How would I describe this book?
Tremors meets Nick Cutter's the Troop

This book wastes no time getting to the action and the adrenalin filled nightmare of a survival story keeps a fast pace until the very end and I loved (almost) every moment of it. The vivid imagery of the worms will haunt me, probably forever- I'm getting heebie jeebies as I sit here writing this. There were plenty of times where I was so stressed out/worried about the characters that I found myself literally on the edge of my seat. I found myself flying through the pages.

There was so much I loved about this book:
- Isolated woods location/ camping combined with a creature horror. Two of my favorite horror genres in one book.
- The pacing was fantastic- there were no lulls or bits that felt padded out
- The main character, Mike. I loved him he was funny and he felt very real. His inner monologue and processing of the trauma and grief of the situation was perfection.
- I liked most of the secondary characters
- The Tremors vibes- one of my all time favorite movies

Things I didn't love:
- Mike kept mentioning how he'd read a phrase/feeling in a book and never understood it until now. That was fun the first time, the third not so much.
- I felt like we didn't get enough character development for Wade who was the MCs friend.
- Mike and Wade were supposed to be American and yet they said some very non-american things. and their lack of knowledge about some of the Brit/Aussie slang was pretty unbelievable.
-There were quite a few bits of repetition of thoughts/facts
-There was a very long and unnecessary poop scene in this book- This was just gross and honestly added NOTHING to the story.

With a few small changes this book would easily be a 4 star read for me- despite my complaints this is probably one of my favorite creature horrors I've ever read.

I am just not feeling this one. I can’t get into the characters or the way the story is told. It’s not capturing my attention after multiple tries, so it’s a DNF.

I do want to thank NetGalley and Rising Action for the eARC. All opinions are mine.

Mike and his friend Wade are hiking in the Devil's Cup State Park, Colorado. Suddenly, a meteor strike and they become trapped in the ancient volcanic caldera. They encounter other trekkers and they realised that the meteor brought some flesh eating worms that infested the ground.

You should pick Nameless Things by Ernest Jensen if :
* you like body horror that left you uneasy;
* you like post-apocalyptic scenario where caracters needs to travel to safer ground;
* you like short stories with a fast pace and not a lot of in depth descriptions of caracters/environment.

I personnally taught that it was a lot of repetitions troughout the story, the majority of the plotline happened quickly and after that it is somewhat the same thing until the end. I read it quickly because I wanted to know if there was more to it at the end and I was disappointed.

⭐️⭐️

Nameless Things is a fast paced survival horror following a group of hikers in the woods, when a meteor strikes and releases an infestation of predatory worms.

While the premise sounds good, it fell short for me. Nameless Things gives off Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher vibes right from the beginning with a mix of Tremors. Unfortunately for me, that connection was all I could think about when reading and I felt there were just too many plot holes.

I know there is a specific audience who will love this. However, Nameless Things just wasn’t for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rising Action Publishing for this ARC. This is an honest review.

I received this book in exchange for a honest review from NetGalley.

I liked this book. It was pretty good for a debut book. It was mysterious, scary, suspenseful, and disgusting. As someone who loves body horror this book pays off but where it falls short is in the continuity and rhythm of the plot line and the abruptness of the ending.

Along with the general fear of unknown creatures, Nameless Things brings with it the type of body horror that can only be found in parasitic infestations. When nothing and no one is safe, and the only hope revolves around escaping the confines of the surroundings you are trapped in only to discover that isn't going to be easy or perhaps not even possible, and the fear isn't the only thing eating people alive. After finishing this book I don't think I'll be camping any time soon.

Thank to and the publisher for the copy. Unfortunately I was unable to finish the story. I was excited to read Nameless Things, as it sounded intriguing. A pair of hikers end up trapped in a state park after a meteor strike causes a rock slide. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, but unfortunately they discover flesh-piercing worms in the ground. I did not have any interest in the characters and it felt very similar to a Nick Cutter novel.

This one didn't work for me. The plot wasn't well paced, the characters had no appeal, and the language was awkward. Forced myself to finish but it was a challenge.

Nameless Things
Ernest Jensen

A novel that feels like watching a fun horror movie from the 80's.
It's serving Tremors, a la Nick Cutter.
I enjoyed reading it physically more then the audiobook. I found the narrators voice to be an odd choice for the story, but that might just be a me-thing.

3.75 / 5

As an avid outdoors woman. I am now absolutely terrified to head up to the mountains this summer…. Thanks Ernest Jensen 😅

This is a perfect horror that I am looking for with the right amount of body horror. I was terrified the entire time but could not put the book down.

The scenes in this book were so graphic that I could see them all in head. It was like watching a horror movie in my head.

The main character was kind of a jerk, definitely to Josh but maybe that’s how he dealt with all this. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Genre: Horror
APK: Ebook
Pages: 291
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Series or Standalone: Stand-alone

Thank you rising action publishing for a free copy of Nameless Things for a honest review.

A survival horror mixed with cosmic horror and Tremors vibes. Held my interest throughout.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.

This book is like if that AMAZING movie Tremors and Nick Cutter's, The Troop, had a baby. I devoured this. This book is all things weird and disgusting and I cruised through this in one sitting. I love how we hit the ground running and didn't stop until the end. And that ending??? Immaculate. Anything that ends on an ambiguous note makes my little heart sing with joy.
The characters were all kind of thrown into this melting pot of horrors and it truly was survival of the fittest or smartest? Regardless, the survivors ENDURED SOME SHIT. The way those who didn't make it died in unique and disturbing ways.
I loved the setting for this read so much. I truly think stories set in the middle of nowhere woods are top tier because the possibilities of horrors are endless. And as someone who loves to go hiking and hopes to conjure some weird horrors, this book added more fun possibilities to my arsenal.

