I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book draws you in and then stomps on your heart. It is a well written end of the world book with believable characters that you get to know and want to root for right away. Don't get too attached though, because there is a high death count (you know being the end of the world and all).

This was a cool end of the world scenario! A mysterious black cloud that appears when something goes wrong at a research facility. It blots out all light and brings death underneath. It is a very dark book though and there are no good things really, despite the efforts of many good people. I found my head going to a dark place after and needed to read something light and frivolous to feel normal again. This book also ends on a very big cliffhanger! Be warned! However, it was well written and I think this author did a good job.

Monstre is a gritty, in-your-face, no apologies rollercoaster of a novel that throws sledgehammers at you just when things seem to settle. It spits in your face, calls you a wuss, and mocks you when you fall in love with it.

It’s absolutely brilliant.

If you’re looking for a novel to make your year or to become infatuated with it, give Monstre a go – it’ll fill your head with horrible nightmares and colorful characters whose mouths you want to wash out with soap or just straight out throttle.

This is Duncan Swan’s debut novel and the author describes it as the result of a three-way between Alien, World War Z, and Generation Kill. That’s a bit of an understatement because in my humble opinion I felt the novel delivered so much more. It has the psychological terror and realism of Stephen King’s IT, the grand scope of a Matthew Reilly novel (especially the Scarecrow series), and the badass prose of a pissed-off Chuck Wendig.

You might even consider saying that, in an alternate universe, the above-mentioned might even have taken inspiration from Monstre. I can’t tell you that it’s like this or like that or like something else, because after having read Swan’s debut novel I felt that this book not only has a shitload of potential, but that it can firmly be set aside on its own and still beat the snot off of any other novel that seeks to come remotely close to it in terms of style, prose, and storytelling.

It sets the bar for future novels that use the apocalypse trope and any future writers seeking to add another book to this particular genre would be greatly advised to keep Monstre close-by for a guide to how it’s done, and done well.

Told in a global narrative before focusing on a few key characters specifically, and as ominous forces converge on the unsuspecting individuals in Swan’s world, Monstre is a no-barred, bare knuckle story that reads like something which had already happened and is being written down in a journal. It depicts the worst in human behavior and, yes, it has a unique monster that is definitely more fucked up than the people.

Swan has created a truly lived-in world filled with shitty people, heroic characters, fearsome monsters, an invincible enemy no bullet can kill, and rare moments of hope that shake even the sturdiest of veteran souls.

It makes you wonder which is the scarier monster; the one that has the base instinct of an apex predator with the necessary aesthetics to back it up, or is it the human that posses reason and still acts upon it?

There’s a debate in here somewhere.

Ultimately, Monstre is a novel I would gladly read over and over again and if this doesn’t inspire people to write something similar or to take a deeper interest in how great horror novels are, I sincerely hope this convinces you.

Deep beneath the Switzerland/France border sits the Large Hadron Collider, built in the quest for answers to some of theoretical physics’ most elusive questions. It was supposed to be safe, but when a malfunctioning experiment explodes, all a rag-tag group of scientists can do is flee the facility and try to make it to safety. From the ruins of CERN, a black cloud begins to spread, marching slowly across the countryside, blocking out the sky, and bringing only death in its wake.

Monstre is told from the perspective of several characters over two mixed timelines. In France, we follow the immediate aftermath of the explosion, and the frantic battle to halt the advance of the cloud as it spreads inexorably across the continent, sowing the seeds of destruction as it goes. Three months later, we join a small group in the USA desperately trying to make their way to the West coast and the rumoured safe haven of a nuclear bunker, followed by the cloud as it encroaches from the east.

I was hooked from the first chapter, and the pages just flew by. Swan deftly combines the post-apocalypse ‘study-of-humanity’ genre with a rip-roaring military action and pulls it off perfectly. His characters are fully imagined and believable, and he writes with the ease and attention of a veteran writer, which is quite incredible when you discover that this is his debut novel. I will most definitely be searching out the next instalment.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a captivating and refreshing read. The story is truly terrifying in some aspects because of the impact it has on the characters and the speed in which everything occurs. Most books of this type move slowly and explain everything about what is happening. Swan leaves a lot of mystery even up to the end and creates this story that moves so quickly you don't feel the need to find answers until it slows down. He provides just enough details to help keep the reader focused while not revealing too much at the same time. Overall, I really loved this book. I can't wait to read the next part. The only real conflict I had was the super unique ideas would have been so much stronger without really common ideas added in as well. It felt like Stranger Things was just casually infused with the story and it could have been stronger with some different approaches to the unknown.

Really enjoyed this! Both storylines (Europe and the US) were woven together nicely. Good mix of military scenes and ragtag groups of survivors trying their best. I can't wait for the next volume!

