shows up and the billionaire says, "Listen up! You're an expert on Missing Victorian Explorer Guy, so you're coming along on my extreme caving expedition to find him! The team is me, you, your hot chick doctor ex-girlfriend, a dumbass YouTube historian, a sullen geologist who always works alone, a rich lawyer on vacation, and some other one-note probably future-dead people. Here's your gear, we go in tomorrow!"

If your response to that is, "okay", "sounds cool", or "f--- it, why not?", then you'll enjoy the ride. I think this a perfectly fine book of its type. No politics, no preaching, just stuff going wrong. It has passable characters, constant movement, twists, all done in such a way that you don't think less of it, because you knew what you were getting. I audiobook-ed one of his Wrecking Crew novels, and this could be called a less frantic version of that. Maybe the ending twists and final resolution are weak.

Four stars out of five.

A Psychedelic Thriller of Man Vs. Nature

I was wrapped up in the story from the moment I hit play, sitting in my car listening to this incredible adventure long after I had arrived at home. I was drawn into the vivid images of a man, an academic, forced out of his element into an immense cave system, struggling to survive and quickly finding out exactly what he was made of. Who are we when everything goes wrong, what does it take to survive, will we rise to the challenge or crumble under the pressure?

I wanted it to just be more

The tension was great! I wanted this to be more horror, but it really just stayed in the thriller realm. I think there was a lot to tie up and it tied up a lot, but I wish there was a more haunting element to how the last 1/4 was handled.