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The Hatching #1-3
The Hatching Trilogy: The Hatching, Skitter, and Zero Day
The terrifying series that is “guaranteed to do what Jaws did to millions of people” ( Suspense Magazine )—this ebook boxed set includes all three hair-raising thrillers, The Hatching , Skitter , and Zero Day.
- GenresHorror
839 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 27, 2018
5 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
Ezekiel Boone
13 books647 followersI live in upstate New York with my wife and kids. Whenever I travel and say I'm from New York, people think I mean NYC, but we live about three hours north of New York City. Our house is five minutes outside of a university town. We're far enough out of town that, at night, it's dark.
No.
Darker than that.
Dark enough that, if you're not careful, you might fall off the small cliff at the edge of my property. If you're lucky, the water will be up enough to break your fall. If you're not lucky, please sign a waiver before you come to visit.
I've got two unruly dogs who are mostly friendly. Well, that's not true. The part about them being unruly is true, but one of them is the most friendly dog you've ever met, and the other dog ... isn't. They are good writing partners, though they spend a lot of their day curled up in front of the wood burning stove and ignoring me. Unless I'm making lunch. They pay attention to me then.
The Ezekiel Boone website is www.ezekielboone.com, but I've also got a nifty website for THE HATCHING at www.TheHatchingBook.com. It has a cool map and some other bells and whistles.
You can also follow me on Facebook or follow me on Instagram if you are so inclined and like the idea of occasionally seeing photos of my dogs.
If you've read this far, I should mention that THE HATCHING is Ezekiel Boone's first book, but it's not actually *my* first book. I also write under the name Alexi Zentner. Alexi Zentner's books are pretty different from Ezekiel Boone's.
No.
Darker than that.
Dark enough that, if you're not careful, you might fall off the small cliff at the edge of my property. If you're lucky, the water will be up enough to break your fall. If you're not lucky, please sign a waiver before you come to visit.
I've got two unruly dogs who are mostly friendly. Well, that's not true. The part about them being unruly is true, but one of them is the most friendly dog you've ever met, and the other dog ... isn't. They are good writing partners, though they spend a lot of their day curled up in front of the wood burning stove and ignoring me. Unless I'm making lunch. They pay attention to me then.
The Ezekiel Boone website is www.ezekielboone.com, but I've also got a nifty website for THE HATCHING at www.TheHatchingBook.com. It has a cool map and some other bells and whistles.
You can also follow me on Facebook or follow me on Instagram if you are so inclined and like the idea of occasionally seeing photos of my dogs.
If you've read this far, I should mention that THE HATCHING is Ezekiel Boone's first book, but it's not actually *my* first book. I also write under the name Alexi Zentner. Alexi Zentner's books are pretty different from Ezekiel Boone's.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 9, 2018
As indicated, this is a 5 star review, however, on the creepy-crawly scale, it is a 10. My absolute worst nightmare would be to face legions of baseball sized spiders that are hungry and intelligent. This series of 3 books far exceeds any nightmare that I could conjure up. I could not wait to read the series!
Book one was "The Hatching" where we are introduced to the ancient spider plague as they emerge from a cave in China in shadowy waves and begin their march throughout the world.
Book two was "Skitter". Millions have died and China has nuked itself back to the Stone Age trying to rid their country of the skittering, fanged spiders that operate under one intelligence. In Tokyo, a huge, glowing egg sac has been discovered.
In "Zero Day", there are differing opinions between the scientists and the military on whether to try and eradicate all of the creepy-crawlies or if it would be enough to just annihilate the queens and their egg sacs.
I highly recommend this book to all lovers of horror and sci-fi books.
ARC courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
Book one was "The Hatching" where we are introduced to the ancient spider plague as they emerge from a cave in China in shadowy waves and begin their march throughout the world.
Book two was "Skitter". Millions have died and China has nuked itself back to the Stone Age trying to rid their country of the skittering, fanged spiders that operate under one intelligence. In Tokyo, a huge, glowing egg sac has been discovered.
In "Zero Day", there are differing opinions between the scientists and the military on whether to try and eradicate all of the creepy-crawlies or if it would be enough to just annihilate the queens and their egg sacs.
