What do you think?
Rate this book
The Cerberus Protocol
From bestselling authors Joseph Nassise and Jon F. Merz comes a new series of short novels full of action, suspense, and all-out high octane excitement - HELLstalkers!
On December 5th, scientists at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland ran a short test on the newly completed Large Hadron Collider. For that brief period, protons swarmed back and forth along the seventeen miles of carefully constructed tunnel and slammed into each other with devastating force, generating power the likes of which had not been seen since the moment of the Big Bang.
Just a few short hours. That was all it took for our world to be invaded by hideous creatures from someone's nightmare.
My name is Captain Memphis Stone, commander of the HELLstalkers, the armed response unit hastily assembled to face this growing threat.
This is the story of the men and women under my command, those who stand in the gap and shed their blood to protect the rest of humanity from creatures that we never imagined we'd ever face, not even in our darkest dreams.
Welcome to the front lines.
On December 5th, scientists at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland ran a short test on the newly completed Large Hadron Collider. For that brief period, protons swarmed back and forth along the seventeen miles of carefully constructed tunnel and slammed into each other with devastating force, generating power the likes of which had not been seen since the moment of the Big Bang.
Just a few short hours. That was all it took for our world to be invaded by hideous creatures from someone's nightmare.
My name is Captain Memphis Stone, commander of the HELLstalkers, the armed response unit hastily assembled to face this growing threat.
This is the story of the men and women under my command, those who stand in the gap and shed their blood to protect the rest of humanity from creatures that we never imagined we'd ever face, not even in our darkest dreams.
Welcome to the front lines.
ebook
First published November 7, 2010
3 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Nassise
98 books331 followersI'm the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than fifty novels, including the Templar Chronicles series, the Jeremiah Hunt trilogy, and the Great Undead War series. I've also written several books in the Rogue Angel action/adventure series from Gold Eagle. I'm a former president of the Horror Writers Association, the world's largest organization of professional horror writers, and a multiple Bram Stoker Award and International Horror Guild Award nominee.
When I'm not writing, I'm hanging out with dogs, practicing recurve archery, or off-roading in the desert around my home in Phoenix, AZ.
When I'm not writing, I'm hanging out with dogs, practicing recurve archery, or off-roading in the desert around my home in Phoenix, AZ.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 23, 2013
did some bros write this? I got it as part of the storybundle deal and the previous deal had some great sci-fi writing so I was hoping the thriller deal did too.
gosh, that was a false hope.
the story was stale, the pace break-neck, and as others have said, the editing...wait, I don't think it was edited! word choice such as threw for through can really screw up the read.
it's like someone got out of the army, got bored, didn't know what else to do with their life, saw some demons-from-beyond movie while jerking off, and said hey, I can write books like this!
unless bro-scifi/horror-military B-movie type fast plots are your thing, give this a pass
gosh, that was a false hope.
the story was stale, the pace break-neck, and as others have said, the editing...wait, I don't think it was edited! word choice such as threw for through can really screw up the read.
it's like someone got out of the army, got bored, didn't know what else to do with their life, saw some demons-from-beyond movie while jerking off, and said hey, I can write books like this!
unless bro-scifi/horror-military B-movie type fast plots are your thing, give this a pass
February 19, 2012
Captain Memphis Stone, an Army Ranger was on leave in Geneva after several months of war games in Russia. All he wanted was good food, good music, and possibly the company of a good woman.
The accident at the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN complex called him back to duty. Every communication from inside was cut off and the last thing seen before the recording stopped was a flash of energy.
Stone was to head the team going in to rescue the scientists trapped and get them ready for first aid help.
The warped doors were opened and the dozen entered darkness, the only vision was from their night goggles. The first thing they saw was blood, lots of it, splashed on walls, floor, ceiling.
No bodies though.
Then the creatures attacked from out of the black. Panther-like monsters the size of tigers, but with eight legs and razor-sharp barbs on their tails.
It was one of those barbs that saved Stone's life. As the screaming and gunfire started, a tail of a creature leaping over his head caught him along the temple. When he came to, everyone else was dead and he started thinking about how he was going to get out.
Scooping up a weapon loaded with grenades, which was another good move, he started out, only to run into a humanoid like thing with porcupine-like quills over it's body. the grenades Stone fired didn't hurt it, but the force drove it back into a vacuum chamber sufficient to allow him to lock it away, just before he was overwhelmed by a sense of terror as it looked out the window at him.
After several weeks of answering questions and getting medical treatment, Stone was awaiting the results of the hearing that he was sure would exonerate him.
In stepped a man he hadn't seen in five years: his old commander from Iraq: Darius Trent, who greeted him with a job offer. The card he handed him had a stylized three-headed dog and thre words in latin: deny, defend, destroy.
Politely declining, Stone went into the hearing prepared to continue his career as a Ranger.
It was the shortest discharge in history.
Cashiered out for medical reasons, he was off the base with the clothes on his back in just a couple of hours. His personal effects would be shipped to him later.
When he called Trent to accept the job, he learned what it was all about.
THE CERBERUS PROTOCOL had been started by Truman after papers were found indicating the Nazis had been funding occult experiments during WWII that had opened a rift into an alternate universe. The eight-legged panthers had been mentioned, as well as other creatures. But Stone was the only one who had seen the humanoid beings.
No longer under government control, but with the President's blessing, funded by private sources, there was a base in Maine and Stone was the first member of HELLSTALKER ONE, the team that would guard the gates of Hell, combating these creatures as a rift opened and closing it with a device developed by Cerberus' science division.
Of course, Stone would have to recruit his team.
From the list, he got three: Ulf Schwarzwalder, the German, Alena Beresovky, Russian, and Colin "Jock" MacIvers, Scottish. All were, or had been, special forces trained in their countries. All were wary of each other and all three were wary of Stone.
