I really enjoyed this book, but it took some time for me to get into it. The 20% mark is when I feel the story started to pick up and became genuinely immersive. Overall, I like the characters (not you Dan Taylor), and think the Nameless Things themselves are an interesting concept.
The narrator's enunciation is very clear, which is great, although the tone is a bit flat? Similarly to the book itself, I think the 20% mark is where this narrator starts to fit the vibe a bit more.
Thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for this audiobook!

Pursued by eldritch alien horrors, a man and his companions struggle to escape from a national park with their lives and sanity. I was never fully invested in the characters and the horror elements seemed derivative and histrionic to me. The character arc was decent, but the journey was trying too hard. I could have been wanting more than it meant to give so a lighter read might be satisfying.

Thank you to NetGalley for my copy. These opinions are my own.

I went into The Nameless Things intrigued by its premise, but unfortunately, I struggled to fully connect with the book. One of my biggest challenges was the audiobook narration—whether due to tone, pacing, or delivery, it made it harder for me to stay engaged with the story.

Beyond that, I found it difficult to connect with some of the characters, which made the emotional stakes feel less impactful. While the book had moments of intrigue and strong atmosphere, I often found myself disengaged, and finishing it became a bit of a struggle.

That said, I can see how the book might work better for others, especially in a different format. If you enjoy atmospheric storytelling and don’t mind a slower, more abstract approach to character development, this might be worth a read—but for me, it fell short of expectations.

As a long time avoider of the natural world and all of it's pitfalls and inherent dangers, Nameless Things is just another terrifying reason to add to my ever-growing pile of why one should never go camping. Mike is all in his feelings over a recent breakup with a longtime boyfriend, and for some reason decided to clear his head with a little nature in a camping trip with his longtime childhood friend, Wade. While hiking, they run into a family. Next thing you know, an meteor strikes nearby, they find terrifying worms, and the wife gets sick with a mysterious illness and dies. The father and son, an Australian couple, and Mike and Wade all try to make their way back down the trail to get help. But soon, they realize that the troubles in their campsite have spread much further than their little group, and with a ticking clock and fading daylight, man of that family is starting to look ill in a very familiar way.

Nameless Things was an entertaining horror. If you like Stephen King, Robert McCammon, Richard Matheson, I think you'd like this. It was giving a lot of Dreamcatcher vibes in the beginning, but definitely came into a story on its own as things progressed. The audio experience was also pretty good. I felt like the narrator would appeal to the target audience of this book; what I affectionately call midwestern dad horror. I could see listening to this one with my dad. And I also personally appreciated that the everyman main character, Mike, was also a gay man, which is rare in this genre.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It was a bit graphic at some times, scatological (sometimes quite literally) at others, but I'm certain those elements would a appeal to someone, and I don't think these moments were gratuitous. I'm certain I'll think about this book the next time someone mentions the idea of camping to me.

I received this audiobook arc from NetGalley. This book was decent. I don’t normally like stories of people trapped in the woods, but this one was better than most. It made me anxious to see what would happen, but I’m still left wondering by the ending just what the worms were. I did like the writing and would read more from this author.

I received an advance audiobook copy of Nameless Things by Ernest Jensen.

Creepy, disgusting, nightmare inducing.

This story was well written. It's categorized as a horror? Yep. Nailed it.

I enjoyed the narrator and the narration was well done.

This is supposed to be a work of horror about an infestation of lethal worms that appear to have arrived on a meteor. It sounded promising, but the execution was lacking.

In a post-apocalyptic or disaster work, it is so important to have characters that you can connect with, root for, and that you'll be sitting on the edge of your seat hoping they survive. But there was zero development or depth to these characters. They weren't likeable, but weren't written to be unlikeable, and they were painfully flat. The group of characters were all men save for one woman, and it was impossible to remember who was who. The dog was the only character that I cared about, and it had very little page time.

Without strong characters, a book has to have something else to support it - a strong plot, interesting setting and descriptions, or even vibrant writing. But this book was also lacking all of these things. The author told us everything, from emotions to actions, to the point where everything was bland. There were also errors throughout the writing, including accidental tense changes. The author also chose to start new chapters in the middle of scenes quite often, which added nothing to the tension but became frustrating.

I can't recommend this book to anyone, though if you are going to read it, the audiobook narrator was good. My thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for allowing me to read this work, which will be published March 11, 2025. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Here's what I liked about Nameless Things: The imagery, especially when Dan has a worm coming out of his face. That was super gross and had me completely disgusted. As a big fan of Nick Cutter, I enjoyed the comparison and could see why his name was used in marketing this book. I also liked that the dog and kid survived.

That said, I'm not a huge fan of the way Ernest Jensen writes. He seemed to get hung up on certain phrases, like when he's talking about that one guy's beard and calling it facial foliage multiple times. The narrator was speaking as if he was writing down his story for people to read later. Not normal past tense, but like he'd already lived past this and was recounting everything to a friend. Then we get to the end and find out that it's basically the end of the world, so why was it written like that? It really seemed like he was recounting the events to someone, but with everyone else facing imminent doom... No one else is around to talk to him. Except the dog and the kid who already lived through it.

This was a pretty good horror! I always enjoy listening to horror, it just makes it a little easier to visualise some of the scenes and this book was no exception.

Although I feel like the narrator did a great job, I somehow didn’t feel like his voice suited the character very well. The tone of Mike, the stuff he says and his general attitude just didn’t seem to match with calm, mature voice.

I really loved all the characters. Mike was a great mc and besides Dan and Bill I really loved all the side characters too.

The plot overall is really gripping and interesting. There’s a lot of blood and gore and the type of tension you’d expect from the genre!

