Review: "The Hatching," by Ezekiel Boone

Thumping good thriller! For me, there is no more terrifying thing than the spider, which is why I actually put off reading this for so long. Finally, I decided to give it a whirl. If the prospect of one spider scares you, imagine millions of them rising together to overwhelm humans. One spider is elusive, millions of them are damn near impossible to exterminate. The result = recipe for a good ol' fashioned thriller! Ezekiel Boone is the hybrid child of Michael Crichton and Stephen King. The Hatching takes Crichton's flare for raising ancient creatures from the dead, and combines it with King's flare for the apocalyptic doom. In fact, when I first started reading The Hatching I had to pause and ask myself if I was reading a novel Stephen King had written under a pseudonym. There were little key words that Boone used that I often don't encounter unless I'm reading King (such as the word 'apt'. King uses 'apt' a lot. Also, 'milky'). And Boone is just a damn good writer and storyteller. A quick Google of his name convinced me he was a real person, and Canadian (shout out for Canadian Lit!). The Hatching is the definition of a fast-paced thriller. The pages fly by. The narrative hops to and from different locations all over the planet, but you don't get lost in the story. The pieces are woven together well enough that you are able to see how it's starting to fit together. The ending is a cliffhanger because this was the first in a trilogy. When I finished Hatching I literally went right out and bought the sequel, Skitter. This first in the trilogy is a great set up for what's to follow, and I'm looking forward to seeing this through to the end. If I had one minor criticism of the novel, it's that I felt I wasn't able to get to know the characters well enough, because we are jumping back and forth between a lot of separate plot-lines within the same novel. I felt a bit like I wasn't fully invested in them and wasn't quite ready to root for or not root for any given character. Mostly this is just my impatience showing, because I know these characters are going to show up in the next two novels. I'm giving the benefit of the doubt to the characters given that there are two other novels in the series. I recommend this if you're after a fun, rapid-fire thriller. And, if you're like me, it'll have you looking in every nook and cranny for signs of even the smallest eight-legged creature...