An adaptation of this will be a bigger phenomenon than The Walking Dead.

Jesus Christ.

Where to begin? This was severely rewarding. It was constant chaos. The minute things seem to start forming into a structured story and you finally think it's about to settle down, it doesn't. How beautiful is it that everything keeps going to shit? Lets dissect this for awhile because I need some self-therapy to work this out.
The Large Hadron Collider exists. Scientist are using it to study laws of nature and smash atoms together at accelerated rates. They discovered the "Gods Particle" not too long ago. It is also capable of creating microscopic black holes. A quick google search tells me that there's nothing to worry about, but this thought has followed me for years. Of course, a book where something goes wrong with the LHC is going to fit in the right place for me. It's a puzzle piece I never knew was empty in my soul.

The first person we meet is also our first casualty in a story filled with them. You know the fulfilling feeling you got when you saw Rogue One for the first time - you did, didn't you!?!?! - and you knew everybody was going to die? It was perfect and it was right. They all died in kind of cute ways where you felt bad but in the end, it was alright. NOT IN THIS BOOK. This book has so many changes of direction it was like the car chase in Tintin. You think somebody is going to die, but they don't. We revisit them later and they are still holding on but not for long. When we jump back to the character again, you start to think maybe they actually make it. Wouldn't that be obvious? No. They're all going to die. They're going to die horribly and suddenly and it's going to happen so don't get attached to anybody.

You change perspectives frequently. The story also jumps between time periods. We follow from the day of the accident and half a year later. Some scenes fill you in on plans or things that occurred in the time between. There's a sequel coming so all will be answered. Those perspectives give us one sad story after another. After the LHC explodes, a cloud fills the air and blocks out the sun. As the world plunges into darkness, monsters described as being fifteen feet from nose to the end of the tail with multiple legs and rows and rows of teeth start killing people. The air is corrupted by toxins commonly found in pesticides. Everyone is struggling to escape, but just by being outside everyone is already doomed.

It actually comes out in the lightest part of the story. One of the sections follows a group of marines investigating the disappearance of other marines in the cloud covered area. The monsters come and destroy the team, and the leader has his gas mask ripped off. While recovering, and receiving new orders, he's told that he probably only has days to live. A bus load of people who they traveled with back to the safe zone started with forty six survivors. They end up with around twenty, and then they all die off once they arrive. A scientist we meet in the beginning of the story gets progressively worse and worse. We last see him hooked up to a dialysis machine and told he's done for. There is no hope. Not for anybody. It's futile. It's delicious.

I hate talking about the marines because by saying this is a book with marines in it I don't want to give you *that* idea that it's some type of military ops book fighting extraterrestrial alternate dimensional monsters. No. Listen, there are tons of different characters here. There's scientist, prison inmates, military both current and retired, everyday people, police officers, rapist, neighborhood watch teams. People of all different nationalities. Kids too. Listen, there's some Crossed vibes here. The kids are going to suffer. Nothing good will happen to anybody. Here's an example:

One character, Mason, is fleeing with a convoy of cars. In his vehicle are his wife, daughter, a neighbor, and his neighbor's wife. They are attacked by the Monsters but make it through okay. Mason figures the Monsters wont attack if they are lit up by the flashlights. It's fine until the attacks start up again. The daughter in the backseat, Jessie, tries to reach for her dad and call his name. Then a Monster burst through the back window, slashes Jessie and her mother, rips the neighbor's wife's head clean off, then kills the neighbor. Mason is the last to die, but it's all instantaneous. There's no breathing room in this book.

I would say the longest part of this book revolves around the police officer's in America trying to head to NORAD. One has her family with her. There's also a friend named Drew who is an outdoors guy. They get caught up in a trap set by former criminals who steal people's cars, gas, and possessions. They flee, but end up killing two of them. This leads to them being hunted down, without realizing it and leaves us at the end of the book shocked with a CLIFFHANGER ENDING. How could you Duncan Swan?

Remember when The Walking Dead was the show to watch? People were obsessed with it even in an over saturated zombie market. There was initially a rag tag group of characters that you watched die off one by one until it ended up with a core group and they made the show about hiking. I'm looking at you season four. Picture The Walking Dead but without it sucking. Instead of zombies, we have monsters that are actually scary. You have to keep a Game of Thrones level of attachment to these characters too. You experience the coming doom from a variety of perspectives and cities and countries even. I'm in love with this book. I want to time travel back to February and have it be my neurotic valentine.

This book was a solid four stars. A very impressive debut with an interesting plot, I found it maybe a little light on action 'under the cloud' but hopefully volume two will remedy that and I look forward to reading it. The characters are all believable with flaws and weaknesses and there is definitely promise for the rest of the series.