The cover is the best thing about Nameless Things by Ernest Jensen. Space worms causing havoc and horror could make a great B-Movie. Unfortunately the narrator was a miss for me and this was a struggle to finish. I wasn’t able to connect with any of the characters and I just wanted it to end ASAP. ALC was provided by Dreamscape Media via NetGalley. I received an advance listening copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Nameless Things by Ernest Jensen
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
This is an entertaining cosmic/supernatural psychological-horror story.
A group of several different campers find themselves trapped when they encounter a rockslide from a meteorite. Not only are all of these people trapped, but they have something even worse to deal with in the dirt below. Worm like creatures are coming up from the ground are killing people in horrific and painful ways. The story continues on with characters trying to stay away from these Nameless Things, plus find a way out. The storyline is creepy, super intense and has lots of excitement! I think overall it’s a well written story.

Will anyone make it out of the park alive?

Thank you to NetGalley for an audio arc of this awesome book. The narrator did a very good job!
🪱*This book comes out March 25th*🪱

A meteorite strike in a beautiful National Park. While enjoying some away time friends Mike and Wade bump into a family of three.  Everything appears okay at first then one of the campers dies. Worms seem to hsve been made psychotic from the metorite. Bodies begin to accumulate as the campers struggle to stay alive. Very fun, fast paced horror.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media for the ALC.

If you enjoy classic pulp horror teeming with tropes and clichés, then this book or audiobook is for you. Ernest Jensen clearly knows the horror genre: mutating worms that infest people's bodies, dead bodies doing unexpected acts, people getting lost in the woods, and more, but I will leave that for you to discover. The mutating worms are "nameless things" that the main character and sub-characters try to understand, In my opinion, the characters needed more development, and the narrative would have benefitted from additional description. The narrative told the reader/listener what happened, instead of showing the reader/listener what happened.

I appreciate Tim Lounibos's effort. I did not connect well to the narration; it felt more like a news broadcaster than a horror narrator. I will still give Lounibos's narration another try with a different book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook.

A very solid horror!
I flew through this one pretty quickly, I had to know what happened!
Let’s go camping, oh wait? A meteor? And then the body horror.
This was definitely creepy, but didn’t really make me feel yuck, that probably says more about me than anything else, but still, very much enjoyed. Especially the ending!

I listened to the audio of this, and the narrator did a fantastic job.

Thankyou to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

This book is horror candy. If you enjoy that classic pulp horror, horror for horror's sake, this one’s for you. Nameless Things reminds me of those wickedly delectable vintage horror books that you discover in your favorite used bookstore, printed in small paperback format. The horror elements in this book include body, alien, backwoods horror, and possession. I suppose I can understand the comparisons to Nick Cutter, although to me this book presented a slightly different vibe.

Personally, I love the mutant worm angle, it was creepy and campy in the best way possible. Also dead bodies doing creepy things, and not just the current trend of being zombies, added to the terror in that vintage/campy horror sort of style. …and oh boy, hold on for the ending.

The dark humor was a pleasant surprise and so perfectly subtle that you could almost miss it -- I mean, having the characters huddled together eating stringy ramen noodles in the midst of a mutant worm infestation was diabolical.

The book I was sent to review was the audio book version, but I found myself wishing I could switch to reading with my eyeballs. To be honest, the narrator's voice was a bit out of place for this content-- I feel like his vocal cadence would fit in well with historical nonfiction, or even as a professional announcer? But for this story it came off as wooden and awkward. I felt bad for him having to attempt Australian and English accents; both ended up really rough around the edges… and hey, there is no way I could approximate an Australian or English accent either, but frankly it was enough to be distracting from the story.

All that said, I would recommend this book to classic/campy horror fans, think a slightly less outrageous David Sodergren… with the caveat that you should go for a print version of this book. And know that you are signing up for pure horror — there will be no morals or teachable moments (I am okay with that).

Thank you NetGalley, Ernest Jensen, and Dreamscape Media for sending me this audiobook. All opinions are my own.

This was such a creepy story, the type that stays in your mind. I seriously couldn't put it down. Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and Dreamscape Media for this ARC.
#NamelessThings #NetGalley

⭐️⭐️ | A Promising Premise That Didn’t Work for Me

I genuinely don’t like to write reviews that may be seen as negative, but as an ARC reader, I will always give my honest opinion. Unfortunately, I struggled with this book, particularly as an audiobook. The narration felt lacking, and if I’d had an e-copy or physical copy, I likely would have switched formats.

Beyond the narration, the lack of character development made it difficult for me to connect with the story. While the premise was intriguing and had the potential for a gripping survival horror, the execution fell flat for me. The writing style felt generic, and I never truly felt invested in the characters or their fates.

That said, reading is highly subjective. Just because this one didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it won’t be the perfect read for someone else. If the premise interests you, it may still be worth a try—but for me, it ultimately missed the mark.

Thank you, NetGalley & Dreamscape Media, for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.

Nameless Things by Ernest Jensen is an interesting mix of body horror, cosmic horror, and a struggle to survive. While this did end up falling a little flat for me, it really did have potential. I feel like the writing style was too lacking the imagery and details to really immersed myself in the story. Instead of experiencing the horror and being able to imagine it, it felt like it someone gave me a quick, basic description without much detail. That made it hard to connect with the characters and really experience the horror. But I think the premise was promising and I loved some of the twists. The audiobook had wonderful narration that definitely helped with feeling more emotion in the story.

Thank you to the publishers and netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the audio version. I was looking forward to a horror end of the world or virus take over type book. But this was just a DNF. I was not clicking with any of the characters. It is just very very slow. Not much is happening and I didn't really like the narrator. He sounded to AI for me. Just a hard pass.

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.
The narration was absolutely delightful. I loved how well I could feel each characters disdain, hope, dread, anger, etc. all throughout through his tone.