Book Review: "The Queen" by Nick Cutter

Here's my review of The Troop by Nick Cutter from about five years' ago. I hope you enjoy it:

And now, I'm reading The Queen. Hopefully you can understand that Nick Cutter is a body horror author and so, it is also to be understood that the vast majority of the horror relies on gore. That being said, there are several instances of this body horror which adds to the understanding of the storyline. For example: the body horror in this book adds to the theme of billionaires and mega-tech corporations being evil and destroying the lives of basically everything and everyone they come in contact with. That being said, I do wish I didn't read this in one sitting because honestly: what the hell did I just read?

Margaret and Charity were once friends but Charity has unfortunately been missing for about a month with many assuming that she is dead, including local law enforcement. One day though, Margaret receives an iPhone and it has information about Charity on there, even though this girl has clearly been missing and assumed dead. As time goes on, Margaret seems to discover that not only does she not know Charity at all, she doesn't really know anything about anything - her sheltered little life is about to grow and shatter in horrifying ways. I mean, you would not be able to guess what she discovered about Charity but let's put it this way, I would like you to stop eating before you read on.

Thanks.

Rudyard Crate's sister dies. She dies in a terrifying insect-related attack and I'm not going to say much about it here but I will say that it involved ants. As he grows up he becomes fascinated with making human-insect hybrids in order to make humans stronger since he witnessed that in some cases, the insects win from time to time. Now, he might seem like a nobody until he gets older and becomes a tech billionaire and thus, you can probably see where this is going. Nick Cutter's graphic descriptions of everything kind of make you a little bit sick and yet, the graphic nature of the descriptions sink you deeper into the trauma of the novel. At the end of the day, not all of our memories are good and the bad ones are especially bad with flashbacks that are often nightmareish. Cutter definitely feeds on this idea and makes it a big part of the novel's atmosphere. I have to say, if I hadn't already eaten, I would've enjoyed it a lot more. It's a great way to lose your appetite.

The iPhone forces Margaret on a trail to find Charity. She discovers people in her school who have also received mysterious iPhones and yet, we see how it was actually Margaret who left Charity behind not Charity who just got up and ran away. Throughout this though, we begin to learn that Charity was not an ordinary young girl, she was in fact a part of a group which involves whatever Rudyard Crate was doing. This means that something terrifying happened the night that Charity disappeared and of course, something was actualised. I am not going to reveal what that is here because it is a huge spoiler but I think you can figure out in what way Charity was involved with Rudyard Crate. Nick Cutter gets our full attention because it is through this, we see how Rudyard Crate makes his trauma everyone else's damn problem. We also see how a change in status can make someone an entirely different person, driving them from their own reality and purpose.

All in all, I would say the same thing about this that I said about The Troop, you want to read this whilst away from food. But the other thing I want to say is that this book has a bit more of a Sci-Fi atmosphere than The Troop too. There's more story, there are more characters and yet, in terms of the horror - it pretty much packs a similar punch. The body horror is right up there as being brilliant and adds a great amount to the greater metaphor. I was shocked yes, but I was also impressed.