isabellesbooks's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
My cosmic horror baby of 2023 🥰 I absolutely LOVED this book and soaked up every second. It was a book review titled “buckle up, motherfuckers” on Audible that really got me here. I sent it to my dad while it was on sale and asked “does this look epic or what?”Â
His simple response was “yes” with a screenshot of his purchase receipt. He is just a few hours behind me in the audiobook. I can’t wait for our father-daughter-what-the-hell-just-happened book club.Â
His simple response was “yes” with a screenshot of his purchase receipt. He is just a few hours behind me in the audiobook. I can’t wait for our father-daughter-what-the-hell-just-happened book club.Â
terriblereaper's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
ambermarshall's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
I didn't want to stop reading it. Every time I had to put it down to do something else I got annoyed. I got annoyed when I turned my Kindle on and it took goddamn ten minutes to actually load it (after downloading it again WTF how many times do I have to download this thing, Amazon?) I loved Rx (I reread it every so often) and loved his writing on Cracked and love his 1-900-Hotdog stuff and I loved this too. His writing is compelling and appealing and his characters are human and sympathetic and the situations they're in are tense and vividly rendered and made me for-real anxious. There is gore and body horror and peril so well and thoroughly described that I've seen reviewers complain about it like it's a movie they don't want their kids to see. You like the characters, you hate the characters, you hold your breath while characters try and fail and succeed at escaping danger. If you like the storytelling style of World War Z and like zombie survival horror with a twist (no undead here, not exactly) and cosmic horror, read this. If you get nervous at us sending signals out to the unknown depths of space and worry about what might answer (especially if you suspect that's why we're not getting signals from elsewhere, that any extraterrestrial life out there refrains from sending signals out for a reason) read this. Just read this, if you hate it you can come back and yell at me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, and Death
Minor: Suicide and Torture
namulith's review
1.0
The book was meh. Overall I didn't like it. It takes a very long time to pick up some pace and even then I didn't quite care. I strongly disliked the ending. Of course that's personal preference. I'm a fan of r/HFY because it feels every SF book is the opposite and I am so tired of that.
jeffd's review
4.0
This is one of the few times I can actually say I had difficulty putting a book down. The story is an interesting spin on cosmic horror lightly seasoned with zombie/contagion tropes, which winds up being more interesting than the sum of those parts might make you think. The world and characters are well-developed and the dialogue in particular is fantastic. However, the real treat is Brockway's wonderful experiment in using tone, tense, and POV as fluid variables to be played with in every new chapter. Though that may sound jarring, it's executed masterfully, and was one of the reasons I chewed through this book in record time.
The only major flaw is that the book occasionally stumbles off course to dabble in B-movie splatterfilm dreck. Rather than summoning up the disgust or terror that Brockway was aiming for, it instead causes cringing and eyerolls until the plot is mercifully allowed to resume course. In particular, the handful of scenes where children are mutilated and/or murdered in extreme, graphic detail is the sort of edgelord fluff that a good editor would scrap and a better storyteller wouldn't have to lean on to try and evoke emotion in their readers.
Despite that one glaring flaw, this book still has enough bonus points in the bank to sail through with an easy 4/5. However, I can't help but feel that there was a real missed opportunity here: if it weren't for the unfortunate and unnecessary forays into splatter-flick-with-$100-budget territory, Brockway's otherwise excellent grasp of writing technique would have made this novel a safe inclusion in any creative writing course's reading list. Rather than adding anything of value, the ultra-violent scenes will instead cause many potential readers to pass this book up completely, which is a damn shame and likely why it has a middling 150 ratings despite being published more than a year ago.
Overall, Carrier Wave is a good novel. Sadly, the occasional blocks of text that read like Cannibal Corpse lyrics will forever prevent it from being a great one.
The only major flaw is that the book occasionally stumbles off course to dabble in B-movie splatterfilm dreck. Rather than summoning up the disgust or terror that Brockway was aiming for, it instead causes cringing and eyerolls until the plot is mercifully allowed to resume course. In particular, the handful of scenes where children are mutilated and/or murdered in extreme, graphic detail is the sort of edgelord fluff that a good editor would scrap and a better storyteller wouldn't have to lean on to try and evoke emotion in their readers.
Despite that one glaring flaw, this book still has enough bonus points in the bank to sail through with an easy 4/5. However, I can't help but feel that there was a real missed opportunity here: if it weren't for the unfortunate and unnecessary forays into splatter-flick-with-$100-budget territory, Brockway's otherwise excellent grasp of writing technique would have made this novel a safe inclusion in any creative writing course's reading list. Rather than adding anything of value, the ultra-violent scenes will instead cause many potential readers to pass this book up completely, which is a damn shame and likely why it has a middling 150 ratings despite being published more than a year ago.
Overall, Carrier Wave is a good novel. Sadly, the occasional blocks of text that read like Cannibal Corpse lyrics will forever prevent it from being a great one.
shawnwhy's review
4.0
this is quite good, the ideas are really interesting and terrifying at times. Its scarier version of the punkrock evil angels series. I really wish that it had some of the wits and humor of which Brockway is know for though. Its truly scary
danlovejoy's review
2.0
On and on and on and on - a series of extraordinarily violent short stories set in the same pretty interesting apocalypse. He sets up characters, takes them through WAY too much detailed horror and agony, then mostly kills them. So while each vignette is filled with violent action, the overall pace of the story woven through the vignettes is glacial.
I wish I could have gotten to the end, because the premise was fascinating. DNF.
I wish I could have gotten to the end, because the premise was fascinating. DNF.
madarauchiha's review
0.25
✨🌠my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara 🌠✨
Nine pages in and we got five total homophobic f slurs straight off the bat. nah fuck this author and everyone who recs him. You get what you pirate for from a fucking cracked dot com employee, I guess.
Nine pages in and we got five total homophobic f slurs straight off the bat. nah fuck this author and everyone who recs him. You get what you pirate for from a fucking cracked dot com employee, I guess.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia