A new name has come out firing on all cylinders in the horror literary world, as W.H. Chizmar’s debut novel, THEM is already in the running for the best sci-fi horror book of the year. Chizmar, the son of novelist and long-time Stephen King collaborator Richard Chizmar, is not a novice writer.
Aside from writing a smattering of short stories, he also co-wrote the creepily fantastic Widow’s Point in 2018 with his father, which received an expanded edition titled Widow’s Point: The Complete Haunting in 2025. THEM is W.H. Chizmar’s first solo novel, released on August 11 and published by Gallery Books.
THEM Is so Much More Than a Generic Dystopian Creature Feature
The story of THEM follows two different perspectives. The first is from an unnamed male wanderer in a post-apocalyptic United States, eight years after an alien race has driven humans to the cusp of extinction. The man traverses up the East Coast of America, looking for someone… anyone, while maneuvering through the guilt and grief of what it takes to survive in a world that holds a swift but brutal death around every corner.
The second perspective comes in the form of journal writing from a man who holds some of the responsibility for the world’s end. In his past life, he worked for the government, shooting a teleportation harpoon into the depths of space and accidentally bringing back ferociously wild and deadly extraterrestrials, complete with armored carapaces and piercing tails.
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At first, the aliens die immediately in our environment, but continued transfers and genetic testing and experimentation in hopes of domesticating and militarizing the creatures (which is exactly what the U.S. Government would do) result in a swift failure and inevitable planetary takeover.
The book uses both perspectives to simultaneously take the reader through the past and present, answering any questions they may have along the way, while still providing a protagonist to care about. Even without a name or too much information provided about the wanderer’s past, I still felt for him with every passing moment, as he’s seemingly completely alone in a world overtaken by predators.
THEM Has a Few Pacing Issues, but it’s Packed with Emotion
There are plenty of self-referential moments in THEM, with Chizmar bringing up fictional universes (that also obviously inspired this story and its creatures) like Ridley Scott’s Alien or A Quiet Place. However, there’s an emotionality to the story that puts it more in line with Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, rather than the usual action-packed dystopian sci-fi thrillers we’ve come to love.
In a world where he’s spent almost a decade alone, the man begins to forget himself and those who perished from his life before. Not just friends, family, and colleagues, but entire cultures and ways of life. Everything is gone, and the fact that he somehow still roams the Earth, due to difficult decisions he’s had to make, causes him to feel like he doesn’t deserve something as relieving and releasing as death.
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Like many dystopian wanderer stories, the pacing is the biggest issue with THEM, but really only for the first segment of the book. Chizmar’s decision to pivot away from chapters and use the perspectives to segment the book makes things feel a little longer than they should, especially for a 250-page book, but as the story picks up, the pacing issues dwindle until the timelines converge and the reader has the entire backstory.
For a story that includes ferocious aliens that indiscriminately rip adult and child humans (as well as each other) to shreds, THEM is surprisingly reflective. There are little speckles of hope strewn across such a depressive and heartbreaking wasteland, and even the smallest of smiles or moments of normality for the main character feel cathartic to the reader.
Overall, THEM is simply a hell of a debut, both for its uniqueness in an oversaturated subgenre of dystopian alien horror and its surprising amount of sentimentality. I absolutely recommend picking up THEM, as well as Widow’s Point: The Complete Haunting, and I can’t wait to see where W.H. Chizmar’s career is headed.
THEM is now available at all major book retailers.
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