The Troop

By: Nick Cutter

Narrated by: Corey Brill

The acclaimed national bestseller that is “old-school horror at its best” (Stephen King) follows a scout troop as it is unexpectedly caught up in an isolating and utterly terrifying fight for their lives.

Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip—a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story around a roaring bonfire. But when an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite—shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry—Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror. The human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. A horror that spreads faster than fear. A harrowing struggle for survival with no escape from the elements, the infected…or one another.

Horror that's really horrifying

Horror fiction is in kind of a weird place right now. There's the old classic stuff, where the horror is all in the mind, and then there's the plain gross-out stuff. A lot of the first type hasn't aged well--the things that scare us now are so different than they were back then. And the gross-out kind, while fun, can get boring after a while: another eyeball falls out, another arm gets torn off, but does anything actually happen?

Not too many people are hitting the midline these days: psychological exploration of fear mixed with just enough yuck to keep things interesting. But this guy, Nick Cutter--he's right on top of that balance beam in The Troop.

Scoutmaster Tim and his troop of five boys set off for a remote location off the coast of Prince Edward Island (which itself qualifies as remote!). Everything's going great--for a little while. And then, almost immediately, things begin to unravel when a stranger arrives. A really strange stranger. Suddenly, everything is falling off the edge of normal, especially the scouts themselves.

Fans of earlier Stephen King novels may recognize the structure: everything's fine and then the Bad Thing shows up, making everyone show their true, ugly colors. But this book reads like a later King actually wrote it, especially in the characterization. The boys start off as templates: bully, nerd, weirdo, kid with issues at home, normal (if confused) kid. And then stereotypes vanish as personalities evolve and blur under the stress of the situation.

Other reviewers have mentioned that parts of this book are just plain disgusting. I actually yelled out "Oh, gross!" on the bus at one point, causing my fellow passengers to look around cautiously. But even the gross stuff wasn't just there for effect--it was disgusting, squishy, and smelly, yes, but it was also truly horrifying. Suddenly I remembered what "spine-tingling" actually means. Yikes!

The only issue I had with this edition, and it was a little issue, was the production value. The narrator was fine, but I heard a few page-turns and there were parts where the sound level dropped for a few seconds. But like I said, it was a pretty small issue.

I can't remember the last time I read a book with virtually no boring parts. This book didn't have any that I noticed. I wandered around with my earbuds on for an entire day, completely glued to the story. I kept listening for "tells" that might point to Stephen King actually writing this book--apparently it's a first novel, but that was hard to believe because it's just so good (I don't think Stephen King wrote this...but I can't be entirely sure!). If you love horror that's really horrifying, and you don't mind some squishy parts, you will love The Troop.

Wow

This book was very difficult to listen to and at the same time impossible to put down. I don't read much horror and I bought "The Troop" for a change of pace and because it had such great reviews. The topic of the book was particularly disgusting to me and I found it difficult to eat at times - I also started washing my hands excessively but the truth is I really loved it. Beautiful writing, talented story-telling... No matter how gross it was you needed to find out what was going to happen next. There were some harsh animal cruelty scenes that were so angering to me I had to step back and tell myself, "Self, this is just a story, this isn't a true depiction of anything, calm down". Even if you aren't into horror, if you can handle gore you shouldn't miss "The Troop".

Stephen King does Lord of The Flies

I was expecting a long set-up where we get to know the characters, so was surprised when the troop comes in contact with the stranger almost immediately. I thought, "now what? how will he keep this going?" But Mr. Cutter keeps your interest because the character development happens AS the different personalities deal with what is happening to them. Excellent writing. Great narrator.

Decent but nothing great

Would you try another book from Nick Cutter and/or Corey Brill?

Possibly but not likely. I've also read Nick Cutter's "the deep" and found it to be equally "ok".

Would you recommend The Troop to your friends? Why or why not?

Not likely. I would have had troubles getting through this book if it weren't in audiobook format. It just wasn't that particularly scary, and there were some pretty obvious editing problems (reuse of the same adjective in three, even four separate sentences was really grating for me).

Have you listened to any of Corey Brill’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I haven't.

Could you see The Troop being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

Maybe a movie, not enough content for a TV series.

Any additional comments?

I really wanted to like this book overall, but I just found it forgettable unfortunately.

Great story, graphic gaggy parts, ok writing

Dang. Great story. Very graphic, I lost my appetite while listening to this. I admittedly fast forwarded through a couple of really disturbing parts involving animals. Writing was so-so: repeated metaphors & repeated unique words took away from it. Awesome story though