When diving into Them by New York Times bestselling author W.H. Chizmar, I didn’t know what to fully expect. What I thought was going to be a solid creature-feature horror tale, ended up being just that but a lot more. Them is thoughtful, atmospheric, and original. A story that is monstrous, but also utterly human.
A top-secret government project hits upon a revolutionary idea for transporting matter across the vast reaches of the universe, and it succeeds in bringing something back. Something alive. Soon, mankind’s reign comes to an abrupt halt when a truck hauling a very special shipping container overturns and rolls off the highway, unleashing an otherworldly horror upon an unsuspecting New England countryside, where it cannot be contained…
Several years later, an unidentified man emerges from the rubble of humanity, seeking other survivors and a shred of hope amid an eerie and lonely landscape. He travels by night up the rural East Coast, discovering Americana ruins and encountering monsters the likes of which no one has survived. Scarred and molded by the cruel horrors of this new natural order, he must face his own dwindling humanity and pray that any others out there have not become monsters themselves…
It’s not for a lack of faith in Chizmar’s first solo novel, the incredibly crafted and extremely successful Widow’s Point: The Complete Haunting he co-wrote with his father Richard Chizmar is proof of the talent, but what would the first solo book be like. What we got was a fantastic solo debut novel that took me by surprise in the most wonderful way.
Them is classic sci-fi horror, where a secret government experiment goes wrong, something unknown gets loose, and suddenly everything spirals into chaos. Onward from there we follow a survivor recounting what went on as this situation escalated into something much bigger and more terrifying. It has that post-apocalyptic, end-of-the-world vibe, but told in a much more personal, character-driven, and grounded way.
The whole story is surrounded by this constant sense of dread that builds steadily throughout, even when the story opens up a bit, it still feels intimate, making for a really atmospheric tale. The horror is just about the threat itself, it’s about the uncertainty, the confusion, and how we react when things stop making sense to us. This takes a creature horror story and surrounds it with dread, suspense, and utter fear.
Them features a nice blend of genres, it’s part sci-fi, part horror, part on the road story, but balances this extremely well. Of course some have been comparing the story to how The Stand was written, in terms of overall scope, but it definitely tends to say a bit more focused on individual experience rather than a larger cast. The book also features a good amount of deeper themes running across it with questions about responsibility, humanity, and how fragile the world can really be when you it is pushed to the edge.
Chizmar brings a unique style to the story, especially when it came to the survivor perspective. We are not just watching events unfold, we are piecing them together as they happen, keeping the sense of unease alive and allowing us to stay engaged along the way. It’s a style that had me thrown for a loop a bit at the beginning, but quickly set in place and was hooked from then on.
Them is more than a book full of terror or some sort of spectacle, but a story filled with a lingering sense of humanity threaded through all that chaos. W.H. Chizmar delivers an amazing, character-driven story with a classic sci-fi horror vibe that feels intimate and expansive at the same time. Them blends dread, emotion, and great imagination into a fantastic solo debut.
Them hits bookstores everywhere on August 11, 2026 from Gallery Books. The audiobook is available via Libro.fm!
