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

OK... SO for the most part I really enjoyed this audiobook... BUT it was kind of choppy. Kid went missing... then just appeared.???

Scary things in the woods...... very typical 80's horror... BUT in a good way-- some original thoughts- BUT it just seemed to be missing -something-

Ending kinda bad...... Still all in all I give it a solid 3.5 BUT voted down.

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Ernest Jensen, and Dreamscape Media for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

Eager to find new authors that I can enjoy, I turned to this chilling story by Ernest Jensen. A group of campers are enjoying some time in nature, when things take a turn after a meteorite siting. One camper seems to be infested by something and soon dies, but the entity that emerges is anything but expected, or welcomed. Soon, additional events tied to this discovery cause more havoc and the bodies pile up. What is this being and how is it being controlled? What began as a camping trip has morphed into something chilling and horrifying! Jensen pens a great debut novel that has me checking myself every moment as I read.

Needing a distraction, Mike and his best friend, Wade, make their way to a small state park in Colorado. It’s quiet, beautiful, and full of nature. However, things soon a take a turn after a meteorite flashes across the sky. When other campers arrive to announce that falling debris has trapped them inside Devil’s Cup Park, a slight concern bubbles amongst them. The larger group will make things all the more adventurous.

If that were the only issue, no one should be complaining. However, from a family of three, the mother soon returns shrieking that something penetrated her skin and is now inside her. Everyone thinks this is some drug-induced hallucination, but when some worm emerges from her and she turns up dead, others begin to take notice. It would seem more of these worm-like beings flee her bod, there is no rationale for this. Mike and Wade panic, as do the others who seek to solve this problem in short order.

Trying to keep their cool and find an answer, Mike tries leading the group towards safety. Someone ought to have sent the memo to these worms, as they keep appearing and target more campers. More bodies emerge and no one can explain it, but the need to flee the death becomes a top priority. The worms seem to multiply, leaving everyone wondering from where they might be coming. Mike must sacrifice everything in order to save himself, and others, from these nameless things! Jensen comes on the scene with a great debut novel!

I do enjoy thriller and horror novels, particularly when I feel my blood pumping. Ernest Jensen does well with this debut novel, sprinkling darkness within this great story of determination. The narrative delivers a powerful foundation while keeping the reader on edge as they cannot predict what awaits them. There are some hokey moments, but these are diluted with the knowledge of this being a debut novel. The momentum increases as the mystery grows and confusion sets in, which is a positive for Jensen. Characters deliver their flavouring to the larger story and keep the reader to connect with those they impress. Plot twists help shape things and provides that horror-creating sentiment, leaving the reader to grip for anything as they wonder what is about to happen and who might survive the terror that emerges from the lurking shadows. For a debut horror novel, Jensen does well. I am interested to see what else he might have in store for readers in his next book, whenever that might be.

Kudos, Mr. Jensen, for a great first attempt at writing in the genre!

Nameless Things played on several classic horror tropes and the references were fun to spot throughout the book. This was a fast paced adventure and the book moved through the plot quickly. Despite these qualities, this book was not my favorite. The characters were not developed at all. This caused the book to have very low stakes for me. Because I didn't really know any of the characters, there was no emotional impact when they were in danger. The diverse cast of characters felt like caricatures of people with no depth and the dialogue felt awkward.

The audiobook was well-produced and the sound quality was great, but the narrator was not my favorite for this book. Despite Tim Lounlbos' easy to understand voice I felt the narrator did not fit the characters and the tense story. The narrator felt like I was listening to a news anchor instead of a horror suspense book.