I highly recommend this book to all lovers of horror and sci-fi books.
ARC courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley
September 15, 2021
So I read the whole thing. Pretty much had to if I wanted the whole story, since none of the books actually work as a stand-alone novel. You've essentially got a prologue in the form of The Hatching, and then a single book split between Skitter and Zero Day. Fine, okay, kind of an annoying thing, but maybe splitting it into different books was done for a practical reason. The most cynical part of me thinks it was simply to drive sales, but luckily the second two books were available at my library.
I picked up the book based solely on its premise. I love apocalyptic fiction, and an unstoppable swarm of spiders sweeping the globe is a great way to make me want to pick up a story. As far as I know, I've ever read anything with the same premise on the same scale, and it was kind of like a cheesy Scy-Fy original movie concept that I hoped would be fleshed out in a way to make it really creepy, impactful, and memorable. This was not the case.
There are a few moments of genuine creepiness or unsettling realism in the series, but they're few and far between. The best of these come in the third book, as you're given some vignettes of individuals being overwhelmed by spiders and the horrific fates awaiting them. They're not great by any stretch of the imagination, but compared to the overall tepid, boring grind to make it that far, at least there's something.
The characters are a hodge-podge of dull and/or stupid cardboard-cutouts of movie posters. It was disappointing that a whole subplot was dedicated to how the President of the United States of America couldn't keep her hands off her Chief of Staff, despite the literal end of her country, despite her marriage, despite her career. It wasn't even used for drama, it was just another in a long line of characters who's thoughts inevitably drifted to the sexual compatibility with the next person they'd met. What did the President stand for? I guess she stood for being told what to do by the men around her. And start crying. Neat.
There were whole passages of what can loosely be described as backstory but would better be described as filler. Remember that FBI guy from the first book? Yeah, he doesn't actually matter to the story in any way. His whole arc? Learning to accept his ex-wife's new husband, what's his name, Mr. Forgettable-features.
All of this is to say, an apocalyptic book has to survive on two things: its premise and its characters. I wanted to like the premise so badly I made it through the whole series to see if it redeemed itself. It did not. The spiders appear suddenly and behave erratically, only doing things to further the plot and then dying in droves when the plot deems it necessary. Except for a few passages, the threat of the spiders seems very background to what's going on. Tens of millions dead at the pedipalps of spiders? Sure would be nice to read about how exactly that went down. Instead, let's get a quick summary and then back to the lab. Nuke 30 cities? Just casually mention it in passing and then act like it has some kind of emotional impact.
Also, there's a very poor understanding of both radiation, nuclear fallout, and conventional warfare. It's a little nit-picky, but Shotgun couldn't have designed a flamethrower that runs equally well on propane and gasoline. These are fundamentally different mechanisms and shows a lack of research on what should be the realism grounding an otherwise already tough-to-swallow story. Little things like this really broke my immersion.
All in all, I would not recommend this book series to anyone. If it wasn't for the fact I have a difficult time abandoning tasks, I probably would have stopped at the first book.
I picked up the book based solely on its premise. I love apocalyptic fiction, and an unstoppable swarm of spiders sweeping the globe is a great way to make me want to pick up a story. As far as I know, I've ever read anything with the same premise on the same scale, and it was kind of like a cheesy Scy-Fy original movie concept that I hoped would be fleshed out in a way to make it really creepy, impactful, and memorable. This was not the case.
There are a few moments of genuine creepiness or unsettling realism in the series, but they're few and far between. The best of these come in the third book, as you're given some vignettes of individuals being overwhelmed by spiders and the horrific fates awaiting them. They're not great by any stretch of the imagination, but compared to the overall tepid, boring grind to make it that far, at least there's something.
The characters are a hodge-podge of dull and/or stupid cardboard-cutouts of movie posters. It was disappointing that a whole subplot was dedicated to how the President of the United States of America couldn't keep her hands off her Chief of Staff, despite the literal end of her country, despite her marriage, despite her career. It wasn't even used for drama, it was just another in a long line of characters who's thoughts inevitably drifted to the sexual compatibility with the next person they'd met. What did the President stand for? I guess she stood for being told what to do by the men around her. And start crying. Neat.
