The red night of bells heralds global catastrophe. Annihilation on a biblical scale.
Seeing the morning is no blessing. The handful of scattered survivors are confronted by blood-red skies and an infestation of predatory horrors that never originated on earth. An occupying force intent on erasing the remnants of animal life from the planet.
Across the deserted landscapes of England, bereft of infrastructure and society, the overlooked can either hide or try to outrun the infernal hunting terrors. Until a rumour emerges claiming that the sea may offer an escape.
Ordinary, unexceptional, directionless Karl, is one of the few who made it through the first night. In the company of two orphans, he flees south. But only into horrifying revelations and greater peril, where a transformed world and expanding race of ravening creatures await. Driven to the end of the country and himself, he must overcome alien and human malevolence and act in ways that were unthinkable mere days before.
All The Fiends of Hell is a novel of alien horror from the four times winner of the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel.
The darkest of bleatings to you all, my wonderful tribe. DARK BLEATINGS INDEED! It will come as a surprise to absolutely none of you that I couldn’t wait to get my wanty little hooves on the newest from Adam Nevill. The guy sits on a folk-horror throne made of bones, complete with horns, as far as I’m concerned. He is one of very few horror authors able to actually scare me, and he’s the only one that does it consistently from book to book. I never read the synopsis for any of his upcoming work because I prefer to go into books completely blind. However, after reading everything else that he’s released, I had a good idea of what I was in for with ‘All the Fiends of Hell’ because I’d made assumptions based on his usual subject matter. I was expecting cults… some sort of folklore-ish deity, perhaps. Probably a ritual of some sort.
Oh, how wrong I was. So so wrong. And also delighted. With this newest release, Nevill has conjured something entirely new, adding to his wheelhouse one of the most terrifying concepts I’ve ever had the demented good fortune to encounter. I was verily, and mightily, shooketh.
Our protagonist, Karl, is a completely regular dude thrust into the ABSOLUTE WORST NIGHTMARE of a scenario, ever. Like…. EVER. You guys, until you read this, you have no idea. It’s complete and utter sleep paralysis nightmare fuel. I’ll never be able to hear a bell and relax again. Just yesterday, my husband and I left the house and the sky was unusually red, bathing the valley in which I live in a pink hue. Very unusual and – to my husband – very pretty. “Shepherd’s delight,” he commented, smiling.
“We’re fucked,” I responded, my eyes widening at the sky, scanning the horizon for anything amiss. I then had to explain why the glorious sunset was giving me the chills. He called me a book nerd. But I digress.
Karl wakes up, still in the throes of a horrible illness, thinking that the night before he had one hell of a batshit nightmare. When he ventures out, however, he realises that he’s almost the only person left for miles. Everyone else is gone. Those he knew seem to have vanished without a trace, but in their place, there are… things. Horrible, scary, anxiety-inducing things.
Karl is making the rational choices, having the expected thoughts and ideas, and along the way, inherits a couple of dependents. With each page, the ante was upped. With each look at the sky, Karl had my heart in my throat. I was furiously absorbing this scenario from Hell whilst simultaneously trying to think my way out of it – what would I do in this situation? Where would I go? How would I defend myself against… them? I’m usually good at problem-solving apocalyptic scenarios, truth be told. I’ve spent many years daydreaming through my various zombie apocalypse plans (you need at least two for slow zombies, and three in the event of rage zombies). But this… THIS… this fiendish onslaught, I got nothing. Nada. No idea. The jig is up. Dead… that’s what I’d be. Toast. Toast with no butter, not even a jam.
And it’s not even just the central plot that’s absolutely hideous, it’s the pacing and the story construction too. I couldn’t f***ing relax because I felt like the characters were racing against a rapidly ticking clock, without knowing which hour was going to smash the ultimate doom down on them. Reading this was like knowing someone has turned an hour glass over but you have no way of seeing the sand pour, so you don’t know how safe or unsafe you are.
And “safe”, in this story, is a relative term.
I never felt like the characters were safe because time and time again, it was reiterated that they mostly certainly weren’t and that one or all of them could be hideously killed at any given moment. Usually I’m reassured by the fact that there are several chapters left but not with this book – those unread pages didn’t mean a damn thing as far as character guarantees were concerned. Nevill wrote them well enough so that any of them could be axed at any time, including Karl, and a perspective switch could happen. I’m not telling you whether or not it did, no spoilers.
The ending… Jesus bloody Christ, the ending.
So yeah, that’s my review. I hope you enjoyed this panicked, tense, rambling stream of consciousness as I anxiously recounted my memory of reading this despicably nihilistic, terrifying, “the entire world is going down the drain at a rapid pace and no one will ever be safe again” tale of beastly horrors. It’s bloody brilliant, by the way, is what it is. I’ve been recommending it to absolutely anyone that will listen to me, and I’m recommending it to you now. I usually find myself nodding towards certain types of readers and fans as to who I recommend each read to, but for this I’ll say “everyone who likes horror” will most likely get a real kick out of this one.
I hate being forced to give star ratings and I never do it here, but for this I’d give a solid 15 out of 5.
If you’d like to pre-order your own copy of ‘All the Fiends of Hell’, you can get it from Amazon, or directly from Adam Nevill’s website (which I recommend, by the way, because you can also get the book signed!). The links you need are below:
Happy Goat Horror 
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