Nameless Things is a wilderness survival novel. It is a mix of Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher, The Thing, and Tremors. There are scenes in the novel that made my skin crawl. Unfortunately, I found the pacing to be a mixed bag. The novel starts off good with a literal bang which escalates to creepy-crawly horror. However, once the reader reaches 20% into the novel, pacing slows down and there is no tension. The characters should be fearful or anxious, racing to get back to civilization, instead they bicker. The main character is gay, it does not influence the overall plot or feel of the novel. The reader will find the author’s description of the characters as lazy. Instead of creating an image of what each character looks like, the author would simply write that a character looks like a specific actor. This is a fun novel I would recommend as a beach read or something to read while traveling.

🪱 ARC REVIEW 🪱

NAMELESS THINGS by Ernest Jensen
3/5 🌟
Pub date - Mar 11th

The concept for this book was really cool, but the characters' choices in this book were questionable at best. I'm also not sure if the main character was likeable, I was divided on him.

This book starts with our main character, Mike, going on a hiking trip with his buddy. They see a meteor hit, and hell follows.

Please read if you like the following:

🪱Survival situations with strangers relying on each other
🪱 The movie "THE THING"
🪱 Rock climbing
🪱 Alien worms

Thank you Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for this ARC

It started out giving me a Tremors vibe. I kept that the entire way through. There were several grammatical errors, with only a few that made me take pause and backtrack to figure out something. I did feel a lot of repetition reading this. I feel this was a great first effort into the horror genre for this author, but for me, it lacked. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't fantastic either. I also feel this is probably more sci-fy/dystopian, rather than horror.

Nameless Things is a mix of survival horror, body horror, and maybe creature horror. Set in the wilderness, we follow a mix of characters as they fight to survive against an alien foe, not to mention hunger and thirst.

The book is fast-faced and filled with tension and dread. There's a sense of panic and fear in the characters and the scenes. As a reader, I was caught up in the confusion and fear felt by the characters - the sudden shift into the unknown and the terror of facing something alien and deadly.

I was happy to see a gay protagonist in a horror like this, but he needed better characterisation. There's nothing, apart from being told he broke up with his boyfriend, to let the reader know he is gay. I'm not asking for cliche or stereotypes, but maybe something that would make him distinct from his friend in the book. But I feel this book may be focusing more on the action and the fear, on the character movement and the struggle for survival. In that way, it gives the story a more movie-like feel, where the visual is more important than building the story.

But overall, I enjoyed this horror. It's a quick read. It's tense. There are edge of the seat moments. I think it achieves that it sets out do to.

Eh..... Just read The Troop by Nick Cutter.

While I understand what Jensen aimed for, it was just mid at best.

I didn't find this interesting, shocking or scary at all.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Nameless Things by Ernest Jensen (AKA Louise Jensen Duffy) took a very interesting premise, and muddied the waters with an incredibly dumb and unlikable main character, too much inner monologue of this main character, and the chapter progression of a goosebumps book. It felt like 20% of the chapters ended in “and that’s when he/she fell”. I was really looking forward to this one, as the description and even the title was a banger for me.

Unfortunately, by the halfway point of this book I started skimming for dialogue and key actions. The amount of times I had to read “I felt terrible when I woke up after sleeping on hard rock” said in 100 different ways; the amount of times the MC just “could not right now” and demonstrated less composure than a small child; the fact that the author made the decision to go on for 2-3 pages about how heavenly the coffee was that the MC finally got to drink… I almost DNF’d this book and wouldn’t blame anyone for doing so.

Rating: 2/5 stars.

I want to thank NetGalley and Rising Action Publishing for sending me a free advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rising Action Publishing for this ARC.

Mike and his best friend Wade decide to go on a hiking trip in the caldera of Devil's Cup State Park in Ernest Jensen's first foray into horror novels with "Nameless Things:,. When a meteor crashes into the park, it sets off a landslide blocking the only trail exit out of the caldera, and, unfortunately for all the hikers inside the park, the meteor either had some alien hitchhikers or the ability to alter Earth organisms into a deadly, creeping horror.

I was initially hooked, but over time, the story just seemed incredibly repetitive. The story would make an absolutely stellar short story or 150-180 page novella, but as a novel, it falls flat, despite being a quick and easy read. The characters don't really stand out and seem like simple body fodder to add a dash of terror into what is mostly a monotonous loop of walk in one direction, get stuck, someone dies, head in another direction, and repeat ad nauseum. Again, a really tight editing into something half the length (or less) would seemingly solve this almost unnecessary repetition.

As others have noted, the language is also quite a mishmash with the American protagonist often falling into using Anglo-English expressions (torches vs flashlights being the most common). I will disagree with many of the other reviews, though, in that I see this story as much more reminiscent of Scott Smith's "The Ruins" or Stephen King's short story "Beachworld" than the movie "Tremors" (although I think a case might be made for the cult classic movie "Squirm" if you need to have a worm reference). Sadly, my hopes for the character development that made "The Ruins" so satisfying, did not pan out here in "Nameless Things". The one most positive element I will say, is that if you do push yourself through to the end, there is a great finale. It just really would have been so much better about 150 pages sooner.

A meteor strike triggers a landslide, blocking the trails leading into a volcanic caldera and trapping everyone who was hiking in the park at the time...but that's just the beginning. This is an entertaining creature feature that explores what might happen when a bunch of strangers are isolated with an unknown threat and limited supplies. I did find myself losing track of which characters were still alive (the numerous dream sequences didn't help with that.)