Venom: A Sci-Fi Horror Novel

by Michael McBride

Some fates are worse than death.

When doctors volunteering in the remote jungles of Sierra Leone find a troop of dead baboons, they fear they’ve stumbled upon a virus capable of causing a catastrophic spillover event. By the time their desperate pleas for help reach CERF, a covert unit formed to combat biological nightmares, it’s already too late. Satellite images reveal bodies littering the streets of a nearby village…only no known pathogen is able to kill so quickly.

Thrust into leading an organization she barely understands, Dr. Dayna Raynes must coordinate an operation into the darkest heart of Africa to determine if they truly face a terrifying new disease…or something even worse. And the situation’s deteriorating by the second. With a monsoon hammering the region, the field team finds the village deserted, the bodies missing, and the deadliest predators they’ve ever encountered stalking them from the jungle.

Can they neutralize the threat before it breaks containment, or will they fall victim to creatures whose ferocious bites prove there are some fates worse than death?

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction

316 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 18, 2026

About the author

Michael McBride was born in Colorado and still resides in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. He hates the snow, but loves the Avalanche. He works with medical radiation, yet somehow managed to produce five children, none of whom, miraculously, have tails, third eyes, or other random mutations. He writes fiction that runs the gamut from thriller to horror to science fiction...and loves every minute of it.

Reviews

[Matt Egan]

McBride's best in years!

Venom, book 2 in the Creature Files, revolves around a possible threat of a new disease outbreak in Africa that turns out to be anything but. We're also reunited with the CERF team introduced in Spore. The plot is great, the pace fast, the threat(s) unimaginable, and great characters! This McBride's best book in years! 5/5 stars, highly recommended for fans of sci-fi thrillers and authors like Douglas Preston and Michael Crichton!

[Terry and dog]

Unknown creatures, a lot of adventure and action, lots of gruesome death and a smart female scientist makes this a fast, exciting read.

[Calvin]

Interruption Trope: The Novel

This book was frustrating to get through. There are dozens of instances of characters having a sudden revelation or about to reveal something, only for the chapter to end, the POV to switch to a different character, or something interrupts them and they never continue the conversation. It's like reading a bad TV horror movie complete with dramatic commercial breaks. There's a ton a bluffing praise from reviewers and authors about McBride being the new Michael Crichton. I can see elements of that here. Tons of overuse of scientific technobabble that only scientists will understand. There's at least some character development, better than Crichton. The main doctor is a biologist who also miraculously has geological knowledge that's only referenced once when it's a deus ex machina. She also alternates between being almost crippled from a precious injury to being able to do multi-mile walks through the jungle with minimal effort. The members of the strike team are literal NPC's with code names and nothing else. One sticks out because he's big, another is the tech guy, and the third is a literal nothing burger. He has very few lines and could be erased from the story and nothing would change. As for the monster of the book: it's a bunch of genetically engineered apes with venom. Nothing overly complicated, but the book takes forever and a day for the reveal. The main character figures it out about halfway through the book, but she keeps getting interrupted as she tries to explain, and then never gets back to it. The book bounces around hints that it could be a snake or spider, but it's just a big chimpanzee with other animals traits blended in. There is a bittersweet moment at the end where they find the leader's body in its cage clutching the stuffed animal it grew with. It showed that despite the violence the creature had committed, it was just a wild animal that hadn't asked for the horrors committed against it. The ending leaves it wide open for a third and starts dipping into the political thriller pool. Hopefully, the third will be better than this one. I've read a ton of the author's books and usually really enjoy them, but not this one.

[Jeff]

Scifi Horror Action The Way It Is Supposed To Be. If you like your action tales with a tinge of horror, or perhaps your horror tales with a lot of action in them, this is going to be a book - and a series - that you need to check out. Following on from the fallout of Spores, Book 1 of this series (so read it first!), the survivors of that tale quickly find themselves involved in another similar event - this time half a world away, in the jungles of Sierra Leone.

This book has so much going on. New leaders trying to find their place in an existing organization. So. Many. Bullets. Flying. A few key - and spectacular - explosions. A chilling and disturbing mystery just on the edge of science fiction - plausible enough to imagine it being science fact. An unstoppable enemy hoard. So. Much. Gore.

I'm not exactly one to ask about coarse language and shit, as I am a programmer and thus (according to a college professor that said this in my presence nearly three decades ago now) cuss *worse* than a sailor, but I don't remember anything overly bad. If you're one that can't stand a single instance of the word shit, well, you've already stopped reading this review anyway. But seriously, that and maybe a fuck here or there are about as bad as it gets - and I don't even remember any of those really.

For the sex scene crowd, no matter the direction you prefer... yeah, *some* action tales have those scenes... this one does not. This is all about the horror and action and the only thing that goes away from that really at all is the element of the new leaders adapting to their roles.

Overall truly a great tale of its type, one that is both very fun and very horrific at the same time... and one that sets up at least one other tale in this world rather well.

Very much recommended.

[Sydney E]

I liked this novel A LOT less than Spores. I really liked the premise and I was extremely hopeful due to the fact that we have 2 reoccurring characters from the first novel but I was disappointed.

This novel felt extremely drawn out. Especially with the POV we get from Dayna which was not needed for the plot of the story and felt a lot like filler. I hypothesize that Dayna’s POV was for those readers who read the first book in the series and could possibly be important for future novels but really was not needed in this story.

In this novel we got another FMC with PTSD and a crippling phobia, specifically altophobia. At this point, I found it more hilarious than infuriating that both FMCs of both novels had PTSD and a phobia that could 100% get in the way of the mission. In this novel though, we saw her ptsd and altophobia in action at the beginning and the end of the novel but it was something that she got herself through with the help of Brian (MMC). The whole middle part of the book, she was completely fine and her phobia didn’t come out to play. I found it decently realistic and it wasn’t nearly as infuriating as the first novel.

I also really enjoyed that a lot more people survived the mission than the first novel which was very refreshing. I was expecting to see another final girl ending but was pleasantly surprised. The epilogue though was very unexpected but not surprising. I really hope that we get another book in the series.

[Dale Robertson]

Fantastic blend of action, science and horror. The story is very engrossing, keeping you glued to the pages. Mostly thanks to the mystery of the tale and Michael's top quality writing. Unscrupulous experiments to create a hybrid creature lead to chaos when it escapes. The team need to go in and see what's happened and clean it up, if possible. The deaths are horrific- just the thought made me squirm.

Super story, really enjoyed it. Would highly recommend.

Look forward to future stories in this series.

[Celeste]

That ending tho

I found this, the second book in the creature files series far more interesting and action packed than the first.

The pacing was faster and the team in this one more or one less come out alive.

Weirdly enough I found myself empathizing with the creatures. Especially in that last scene. And I liked the human characters in this one.

It was a ride.

[Patt Lisenbee]

Venom by Michael McBride

The second book in the Creature Files does not disappoint!
This series is action- packed, constantly moving. It only slows down at the end, but then throws an unexpected loop at you.
A must-read book here.

[Deb Avery]

Great Read!

Just as his last book, Venom was an awesome read. It grabs you and won't let go. I highly recommend this book!

[Cheryl]

Fabulous!!

I absolutely loved this book, I couldn’t put it down!!! Highly recommended, kept me on the edge of my seat till the last page.

[Tracy]

A brilliant read

Awesome read and a story you can't put aside hoping the hero's make it out and pray there will be a 3rd book to the story

[Barbara Berry Berry]

Venomous Webs

A thought provoking book. It is a mystery that goes on in our world of secret labs that push the boundaries of what is acceptable. A fast page turner.