Those Who Dwell Below the Sidewalk

By: Ben Farthing

Narrated by: Aaron Camacho

In the darkest corners of Washington D.C. lies the Periphery—the entrance into the horrific dimensions that touch our own.

During a bumper-to-bumper commute, Everard is almost murdered by a woman whose skin is covered in a living swarm of holes. Furious, Everard chases her down an impossible staircase. He’s thrown into the city’s supernatural underbelly where nightmares lurk around every corner.

With an undead strongman trying to recruit him, an occult lynch mob out for his head, and an ancient soul-eating evil only he can stop, Everard’s only shot at survival lies in embracing a latent psychic ability—even if it risks shredding his soul into pieces.

For fans of horror epics like Stephen King’s Dark Tower or the wondrous horrors of Clive Barker’s Cabal & Nightbreed, Ben Farthing's BOOM is “non-stop terrifying action” with a villain who Apex Magazine Editor Lesley Conner called, “The stuff of my freaking nightmares.”

©2016 Benjamin Farthing (P)2023 Benjamin Farthing

Very original story

Great performance, great storyline. The story gives off Dresden Files vibes but with darker factions. It left me wanting to hear more about Everard and his horrors beneath the sidewalks. I will never look at DC the same way again. I listened every opportunity I could get, I was hooked and had to know the outcome of the characters I became invested it!

Fantastic story and performance

A whole world is hiding in the Periphery! Everard finds a power he never knew he had and dives into an insane world of magic and reality bending and gets dragged into an adventure he never asked for. The narrator brings this world and its characters to life in such a fantastic way.

A non-stop, full-tilt romp through bizarro world!

This book is a non-stop, full-tilt, action-packed romp through bizzarro world and I loved every single second of it!

It's a super weird and wonderful mash-up of dark urban fantasy horror with heart and humor. I picked up some faint vibes reminiscent of a few of my favorite authors: Neil Gaiman (particularly Neverwhere), Jasper Fforde, Max Frei, and Christopher Moore (particularly A Dirty Job) - but it was entirely its own creation and it is straight up my street.

Narrator Aaron Camacho is brilliant, and second only to Joe Hempel when it comes to who I most want to read me a story. He had me mesmerized and glued to my headphones.

This story is mad inventive, clever, insightful, really fun, and funny even as it disturbs. Everard makes an entirely relatable and mostly sympathetic driver for the story as he accidentally descends into the Periphery, an interdimensional shadow city in the underbelly of Washington DC, and encounters all sorts of behind-the-looking-glass mayhem and madness. Here lies my only real issue - while specific parts of the city below the sidewalk came to life crystal clear in my mind, I struggled to conceptualize the city as a whole. Maybe that's just me being an apex nerd and angling for inclusion of a map at the front of one more book. I love maps.

I don't have to worry about spoilers with this one; I don't think I could spoil it if I tried - it's too big to spoil! And speaking of big, the cast of characters is impressive. I recommend keeping crib notes to track the them, and their alliances. Or maybe that's just me and my sad post-COVID brain.

Everard doesn't always know what he's even doing down below, and who he should trust to help him figure it out. And neither do we. The 'friendlies' he encounters are pretty layered and maybe some of them are not as friendly as he thinks, and the 'villains' certainly think they are on the right side of the chaos which is clearly heading for some sort of reckoning. They all have their reasons for doing what they do. Everard has to figure all of that out, while also trying to figure out his own just-discovered super power, and how to use what he knows and what he can do to save the people he loves and two whole cities from certain destruction. No big deal.

The characters are vibrant and unforgettable: Undone Duncan and his terrifying cult of the reskinned, The chilling Perforated Woman with her swarming face holes, the mercurial Aluromancer (having listened to this, I have no idea how that's spelled!), legendary creatures with mysterious purpose (including a rampaging boogeyman on the loose), the formidable Loretta, and good ole Bill-Bill.

I might have lost the thread, or wondered if I lost the thread, every once in awhile, but everything always eventually came back around to reorient me, and I was NEVER bored. It was supremely entertaining and a genuine pleasure to listen to. I was bummed out when it ended, but it sounds like there's at least one more book delving into the Periphery - The Piper's Graveyard.