My third book review of the day is the finale of the Birth Of Daoloth trilogy, which I read as part of the blog tour hosted by Random Things Tours. Thank you for my spot on the tour, and for a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.
My other book reviews and blogs can be viewed here.
Synopsis
The present day, or something very like it. Dominic Sheldrake has retired from lecturing and lives on his own. His son Toby is married with a small daughter. The occultist Noble family are more active than ever. Their cult now openly operates as the Church of the Eternal Three, and has spread worldwide. The local branch occupies the top floors of Starview Tower, a Liverpool waterfront skyscraper. To Dominic’s dismay, Toby and his wife Claudine are deeply involved in it, and he suspects they are involving their small daughter Macy too.
Dominic lets his son persuade him to attend a meeting of the church, where he encounters all three generations of the Nobles. Although Christian Noble is almost a century old, he’s more vigorous than ever – inhumanly so. The family takes turns to preach an apocalyptic sermon that hints at dark secrets masked by the Bible and at the future that lies in wait. In a bid to investigate further Dominic undergoes the rite the church offers its members, which confers the ability to travel psychically through time. Before he’s able to flee back to the present he has a vision of the monstrous fate that’s in store for the world.
Dominic discovers a secret he’s sure the Nobles won’t want to be made public. Although he has retired from the police, Jim helps him establish the truth, and Roberta publishes it on her online blog. It’s the subject of a court case, the results of which seem to defeat the Nobles, only for them to return in a dreadfully transformed shape.
Now Dominic and his friends are at their mercy, and is there anywhere in the world to hide? Even if they manage somehow to deal with the Nobles, there may be no escaping or preventing the alien apocalypse that all the events of the trilogy have been bringing ever closer…
My Review
I have already read the first two books in the Birth Of Daoloth trilogy, so I’ve been a mixture of a horse chomping at the bit, and a kid in a sweet shop, once I knew that Way Of The Worm was coming out. Now, I will say that even if you pick this book up first, you won’t struggle with the ongoing story, although reading the first two books in the trilogy will give you better context and character backstory.
The author writes with a skill that can easily make you feel fear, tension, hopelessness, and a sense of impending doom, and he does all of that in this book. Once I started reading, I was transfixed. There was no way I would be putting this book down before finishing unless I saw Will Smith striding towards me…
The characters are well established and I felt a sense familiarity about joining them again. How Dominic has held onto his sanity is beyond me. He’s clearly made of sterner stuff. I also felt uneasy when reading about Christian Noble and the other members of the cult. I found myself tensing up whenever they did something. It takes some real skill to carry such characters convincingly but the author makes it look effortless.
Overall, I’m actually a little sad that I have finished the trilogy, but think it’s a series I will read again in due course. I’m happy to recommend this book to any reader of horror, with the caveat that you will enjoy it more as part of the trilogy. I gave Way Of The Worm, by Ramsey Campbell, five stars.
Meet The Author 
Ramsey Campbell (born 4 January 1946 in Liverpool) is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. Two of his novels have been filmed, both for non-English-speaking markets.
Since he first came to prominence in the mid-1960s, critics have cited Campbell as one of the leading writers in his field: T. E. D. Klein has written that “Campbell reigns supreme in the field today”, and Robert Hadji has described him as “perhaps the finest living exponent of the British weird fiction tradition”, while S. T. Joshi stated, “future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood.”
About The Book
ASIN : B098VWL161
Publisher : Flame Tree Press (29 Mar. 2022)
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 978-1787585676
Paperback : 288 pages
Dimensions : 13 x 1.8 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10 : 1787585670
File size : 989 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Where To Buy
For print copies, please consider supporting your local bookshops. To Buy online from Amazon, the book is available in the following formats:
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