There were whole passages of what can loosely be described as backstory but would better be described as filler. Remember that FBI guy from the first book? Yeah, he doesn't actually matter to the story in any way. His whole arc? Learning to accept his ex-wife's new husband, what's his name, Mr. Forgettable-features.
All of this is to say, an apocalyptic book has to survive on two things: its premise and its characters. I wanted to like the premise so badly I made it through the whole series to see if it redeemed itself. It did not. The spiders appear suddenly and behave erratically, only doing things to further the plot and then dying in droves when the plot deems it necessary. Except for a few passages, the threat of the spiders seems very background to what's going on. Tens of millions dead at the pedipalps of spiders? Sure would be nice to read about how exactly that went down. Instead, let's get a quick summary and then back to the lab. Nuke 30 cities? Just casually mention it in passing and then act like it has some kind of emotional impact.
Also, there's a very poor understanding of both radiation, nuclear fallout, and conventional warfare. It's a little nit-picky, but Shotgun couldn't have designed a flamethrower that runs equally well on propane and gasoline. These are fundamentally different mechanisms and shows a lack of research on what should be the realism grounding an otherwise already tough-to-swallow story. Little things like this really broke my immersion.
All in all, I would not recommend this book series to anyone. If it wasn't for the fact I have a difficult time abandoning tasks, I probably would have stopped at the first book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 12, 2023
LE DOY 4 ESTRELLAS PORQUE CUMPLE CON SU PAPEL COMO HISTORIA DE TERROR. Y PORQUE SU TRAMA TIENE UN POCO DE TODO, ADEMÁS DE ESTAR BIEN ESCRITA.
Si han visto la película Aracnofobia de 1990 y les ha gustado, esta trilogía les va a encantar. Esta saga de libros es literalmente Aracnofobia llevada al siguiente nivel. Con una infestación no de un pequeño pueblo (como en la película), sino de todo el mundo. Por parte de una raza prehistórica de arañas que han despertado de su hibernación después de miles de años.
Ahora, tramas de este tipo siempre me han fascinado. Las de especies desconocidas que emergen para causar destrucción y muerte sin control. No son las más originales ni las más intuitivas en cuanto a literatura de terror o ciencia ficción se refiere, pero de que entretienen entretienen. Por supuesto todo depende de si están bien escritas o no. Y en el caso de la trilogía de "La Incubación" (The Hatching), pues si que esta muy bien escrita. La narración es ágil y la trama emocionante, los personajes son atractivos, y aunque pecan de ser unidimensionales de tanto en tanto, satisfacen perfectamente las necesidades de la historia.
Pero lo mejor de estos libros son la arañas en si mismas. Con esto me refiero a la visión de los arácnidos, de sus hábitos de reproducción, de la forma en que atacan, su biología y la forma en que matan, así como la destrucción y daño que dejan a su paso. Todo el panorama de la infestación en si misma es terrorífico y espeluznante (y por momentos asqueroso). Pero eso es lo que hace de esta una buena historia de terror, el hecho de que de verdad "te mueve el piso"... por decirlo de alguna manera.
Las consecuencias de la infestación son globales. Países enteros son diezmados, ejércitos son movilizados, bombas nucleares son lanzadas, gobiernos caen en la anarquía, y los efectos en la población civil... bueno pues son más que horrorosos. El estado del mundo al final es difícil de definir, supongo que esto en mucho depende del punto de vista del lector. Pero puedo decir a ciencia cierta que esta saga de libros es de la clase que se queda con uno después de leerla. Si la terminan no verán a las arañas de la misma manera otra vez, aprenderán mucho sobre la especie, un poco de historia y hechos científicos también. Y creo sinceramente que el final será satisfactorio para la mayoría.
Como dije, hay muchas visiones parecidas de ataques por parte de especies de insectos, o plagas u organismos desconocidos. Pero esta es una de mis favoritas. Y conste que no me gustan las arañas (de hecho no me gusta ninguna clase de arácnido o insecto).
Pero cuando una historia es buena. Pues es buena.
Si han visto la película Aracnofobia de 1990 y les ha gustado, esta trilogía les va a encantar. Esta saga de libros es literalmente Aracnofobia llevada al siguiente nivel. Con una infestación no de un pequeño pueblo (como en la película), sino de todo el mundo. Por parte de una raza prehistórica de arañas que han despertado de su hibernación después de miles de años.
Ahora, tramas de este tipo siempre me han fascinado. Las de especies desconocidas que emergen para causar destrucción y muerte sin control. No son las más originales ni las más intuitivas en cuanto a literatura de terror o ciencia ficción se refiere, pero de que entretienen entretienen. Por supuesto todo depende de si están bien escritas o no. Y en el caso de la trilogía de "La Incubación" (The Hatching), pues si que esta muy bien escrita. La narración es ágil y la trama emocionante, los personajes son atractivos, y aunque pecan de ser unidimensionales de tanto en tanto, satisfacen perfectamente las necesidades de la historia.
Pero lo mejor de estos libros son la arañas en si mismas. Con esto me refiero a la visión de los arácnidos, de sus hábitos de reproducción, de la forma en que atacan, su biología y la forma en que matan, así como la destrucción y daño que dejan a su paso. Todo el panorama de la infestación en si misma es terrorífico y espeluznante (y por momentos asqueroso). Pero eso es lo que hace de esta una buena historia de terror, el hecho de que de verdad "te mueve el piso"... por decirlo de alguna manera.
Las consecuencias de la infestación son globales. Países enteros son diezmados, ejércitos son movilizados, bombas nucleares son lanzadas, gobiernos caen en la anarquía, y los efectos en la población civil... bueno pues son más que horrorosos. El estado del mundo al final es difícil de definir, supongo que esto en mucho depende del punto de vista del lector. Pero puedo decir a ciencia cierta que esta saga de libros es de la clase que se queda con uno después de leerla. Si la terminan no verán a las arañas de la misma manera otra vez, aprenderán mucho sobre la especie, un poco de historia y hechos científicos también. Y creo sinceramente que el final será satisfactorio para la mayoría.
Como dije, hay muchas visiones parecidas de ataques por parte de especies de insectos, o plagas u organismos desconocidos. Pero esta es una de mis favoritas. Y conste que no me gustan las arañas (de hecho no me gusta ninguna clase de arácnido o insecto).
Pero cuando una historia es buena. Pues es buena.
July 7, 2024
these books kept me entertained when I was sick in bed with Covid, so they get a lot of credit from me for that. Are there stupid things about them? Yes. Is the second book unnecessary from a plot standpoint? Absolutely. Do people (including the POTUS) interrupt the most serious of discussions to make little cute comments? Over and over again. I could go on in this vein but really matters is that it's a super fun read. Let the spiderpocalypse begin!
April 27, 2022
Picked this one up in a bout of masochistic self depreciation, but was immediately drawn in to the story. This story has spiders that ... do things ... and a bunch of likable human characters. The third act felt a tad rushed, given the first two books featured a drawn out build up of the main plot and good character-building. Quintessential reading for arachnophobes.
June 18, 2022
creepily Amazing
This had everything I could want in a spider apocalypse lol I loved every page and every moment felt like something was crawling on my back but honestly this series was just awesome.
This had everything I could want in a spider apocalypse lol I loved every page and every moment felt like something was crawling on my back but honestly this series was just awesome.
July 18, 2018
I loved this series.
Are you scared of spiders? You will be after reading this horror trilogy.
Books 1 & 2 are phenomenal and Book 3 is terrific.
I rate this trilogy as 4.5 out of 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Are you scared of spiders? You will be after reading this horror trilogy.
Books 1 & 2 are phenomenal and Book 3 is terrific.
I rate this trilogy as 4.5 out of 5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
April 21, 2019
This trilogy will keep you up at night, swatting away at imagined spiders. Creepy
September 24, 2020
Sounded fun, was awful.
December 14, 2025
what a fun book series! absolutely avoid if you're arachnophobic i'd love to see a fourth set in the aftermath of the whole mess and what the world might look like going forward
September 1, 2020
Couldn't finish.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews