A rocket-fast story told with staccato-like prose, this bad boy whizzes by you equal parts thrilling, philosophical, mysterious, and frightening. There wasn’t a dull moment or a wasted word on these pages. While the end gallops up rapidly and lands on the allegorical side, I was wholly invested in the protagonist’s journey. The voice here is unique, as is the plot itself. This book is a winner, to be sure.

The second effort from the author of Bird Box. It's about a band of musicians that are also a band of solidiers. The premise is a bit thin but the creep factor isn't. I thought that the Bird Box was better but Malerman is an interesting writer and I'll be sure to read whatever he writes next.

Ugh. Review to come when I can deal with my crushing disappointment. ---------------Finally reading this! I swore I wouldn't buy any more books. But I really wanted this one, so it doesn't count. Right?-----------------------New Josh Malerman book? Sign me the fuck up.

josh malerman has become the go-to dude for sensory horror.if they ever let monkeys* become book reviewers (why so UNFAIR, world?), this is how it would go:Bird Box: Black Mad Wheel: his (awesome) debut novel, Bird Box, featured an ambiguous “something” that swept the globe; a presence that drove anyone who looked at it mad: homicidal, suicidal, utterly destroyed. it was wonderfully intense, as characters were threatened by a force they could neither name nor even visualize, spending their...

I spent about a month between the pages of this book, not because I'm a particularly slow reader or because I had trouble getting through it, but because there's something about Josh's writing that calls for a bit of savoring. His sentence structure can be quirky—a one word paragraph followed by a hundred word sentence followed by a thought and maybe a little dialog. He recklessly bounces from head to head, chapter to chapter, past to present and back again. If you were to ask your eleventh grad...

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/3.5 Stars “This is a matter of national security. Not a love story.” If you follow me and my (pretty much) daily ramblings, you might have noticed a couple of things. First, I’ve been gone for a bit. I thought I was taking a couple of days off to acquire a lethal dose of skin cancer via way of the local baseball fields, but ended up with nearly a week free of work thanks to a floating holiday that was given to us pee-ons in addition

4.5/5 stars! Black Mad Wheel is a story which defies categorization and instead focuses on delivering characters that you like and can believe in. The Danes are a band consisting of ex-army men, (even if they were only in the army band), who are asked by the military to investigate a noise in the African desert. I know it sounds crazy, and maybe it is, but I found it be compelling dark fiction. From Philip's point of view, (Philip being the band's keyboard player), the narrative switches betwee...

So very, very disappointed. Bottom lip stuck wayyyy out. Of course, my expectations were pretty high, considering how much I loved Malerman's first book, Bird Box. He proved himself in his creeptastic debut that he's a master of suspense, and creator of original ideas. I've basically been waiting for instalment #2 ever since finishing #1 having been totally disturbed (in a good way) by Gary and the dangerous creatures stalking the earth in his post-apocalyptic masterpiece.I had a totally differe...

Strange and terrifyingMaybe it’s because people can’t see the end that they agree to begin.It was sort of a gig. An opportunity to make some money and at the same time have the adventure of a lifetime. The former soldiers of World War II and current band-mates wouldn’t be playing any music in the Namib Desert. In fact, they wouldn’t be making any noise. They will be listening for a particular sound. A sound they have never heard. A sound which makes people sick, which renders nuclear weapons use...

I think I need to create a new bookshelf for this one and call it "Aw-man-really". Because, though I liked the book well enough, I found myself saying "Aw man. Really?!" too many times out loud while listening to it during my commute. I crushed on Malerman's BIRD BOX so hard core, and had such high hopes for this one. Did I set the book up to fail me? Perhaps. But... aw man... reaaaallly?

"Hey, Phil. If you're gonna spew, spew into this."-Garth Algar, Wayne's WorldIf it weren't for the vomit on the carpets, this probably would've been a 5-star read for me. I generally do not do horror and definitely don't do sci-fi. But I DO do Josh Malerman whose dark, underbelly of writing suits me just fine.This addictive story made me initially feel pretty miserable. Physical pain, nausea, foreboding, the inability to move a muscle - all experienced by our protagonist - are not usually a draw...

It isn’t Bird Box, but it is the bizarro horror/mystery fiction that I have come to expect from Malerman. I enjoyed the ride and in the end I was sort of left with more questions than answers. But this is usually the case with his books. It is kind of like the Shyamalan twist, but in each case of the Malerman twist it is just as bizarre as everything before it. Because of that it is not really shocking, nor does it provide any answers, it just twists you into even more WTF-ness. The plot of this...

What an imagination this author has. I cannot get enough of his books as they provide enough weirdness, horror and strangeness that I devour them in one sitting, if possible. This story revolves around a group of WWII veterans who are musicians in a band called "The Danes" who are asked by the government to investigate a mysterious sound in the African desert. This "sound" renders listeners sick and much worse and renders all weapons ineffective. Some readers take issue with the implausibility o...

I really enjoyed Malerman's first novel Bird Box and picked up on the See no Evil, Hear no Evil vibe going on between both of these novels, looking even more toward the next which will have to be a Speak no Evil one or I'm going to give up on reviewing anything forever.That being said, oh so melodramatically, I wanted to like this particular Hearing Evil novel much more than I did. All the setups in 1957 with a rock band getting propositioned by the US Government on a super secret project was de...

I loved birdbox and was excited to read more by Josh Malerman. Unfortunately I didn't end up enjoying it. It had some intruging elements but did nothing to get me invested in the audiobook

3.5 Stars. "The question is not what you found...but what found you?" The mission: Locate source of evil, debilitating sound. The payment: $100k each. The question: Do you believe in ghosts? The bottom line: Survival. Former soldier, Private Philip Tonka wakes up in a military hospital after six months comatose, a broken painful mess of bones trying to piece together what happened to him and his struggling Detroit band/x-soldier buddies after a dangerous and mysterious mission to Africa. He kn...

This one took a little while for me to get into, but after 75ish pages I was intrigued.

Black Mad Wheel's storyline involves sensory horror, military/war-related themes, the suspense of a top secret mission, paranormal activity, rock n roll, historical fiction, and the slow burn mystery of how the member of a rock band had every single bone in his body crunched like a soda can. All this and more is incorporated into a story that reads less like intentional fiction and more like someone recounting their dream from the night before. It's that weird. But it's good. It's about how hist...

Anyone who has read Bird Box knows that Josh Malerman is capable of reaching inside, grabbing your soul and freaking the hell out of it. Once I saw that he had a new book releasing, I knew that I needed to read it.Black Mad Wheel played back and forth between two timelines in the protagonist’s life. This is a formula that has worked for Malerman before, I like it; this flow really allows the author to build the mystery, leaving the reader to wonder WTF is going on. Additionally, this format allo...

Josh Malerman’s “Black Mad Wheel” has a touch of Stephen King’s creepiness, mixed in with some Blake Crouch “Dark Matter”, all tied up with a “Daisy Jones & The Six” cherry on top. “The Danes” used to top the Detroit music charts. Now, they are desperately seeking inspiration, looking for another number one hit. When they are approached by the U.S military and receive a strange, yet profitable, offer, every one of them jumps at the chance. Soon all four members of The Danes are on a plane to a