Overall, this was not my favorite horror Audiobook but I would love to see what this author does in the future!

a perfectly pulpy story about one of my worst fears - bugs that get inside you somehow. it had a lot of clichés and a lot of tropes, but in a book like this you kind of come to expect and welcome them. i could have done with less "heehee this word means something different to americans" because when you try to get me to believe a middle aged american gay man doesn't know what bollocks are, i am raising my eyebrows in disbelief. but OTHER THAN THAT, IT it was fun! it's certainly giving tremors but like, turned more toward body horror.

don't read if you want answers to why what is happening is happening, tho. we don't look too closely at the science of it all.

also, i definitely recommend reading the book over listening to the audiobook. the narrator was fighting for his life trying to do an australian and a british person having a conversation 😭

I listened to this on in audio format, which may not have been the best. I don’t feel the narrator’s voice really fit (in my mind) the voice of the protagonist. It was too rough. The narrator also didn’t completely nail the accents either. So..
BUT the story was a heck of a lot of fun, and gross. Getting stranded in the woods after a meteorite hits earth= scary. Finding out there are now gross worms invading the earth and eating people= terrifying. Watching all the characters die, one by one= horrifying. There is so much for horror lovers to enjoy in this book!
Something bad happens in every chapter. It’s a nonstop race to find help and outrun death. Food and water are scarce, so it’s a countdown on what will kill them first. There are so many real life human fears in this book, if you have any phobias it might get to you. lol. It all just a quick moving build up of terror, with no hope. A real pick me up story, lol.

🎧 Nameless Things by Ernest Jensen
Narrated by: Tim Lounibos
⭐ Overall Rating: 3/5

📖 Quick Summary:
Two friends set out on a hike when a meteorite crashes nearby, leaving them and others stranded, cut off from civilization. But they soon realize they aren’t as alone as they first thought. As tensions rise and survival becomes more uncertain, they must navigate both the wilderness and the unknown threat lurking within it.

💭 What I Liked:
✔️ Fast-paced survival story with a unique monster.
✔️ The final paragraph was particularly strong.

🤔 What Didn’t Work for Me:
Limited character development. While we get some biographical details, the characters never feel fully fleshed out.
Heavy on telling rather than showing, which made certain moments feel less immersive.

🎙️ Narration & Audio Performance:
I’ll be honest—I struggled with the narration at first. It took me about an hour to adjust, and even then, it never fully clicked for me. My biggest issue was the delivery—every sentence seemed to carry an inflection of annoyance or anger, which made it difficult to connect with the characters or the atmosphere of the story.

📖 If You Liked...
Hunted by Darcy Coates
The Troop by Nick Cutter
The Ruins by Scott Smith
Under the Surface by Diana Urban (stranded in the Paris Catacombs instead of a forest)

💬 Final Thoughts:
While Nameless Things doesn’t break new ground, it delivers a solid, entertaining horror read with an intriguing premise. If you enjoy fast-paced, popcorn horror, this is a fun pick. However, if you’re looking for deep character development or emotional investment, you may find it lacking.

This was a very perplexing book for me. Nameless Things follows the main character Mike, who has agreed to go camping with his friend in the aftermath of a painful break up. While camping, a meteor hits the park they're in and deposits stringy white worms into the soil. These worms end up causing all sorts of chaos for Mike and some fellow campers, which leads them to trying to escape the (national?state? - I can't remember) park where they're camping/hiking.

Over all, the pacing of the book was really what made this something I could get through. There were high stakes moments throughout the book and it felt like there was very little downtime, which made it easy to race through because you were always wanting to find out what happened next. The story itself was decent and the characters, while not as thoroughly fleshed out as they could be all seemed to be at least a little thought out.

The biggest problem I had was that there were just places in the book where I thought the writing fell a little flat. That and the narrator (I listened to the audio) wasn't my favorite. Eventually he grew on me and by the end of the book I didn't mind, but he felt out of place for the first part of the book.

Over all I give this one 3 stars. It's not something I'd ever read again but I'd definitely give this author another try and I'd recommend this one to certain readers - horror lovers, especially body horror or cosmic horror.

