Release Date: August 11, 2016
In Eaters: Michel’s Blog (A Horror Comedy Novella) by Mattie Jay Cormier, after living away for several years working as a professional writer, Michel returns to his hometown to face the ghosts of his past. It won’t only be an ex-girlfriend or a strung-out old friend he’ll face. Michel’s hometown has suffered a recent outbreak of centipede-like creatures known as Eaters. As Michel and his small band of compatriots struggle to survive will they succeed or will they be eaten?
The idea behind Eaters is amazingly chilling. People will run screaming from bees or claim that they only option is to burn the house down when a spider is spotted, but the bug that is really hated, the bug that really makes our skin crawl is the centipede. A centipede the size of a dog is truly the stuff of which nightmares are made. That they ooze toxic slime that erodes and infects humans is just the horrific icing on the cake made of human organs. Cormier takes a campy approach to the event that is reminiscent of such great horror movies as Shaun of the Dead and the recently reviewed Doghouse.
The piece is a blog format and the narrative style is an of the moment ramble. There are a lot of spelling and grammatical errors that at first seemed intentional given that we are reading a blog post until the author introduced his main character as a professional writer whose contract had ended. The errors mostly read as spell check level mistakes. As an example, “disbelieve” was substituted many times in place of “disbelief.” A standout example appears at Location 942 in the Kindle Edition in the phrase, “… I asked in udder disbelieve.”
Cormier introduces a number of central casting characters in the course of Eaters, among others, the childhood bully and the one who got away. Instead of leaving them in central casting as would likely have been tempting in a 75-page piece, the author chooses to round them out with select details. Michel is re-meeting his home base and introducing them to us in the fast pace of a horror storyline, which allows leeway. In this format, we’re only going to know what Michel knows.
So does Eaters qualify as a great Halloween read? It is horrifying but funny in places while also managing a little raunchiness that doesn’t go overboard. It has a sense of urgency and Cormier is clever in the way he treats the outbreak. Not everyone sees it as a bad thing but not everyone will survive. If you’re looking for an interesting quick read and can overlook the spelling and grammatical errors (which are plentiful), this may be the horror read for you. If faced with zombies or bugs, I know which way I’d turn. What would you choose?
If this sounds like a book for you, read on excerpt and buy Eaters: Michel’s Blog (A Horror Comedy Novella) by Mattie Jay Cormier on
Amazon U.S. Amazon U.K. Amazon CA