Audiobook: Subterrestrial by Michael McBride (Narrated by Joel Richards)

This had so much potential but was bogged down with a lot of unnecessary scientific and medical jargon!!

You know when you’re reading any legal document or scientific document, or even talking to an expert, and you think to yourself.. I wish they would dumb this down for me… well that’s what I felt here! I love a bit of science thrown in when needed, but to use big words just for the sake of it made me roll my eyes! When I read a creature feature, I want mindless fun, I want creatures, I want killing, I don’t want everything overly explained to me and I definitely don’t want to work for my entertainment!! Subterrestrial was a chore to get through!!

The plot also felt extremely choppy. It went from tunnel to tunnel, from person to person and from creature to creature with no rhyme or reason. There were so many times while I was reading when I went… WTF, I thought the creature was an ape?? How has it got scales now? It was when I was about halfway through that it finally dawned on me we were dealing with a few different things…. though apart from the ape, I’m still not 100% sure what other creatures there were!!

The characters weren’t that well developed. There were a lot of experts from different sections but I couldn’t tell you much about them. None of them stood out, and I didn’t really connect with any of them.

In all, Subterrestrial wasn’t for me. I was going to put it aside quite a few times, but I kept going. This hasn’t put me off this author’s work though, because I’ve read some of his others and thoroughly enjoyed them! I just think that he needs to remember that readers want entertainment, not an overly scientific explanation of everything! I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense, once it entertains me, I’m happy!!

Joel Richards read this well. He had plenty of tones and voices for the characters and I enjoyed his performance. He was able to hold my attention even when I wanted to drift off because I was bored.