It's a nice set-up for the series to come. I look forward to future entries.
The accident at the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN complex called him back to duty. Every communication from inside was cut off and the last thing seen before the recording stopped was a flash of energy.
Stone was to head the team going in to rescue the scientists trapped and get them ready for first aid help.
The warped doors were opened and the dozen entered darkness, the only vision was from their night goggles. The first thing they saw was blood, lots of it, splashed on walls, floor, ceiling.
No bodies though.
Then the creatures attacked from out of the black. Panther-like monsters the size of tigers, but with eight legs and razor-sharp barbs on their tails.
It was one of those barbs that saved Stone's life. As the screaming and gunfire started, a tail of a creature leaping over his head caught him along the temple. When he came to, everyone else was dead and he started thinking about how he was going to get out.
Scooping up a weapon loaded with grenades, which was another good move, he started out, only to run into a humanoid like thing with porcupine-like quills over it's body. the grenades Stone fired didn't hurt it, but the force drove it back into a vacuum chamber sufficient to allow him to lock it away, just before he was overwhelmed by a sense of terror as it looked out the window at him.
After several weeks of answering questions and getting medical treatment, Stone was awaiting the results of the hearing that he was sure would exonerate him.
In stepped a man he hadn't seen in five years: his old commander from Iraq: Darius Trent, who greeted him with a job offer. The card he handed him had a stylized three-headed dog and thre words in latin: deny, defend, destroy.
Politely declining, Stone went into the hearing prepared to continue his career as a Ranger.
It was the shortest discharge in history.
Cashiered out for medical reasons, he was off the base with the clothes on his back in just a couple of hours. His personal effects would be shipped to him later.
When he called Trent to accept the job, he learned what it was all about.
THE CERBERUS PROTOCOL had been started by Truman after papers were found indicating the Nazis had been funding occult experiments during WWII that had opened a rift into an alternate universe. The eight-legged panthers had been mentioned, as well as other creatures. But Stone was the only one who had seen the humanoid beings.
No longer under government control, but with the President's blessing, funded by private sources, there was a base in Maine and Stone was the first member of HELLSTALKER ONE, the team that would guard the gates of Hell, combating these creatures as a rift opened and closing it with a device developed by Cerberus' science division.
Of course, Stone would have to recruit his team.
From the list, he got three: Ulf Schwarzwalder, the German, Alena Beresovky, Russian, and Colin "Jock" MacIvers, Scottish. All were, or had been, special forces trained in their countries. All were wary of each other and all three were wary of Stone.
It's a nice set-up for the series to come. I look forward to future entries.
January 25, 2013
I must confess to being disappointed by this one. Between them, the authors are quite prolific in their output and yet some basic grammatical editing would've been nice. The phrase "each time" appears no less than three times, twice in the same sentence and at the beginning of the next, for instance. Then there's the complete idiocy of the plot, the rather gargantuan assumption that 66 years elapse without need for anything like the team being assembled in this book coupled with the team leader's incompetence and a shadowy, string-pulling figure far too remote to be of any interest and I came away wishing I'd read something else.
The effort is there, but it's the sort of writing I'd expect from a teen with an adult copyeditor putting in a bit of work. The military stuff is bland, the action cheap, consequences short-lived and time compressed to give the story more.
If you like your military and mythology to mingle, you can find better mixes. If you like your commanders with a complete set of dimensions, there'll be plenty elsewhere. If you like your writing grown-up rather than just peppered with a few expletives you can find that almost anywhere else and if you have interest in covert ops or military hardware this will only be of interest if you want to get your little toe in.
The effort is there, but it's the sort of writing I'd expect from a teen with an adult copyeditor putting in a bit of work. The military stuff is bland, the action cheap, consequences short-lived and time compressed to give the story more.
If you like your military and mythology to mingle, you can find better mixes. If you like your commanders with a complete set of dimensions, there'll be plenty elsewhere. If you like your writing grown-up rather than just peppered with a few expletives you can find that almost anywhere else and if you have interest in covert ops or military hardware this will only be of interest if you want to get your little toe in.
November 23, 2013
An ok book. The story was a bit shorter than I expected so there was not really all that much time to build suspense. Each time a problem or an issue arose, it was resolved really quickly. I am not usually into SiFiy type stories but this was was rather ok. I chose to read this book because it was in the StoryBundle that I just bought.
So in the end an okay story any maybe worth reading if you are looking for a quick read.
So in the end an okay story any maybe worth reading if you are looking for a quick read.
November 20, 2014
US army captain Tough Manly is drinkin' beer and eyein' up a hot chick at a bar, 'cause he's just come back from being awesome at soldiering and now he's ready for some action... of a different kind! But then terrorists attack so he leaves his beer undrunk and gets ready to save the world. That was chapter one in a nutshell and I'm not reading any more of this shit.
February 26, 2014
The best thing about this book is that it is very short. It read almost like a parody of military action thrillers, but seems deadly earnest. When the Russian character, whatever her name, was introduced, I was strongly reminded of Danger Five, which is much more fun and has better characterization. This is rather dismal and boring.
November 12, 2013
цікава ідея для серії (halflife пригадався ситтю), зіпсута слабеньким сюжетом, картонними персонажами, нецікавими діалогами, банальними кліше...
November 14, 2013
Predictable plot, sparsely written with uneven pacing, poorly copy edited (to the point that it was confusing at times). Might read the sequel if it's cheap.
December 9, 2013
Eh. Decent story line. Horrible editing. I'll probably continue the series if the next books are cheap enough.
November 27, 2013
Highly enjoyable, and trashy,piece of action/science fiction.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews