Crawlers [Paperback]

John Shirley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2003

In a secret government lab somewhere in Nevada, a young scientist cowers in darkness–waiting, listening, and calculating his chances of surviving the unspeakable carnage that has left him trapped and alone. Or almost alone.

Soon after, a covert military operation “cleanses” all traces of a top-secret project gone horrifically wrong.

Three years later, it begins again–when the quiet of a warm autumn night in a sleepy California town is shattered by a streak of light across the sky, the thunder of impact, and the unleashing of something insidious. Spreading, multiplying, and transforming everything in its path, this diabolical intelligence will not be denied until the townsfolk–and eventually, all living things–are conquered. Until they are all crawling. . . .

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Shirley's frightening new novel, he extends the smart work he did in Demons (2002), investing a fierce genre tale with spiritual import. Here Shirley reaches back to the classic pulp scenario of a small town beset by an alien invasion. In this case, though the townspeople of Quiebra, Calif., initially assume that the capsule that crashes originated in space, it's actually a satellite put into orbit by a hush-hush military research outfit fearful of the out-of-control nanotechnology experiment it contains. The experiment involves nanoparticles that have evolved into a kind of group mind (as in Michael Crichton's Prey), taking over human (and animal) hosts and, by incorporating pieces of hardware, refashioning those hosts into an amalgam of human and machine ("Deputy Sprague's neck was gone, replaced with a metal stalk..."). Humans differ as to their vulnerability to takeover, with some adults more resistant than others, and younger people quite resistant; this allows Shirley to use teenagers-a likely readership for the book-as the novel's heroes, and his understanding of teen ways and patterns of speech is deep and exact. This tack also allows for some profound emotion, as kids-particularly Adair and Waylon Leverton, whose father is the first person taken over in Quiebra-witness the soul-destruction and/or death of their parents. The novel's depiction of humans devolving into group-mind-controlled machines proves an excellent metaphor for Shirley's take here on the human condition, which posits that some of us are already machinelike and others more "awake"; but the narrative does slide slightly into didacticism as it elaborates these understandings. Overall, though, this is an exciting novel of ideas wrapped in red-hot pulp.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Shirley's latest begins horrifyingly--a top-secret government lab is destroyed by nasty, experimental nanotechnology--and just gets creepier, though more subtly so for quite a while, with just flashes of strange things in the woods and odd behavior by the involved populace. The comfortable town of Quiebra is in deadly danger, but the government, afraid of what will happen if the outside world finds out what has been let loose, is playing its cards close to its chest. For the Quiebrans, however, their predicament seems at first only a streak of light in the night sky and a potentially profitable salvage operation for Adair Leverton's father. Shirley's characters are believably flawed and variable, while his nasty little nanocreatures are, well, nasty (also singleminded about spreading). Meanwhile, his prose is often quite wonderful, even when he is describing something stomach-turningly icky. This portrayal of the dangers of secret experimentation with the diabolically dangerous is unnerving, not least because it is frighteningly convincing. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; 1 edition (November 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345446526
• ISBN-13: 978-0345446527
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,891,866 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Shirley won the Bram Stoker Award for his story collection Black Butterflies, and is the author of numerous novels, including the best-seller DEMONS, the cyberpunk classics CITY COME A-WALKIN', ECLIPSE, and BLACK GLASS, and his latest, new from Simon & Schuster, the urban fantasy novel BLEAK HISTORY. He is a screenwriter, having written for television and movies; he was co-screenwriter of THE CROW. He will be in Prime Books' THE YEAR'S BEST DARK FANTASY AND HORROR anthology, this year, and his story collection IN EXTREMIS: THE MOST EXTREME SHORT STORIES OF JOHN SHIRLEY from Underland Press has been getting rave advance reviews. His novel BIOSHOCK: RAPTURE , telling the story of the creation and undoing of Rapture, from the hit videogame BIOSHOCK is about to come out from TOR books.

He is also a lyricist, having written lyrics for 18 songs recorded by the Blue Oyster Cult (especially on their albums Heaven Forbidden and Curse of the Hidden Mirror), and his own recordings.

John Shirley has written only one nonfiction book, GURDJIEFF: AN INTRODUCTION TO HIS LIFE AND IDEAS, published by Penguin/Jeremy Tarcher.

Other John Shirley story collections include BLACK BUTTERFLIES, IN EXTREMIS, LIVING SHADOWS and REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY WEIRD STORIES.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Creepy Crawlers, September 17, 2004

By 

Victoria Primeaux "Victoria Fay" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crawlers (Paperback)

:Wraps wings protectively around self and shivers:
Dude, I grew up reading horror novels and adored horror flicks. It's been well over 15 years since something has had the power to goose my bumps. John Shirley's Crawlers is it. Fifty pages into the book and it scared me so bad I had to walk away and call a friend, so what if it was 3 am? At least my friend is still human... or so I pray. Our story begins in a super secret (aren't they all?) government lab where all that is good and wholesome has gone awry. Crawlers have taken over the lab and are harvesting the remaining living scientists for *scrap* body parts. Their goal is complete assimilation. Yup, the Borg on crack,

True to form the government annihilates the lab in an effort to cover up the failed experiment. Unfortunately for the small Californian town of Quiebra, things suddenly don't seem quite so normal. It appears the mighty establishment didn't do to good of a job. People are acting oddly and in some cases disappearing. The adults of the town are being assimilated one by one and it's up to the children of the town and a few rag-tag straggler adults to discover what is going on in time to stop the travesty that is brewing. Even if they do succeed the authorities don't plan to leave any survivors. All hail civilization!

Through out the entire novel the message most prevalent is to think for yourself. Don't let anyone, most especially those in charge, think for you. All else leads to the unthinkable.

Crawlers is an excellent novel. Despite the fact that it scared me away for at least an hour I couldn't stay away. This to me means John Shirley is a force to be reckoned with. :leaves behind a Faery Queen rating before jumping into bed and hiding under the covers:

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Stephen King, he's not!, September 8, 2006

By 

Robert A. Bushnell (Polson, MT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crawlers (Paperback)

If Mr. Shirley had cut out about one-third of the words, it might have been a reasonable read. The action would have been sustained. Ngaio Marsh, Charles Dickens used lots of words; but then Mr. Shirley is not in their class.

Once you realize what is happening, the author repeats and repeats the action in different situations. But it's not suspense from here on out, it's just repetition. He makes a good point about technology, but it's necessary to wade through too many useless words to discover the point.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars CRAWLERS freakin rocks!, November 9, 2003

By 

Marc R. Bravo "weedmeat" (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crawlers (Paperback)

In many a story - whether written, filmed, sung or otherwise - there comes a moment when the relevance of the story's title is revealed. It is often a thrilling, unexpected moment when that piece of the puzzle falls into place. In this 1st edition of John Shirley's CRAWLERS that moment occurs in the 1st sentence of the 4th paragraph on page 51. Lying in bed beside my fever-sick wife in our darkened Chicago loft I read that line & I shivered.

I don't read the backs of books b4 I read the books. The only thing I knew about CRAWLERS going-in was that it was about nanotechnology run amok. It wasn't until area - I mean page 51 that I realized and accepted that yes, this is a horror story. A John Shirley horror story. And I was scared.

CRAWLERS uses the Invasion of the Body Snatchers mold to examine issues of nature vs technology, young vs old, chaos vs order, paranoia vs they're-really-after-you, & kinship vs survival.

The nano-machines are countless microscopic Frankensteins set loose in suburban San Francisco through blunders by the U.S. government. The "breakouts" attempt to assimilate every animal & person in the town of Quiebra in order to amass a force with which to build & deploy an instrument of global dissemination.

But first they must learn. And experiment. They enhance living bodies with mechanical & electronic parts. They disassemble & reassemble bodies, trying combinations of parts & species, seeking efficiency & strength of form, all the while communicating with a central "brain" through which all successes & failures are processed, & from which directives are taken.

One scheme of efficiency is to first take over the bodies & minds of people pre-disposed to being easily influenced. Most of those people are the adults in town. It is explained that the pre-disposition is not genetic or biological at all but a mind-set... This suggests that the volatility of the youthful mind has a strength beyond the wisdom (or apathy?) of maturity. The adults who don't easily succumb are inquisitive, creative, & young at heart - or forewarned of the danger. The fate of life on Earth finally rests in the hands of half a dozen adults & a couple hundred children & teens.

The promises of order, vitality, comfort & longevity through assimilation by the breakouts is shunned. Instinctively the pain & conflict of life-as-we-know-it is chosen over world peace. War, decay, death, & differences of opinion all contribute to define humanity, not to destroy it.

And, it's funny, that in John Shirley's CRAWLERS, inexplicably, cats, of all the animals out there, also hold these notions as true.

CRAWLERS is John Shirley's 1st true sci-fi/horror hybrid novel. Yes, it scared me because - like all good "hard" sci-fi - this could happen. And I'd hope that I would be one of the adults that would resist it. I hope I never become a crawler...