Review: Worldender by Nick Nikolov

A pulse-pounding alien invasion novel, Nick Nikolov’s Worldender is a terrifying mixture of science fiction and horror.

When we first meet Lucy Castle, our unlikely hero, she’s participating in the illegal economy, dropping off some dangerous material for higher pay at her bike courier job. The drop goes south, but Lucy makes it out due to her physical prowess and exceptional combat skills. She then gets drunk and almost doesn’t make it on time to her second job, which is a fairly typical day in Lucy’s life – late nights, hiding her injuries – and she does it all for her mother, who needs expensive medicine to keep her dementia-related illness at bay.

Unbeknownst to Lucy, she’s about to take on her most deadly job yet: one where the very fate of the world hangs in the balance. While stealing a car, Lucy runs into a strange tall man wearing a plague doctor mask – Doctor Emidius, an otherworldly agent deployed to stop the spread of an extraterrestrial virus before it’s too late. When Lucy’s actions – and potential sabotage – keep the Doctor from achieving his objective, Lucy gets sucked into an action-packed mission to eliminate the infected and locate the prime contagion before Earth is doomed.

With its themes of spreading sickness and contagious infection, Worldender is simultaneously relatable, prescient, and completely horrifying. Even more repulsive is the fact that the virus learns about its host as it mutates, gradually figuring out how to infect older life forms, meaning that it attacks children first, before moving on to adult humans. The book paints a vivid, detailed picture of a frightening world where children under ten are rapidly transforming into inhuman monsters that must be eradicated.

Worldender definitely doesn’t shy away from allowing this moral dilemma to play out on the page, with tons of blood, guts, and gore along the way. The book is well-paced, much like a cinematic action film that keeps ramping up to a satisfying, epic conclusion. However, author Nikolov also imbues his novel with plenty of genuine human emotion and heart. It’s poignant and real – the way Lucy must push herself to make enough money to assist her mom, for example. Ironically, this means she doesn’t have time to visit her mother in person, and as soon as she comes into a lucrative stash of coins with the Doctor’s help, the quarantine prevents her from traveling anyway – a very understandable analog to contemporary life.

The relationship between Lucy and Doctor Emidius is also affecting and authentic, and often very funny. Lucy and the Doctor are like the odd couple, trying to figure each other out and work together, even though they’re often at loggerheads. Lucy teaches the Doctor about humanity, while the Doctor is trying to save humanity – an exchange that is sincerely sweet. Throughout, there is a large degree of tender character-building that offers respite to the unfolding horror, but is riveting fiction in its own right.

All told, Worldender is a deftly crafted work of character-driven apocalyptic fiction that takes its horrific premise a huge step further than your typical apocalyptic read, which will satisfy readers of a number of different genres.