Thanks NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

if you’re looking for an easy horror read, this is great. i personally like horror that has something to say about the world we live in. i heard it was about killer worms, and was excited maybe some eco-horror or a bit of ‘nature fights back’ but this isn’t that type of story.

i did enjoy seeing how the characters reacted to their situation. i think the true horror of this story is being stuck with strangers and having to survive when the only person who truly has your back is you. dan is especially bad, he didn’t even have his kid’s back. that said, the characterisation of the characters fell as bit flat so i didn’t care when bad things happened to him.

i listened to the audiobook and the emotion conveyed by the narrator was good, but the australian accents almost made me dnf. whenever pete spoke, he sounded like brand-shei from skyrim. i kept waiting for him the other characters ask if they needed wares from morrowind.

the eerie tone and humour lacing the story were good and kept me engaged.

This was a wild ride that masterfully blends horror and humor in equal measure. Ernest Jensen’s use of body horror is deeply unsettling yet brilliantly offset by sharp, laugh out loud wit. The book evoked the same thrilling, creature feature vibe as the 1990's film Tremors, a comparison I make with the highest praise.

While some sections felt a bit repetitive and meandered at times, the journey was well worth it. The twist ending completely caught me off guard and was an absolute delight!

I would rate this as 3.5 Stars but I will round up to 4 Stars on platforms that do not provide the half star option. Thank you for the opportunity to listen to this Audio ARC!

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me listen to this audiobook. I would recommend listening to the audio instead of reading print because it was an engaging performance.
The story itself was a lot of fun, heavy on body horror and wilderness horror. A group of people in the wilderness encounter deadly worms after a meteor and face a struggle to survive. I do wish there was more description of their personalities and of the action, but the story was interesting and fun and I didn't want to stop.

READ IT IF YOU'RE INTEREST IN
- Survival/wilderness horror
- Camping/hiking
- This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer
- Debut novels
- Body horror
- Cosmic horror
- Friendship trips
- Fast paced

TW: body horror, death, gore, gun violence, animal death, blood, excrement, grief, murder, injury detail

BRIEF REVIEW
This story had real potential and still was an enjoyable read but I wouldn't read it again. None of the characters grabbed me and it could have been more atmospheric to make it scarier. There could have been way more description done of the creatures and the kills.

Nameless Things by Ernest Jensen narrated by Tim Lounibos was a disgustingly fun romp through the woods of Colorado! Without spoiling too much, I'd say this book is if Tremors, The Thing, and....maybe a Blair Witch/The Faculty hybrid.
I listened to this book, all in an afternoon--had to know where this was going. Easily accessible horror with sci-fi elements, with some great, albeit short, body horror scenes. I will say, I did keep mixing the characters up with each other--I think at a point, we'd just added too many hikers to this group--and I just cared far less about most of the characters that came into the story a little later. Me: "Like, wait, who fell? Who the hell is that?" *rewind 3 times* Additionally, the characters' banter just didn't bring much to the story.
In terms of the audio, I thought it the quality was clear and crisp. I would say, I think with a different narrator, certain more tense parts of the book didn't quite land for me, as one might assume the prose. Not sure if it was an accent and/inflection thing, more than a just the monotonous tone. I think that works for some books, just not necessarily horror.
That said, still a very well-paced audiobook, that had me devouring it. Thank you so much for the chance to listen to this ARC :)

Wow this was FUCKED UP and i loved it. An utterly delicious horror laced with gore, aliens, and self-interested assholes. I loooooved how scary the progression of the story was, and my only real complaint is that the descriptions of the creatures at every stage wasn't a bit more descriptive so we could reeeeally see it. Anyway, good shit!!

rep: gay man mc, characters of color

spice: none

tw: gore, invasive species, necromancy, reanimated corpses, the ground is literally death, murder

This was such a good book. I loved the story and the writing so much. The characters were great and the story flowed smoothly. Will definitely read more books by this author in the future.

