‘The Smog’ – Brian O’Gorman (Floaty Ruler)


This will be a quick post today, mostly because of work but also… Well, you’ll see 😉

If you were frequenting these parts, around June last year, you would have seen me having the absolute best time reading Brian O’Gorman’s ‘Spiders’ trilogy (reviews Here, Here and Here), followed up by ‘The Water’, a horrifying piece of alien invasion/zombie fiction. And as quickly as that, I was a fan and looking out for anything else by O’Gorman. There are a few of his books that I still need to read but the one I had my eye open for was ‘The Smog’ and a couple of weeks ago, I was finally able to pop a copy onto my Kindle. Kindle reading is usually reserved for the bus ride home (as I have a habit of finishing my paperback read over lunch) and that’s just what I did with ‘The Smog’ over a couple of bus rides. Let me tell you about it.

Welcome to the town of Gorton. This is a town low on excitement and high on hard work and doing your bit for the community. Many people in Gorton work at Meadowland hospital or Ackland Chemicals, a building that is considered an eyesore by everyone who looks upon it. The residents of Gorton, including Ben Larson, a doctor who is working his last shift in A&E, Wendy Withers a carer for her husband who, since his car accident, has locked-in syndrome and Jane Rogers a lorry driver for Ackland who is revelling in the life that she’s built for herself, will soon fight for survival. An accident in the factory unleashes a deadly smog on the town. As the streets are engulfed in the toxic gas, the survivors try and find a way out. It soon becomes clear that there is something else in the smog, an even greater danger with yellow-striped bodies and buzzing wings…

‘The Smog’ ended up being another great read from Brian O’Gorman and one that I’d absolutely encourage you to go and read if you like ‘insect horror’. I will add the disclaimer though that I skimmed parts and read other bits through half closed eyes. I really hate wasps you see, to the point where the hair on my arms is standing up just writing about the little bastards. What O’Gorman does with those wasps creeped the absolute hell out of me (especially with those early moments with Wendy’s husband who hates wasps almost as much as I do) so there were large chunks of this book that I had real trouble reading, and that’s not a bad thing when you think about. Well played O’Gorman, well played… 😉

Add this to a decent thread of survival horror that runs throughout the plot (engaging characters trying to escape from a town choked in the Smog) and you’ve got a book that won’t let you stop and take a breath, although there are more than a few moments where you might find yourself holding your breath…

And if all that wasn’t enough for you, I loved the twist at the end and how it was employed. And that’s really all I can say about it as I don’t want to give anything away. What I will say is that it really makes you think about everything you’ve just read and what might happen next.

I don’t know if I’d read ‘The Smog’ again because I hate and fear wasps that much, seriously. If you fancy a neat little mix of body/insect/survival horror though, you really need to give it a read. Here’s the Amazon Link to get you started 😉

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Deathworlder’ – Victoria Hayward (Black Library)

Image
Before I get into the review proper, thank you Black Library for sending me a copy of ‘Deathworlder’ in return for a fair and honest review. Talking of ‘fair and honest’… There will be loads of the latter but I enjoyed the hell out of ‘Deathworlder’ so… We’ll see how being fair goes ;o) That’s your only warning, lets talk ‘Deathworlder’… Lazulai is a world beyond the brink, its battle against the tyranids all but lost. Once-magnificent cities lie in ruin. The seas boil. The skies crack. Horrific alien bioforms devour. In mere days the planet will be consumed. The 903rd Catachan ‘Night Shrikes’ defend one of the last fortresses still standing. Led by Major Wulf Khan, to die fighting is all that is expected of them… until she is given one last mission: to lead a squad through the apocalypse and recover a piece of archeotech that may doom or deliver the entire Lazulai System. Facing insurmountable odds and zero hope for aid, the major must hold her squad together as they pick their way ...
Read more

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

‘Cursed City’ – C.L. Werner (Black Library)

Image
I always have these vague ‘reading resolutions’, for the New Year and without fail, they all come to absolutely nothing. I still read loads, just none of the books that I meant to… This year is panning out slightly differently and I think I’m going to enjoy it. All the books that were originally ‘out of sight, out of mind’, in the loft at my old place, are now all over my new place and wherever I look, I’m constantly discovering books that I totally forgot I had but now quite fancy reading. Books like ‘Cursed City’ for example… I’m not going to tell you how long ‘Cursed City’ was sat in my loft, lets just say it was long enough for me to totally forget it was there and buy myself another copy… Oh well. I found it on the shelf the other day (only the one copy now) and figured it was way overdue a read, let me tell you about it… Ulfenkarn is a city of nightmares. Its vampiric rulers have indulged their bloodlust in every shadow-clad alley, turning the once-proud metropolis into a charnel...
Read more