Nameless Things
Ernest Jensen

Felt like a fun horror movie from the 80's.
It's serving Tremors, a la Nick Cutter.
3.75 / 5

Well, this is a full on action packed story! It starts with the weird and just keeps on getting weirder..

Little tiny worms have invaded an area where some people are camping. The worms aren't you average type, these are some evil worms.

Its Worm-aggeden to the extreme! Also, I got a little nauseous with some of those scenes. I freaking loved it! Ha!

The narrator did a terrific job bringing the emotion to the story. Well done!

#NetGalley #NamelessThings

I truly wished I could justify a higher rating than this, but I can’t. I’m going to be as kind as I can without sacrificing honesty, and say that there’s probably an audience that will enjoy this book. Throughout, it felt very much like a B-movie-inspired creepypasta you’d read on Reddit, or hear narrated on Youtube in the case of the audiobook. If that had been what this was, I’d happily given it a like. As a novel though, (let alone one that’s being monetized), I can’t call it anything else than bad.

We follow our protagonist Mike on camping trip in Devil's Cup State Park, Colorado. When a meteor strikes and releases an infestation of predatory worm-like creatures in the lands around them, it kicks off a series of horrifying events. Mike must team up with several other campers in the area in order to survive this (possibly alien?) terror, and prevent it spread beyond the borders of the Park.

The story takes inspiration from classics like Tremors, The Troop and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but fumbles its execution in just about every way imaginable. In terms of quality of writing and storytelling, this feels like an unedited draft. Despite the overly simple single-plotline, the author still manages to leave in plotholes and unresolved threads. It’s tone feels very clumsy, as I was often unsure if the author was trying to make the protagonist seem cool or actually attempting at snarky humor… They also seriously undercut the moments that were supposed to be creepy. A phrase like “we all looked like we were run over by the exhaustion-express”, or a full paragraph where the protagonist refers to his iced coffee as “caffeination heaven” quickly breaks the little tension that it managed to establish.
Speaking of narrative tone and dialogue; the author drops the ball on almost all of the side-characters voices too. I didn’t know the authors nationality, but simply from the incredibly forced “American- and British slang” I could tell she was native to neither. Turns out, I was correct: she’s Australian living in Scotland. This clunkiness could’ve solved by an American editor reading over this manuscript just once. What couldn’t have been solved was the “Fellow-kids-level” of writing the kids and teens in this story. I’m not sure if that’s fixable at this point…

To add insult to injury, all the aforementioned problems are exaggerated by the audio-narrator. The whiny voice he uses for the kids-characters as well as the single female character (who dies very early on) are extremely off-putting, as are the attempts a stereotypical British accent.
Overall: extremely disappointing and a novel I cannot recommend in its current form. Although it might be fun enough to enjoyed for free as a creepypasta-like story for a quick horror-fix, I cannot justify paying any amount of money for this.

Many thanks regardless to Dreamscape Media and the author for providing me with an audio-ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

1,25 ??
I really wished I had enjoyed this book more, but I honestly never truly knew what was going on. I never really connected with the characters nor the writing style and the tone of the narrator certainly didn't help. It was very "action movie written for teenage boys" rather than "holy shit bio-hazard meteors???". I refuse to believe Mike is 30, I genuinely found him insufferable.
Listening to this audiobook kinda felt like watching those youtube "overview of (X Horror movie)" videos where everything is very sensational and they're giving you all the gory scenes, some names and hope they don't lose you on the ride. I got lost.
Towards the middle of the book I zoned out and literally missed a character's death which somehow did not change much to my understanding.

Thank you to the author and Netgalley for the ARC, I'm sorry to not have liked this book more :(.

🪱 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

First of all, this wasn't bad. It just didn't root for me. The story was fine but just kind of skated on the surface and didn't go any deeper. The writing was ok for a debut. I don't know, it just never gelled for me but was perfectly serviceable for entertaining me while I cleaned out the garage.