Well now! It looks like I've found my next favorite Horror author!
It has modern sensibilities and old-school terror and gross-out all wrapped up in one shiny underwater package and a really bad mom.
Say what?
The psychological horror, from the flashbacks of a horrible mom and the losing of his kid and the dawning realization of what he's *now* going through kept pace with the sheer physical horror of the story. The pacing was pitch-perfect. The gross-outs were creepy as hell and utterly delightful. *happy dance*
I was Scared. *happy dance*
That doesn't happen all that much anymore. I've read a lot of horror. But this one? VERY NICE.
There's a great balance of discovery and awe and undersea danger and especially a long-term hope when it comes to the possible cure for the 'gets. (For'gets. A plague on the surface.) It goes ooooh so nice with his nightmares and the way he tries to hold on to a version of reality as something really deep and sinister rises up out of the deep in the actual ocean and his subconscious, too. I kept in step with the characters all the way.
I'll never look at bees in quite the same way. Oh, yeah, and perhaps I shouldn't touch random muck on walls, either. :) And poor doggy. ; ;
I think it's time to round up all his books and do a marathon. :) Horror, Fiction, Suspense While a disease called The 'Gets ravages the surface world, a substance that may be the cure is being researched at an installation on the floor of the Marianas Trench. When one of the scientists requests his brother's help just before the communication system dies, Luke has no choice but to descend to the unknown depths and confront horrors he cannot imagine...
I got this from Netgalley.
That was one harrowing read. I thought Nick Cutter couldn't top The Troop. I was wrong. Not only did he top The Troop, he sunk it's feet in cement and dropped it in the deepest part of the ocean.
The Deep taps into man's fear of the unknown, fear of the dark, and fear of being alone. When Luke Ronnick descends to the ocean's bottom in a submersible, he's also slowly descending into madness.
I'm almost at a loss as to how to describe this book. It's a claustrophobic nightmare of one man's sanity unraveling when confronted with an alien horror eight miles below the ocean's surface. It took me forever to get through because I could only handle so much at a time. It reminds me of John Carpenter's The Thing and James Cameron's The Abyss, with some Stephen King thrown in.
I don't know what was worse: the creepy ass flashbacks, Luke's brother Clayton, or the alien horror that lurks in the deep.
Nick Cutter cuts very deep. 4.5 out of 5 stars. Horror, Fiction, Suspense I enjoyed the story, thought the characters were well developed, with a few twists that I didn’t correctly anticipate. If you like body horror, you’ll enjoy The Deep. Unsure how I felt about the ending, left me a little unsatisfied, and ultimately the difference between a 3 and 4 star rating. Horror, Fiction, Suspense There were so many things wrong with this book. My review will be equally messy because I'm still mad and I can't get this down in an orderly manner but I'm not a writer so I'm excused.
To the author: This is my longest negative review ever. You emotionally instigated me. That counts for something. I loved The Troop and plan to read whatever you write next. With that said, here comes the pain! (in no particular order)
As far as the comparisons to The Thing, Alien, and The Abyss, I would say this successfully rips off all three without adding anything new to the spirit of those films.
The Good:
Ania Ahlborn blurbing on the cover alongside Stephen King, Scott Smith, and other Names. I've enjoyed watching her skyrocket to the top since she wrote Seed just a few years ago. You go girl.
The Rest:
I didn't care about any of the characters. By the halfway point I wanted them all to die.
--The flashback scenes, roughly half of the content, were by and large completely unnecessary. They were also incredibly boring and had so little to do with the plot is was like reading two entirely different tales in tandem for no particular reason other than page-count-stuffing until the author tried to conveniently make sense of it all at the last minute and failed.
--The Dr. Toy predicament. Ah, Dr. Toy. This is where all hopes of suspension of disbelief went right down the ol' shitter for me. The following is something that could be in a book trailer if there was one but I'll mark it as a spoiler just in case so nobody freaks out on me. Seriously though, I think you can check it without losing anything from the reading experience:
This drove me nuts. I just couldn't let it go for the remaining ~60% of the novel. If anyone thinks that neutralizing the guy with the knife is a secondary priority, feel free to comment below.
--If this were written as wisdom literature, we would all be doomed. At one point someone allegedly intelligent says something in an if/then context concerning if Satan could do A then God could do B. There are so many 'ifs' in that equation that the question itself is not even worth asking. It defies logic and I have to label it as The Laziest Philosophical Question Ever Asked Since the Dawn of Mankind.
--There were other wisdom nuggets to be found and I won't go into them all but a personal favorite was The smartest people were too often the stupidest. That's right; Stick that in your fortune cookie!
-Writers should no longer be allowed to say that someone was shaking and it had nothing to do with the cold. Enough said.
--Getting back to suspension of disbelief, I enjoyed the following quotes from the book. Yeah, I highlight a lot.
It seems crazy but-
None of this makes any sense.
This is not really happening.
The worst mistake you can make is to think it's idiotic. (I love that one)
That may be the stupidest thing you've ever said.
Stop questioning any of it.
These things happen every day. (Ha!)
I'll stop there with the ironic quotes.
--For character building a mad scientist, see Stephen King's revival. He handles it masterfully. The guy in this book was more like a cartoon of a mad scientist. The immaturity inherent to every interaction he had with his brother was embarrassing and another one of the things I had trouble believing. I'm trying to picture someone like Einstein or even a high school graduate behaving that way and I'm drawing a blank. In short, the dialogue was dumb.
--John Carpenter's The Thing is sacred ground.
This did have some genuine moments of horror that were well written, gross, and enjoyable so I'm bumping this one up to 1.5 stars.
/end rant Horror, Fiction, Suspense 3.5 stars
https://youtu.be/HPq7XEYAet0 Horror, Fiction, Suspense
When I first saw this book. I hit request button faster than fat girl can grab up a cake (I resemble that remark)..and then Netgalley you deny me!!! ARGGGG
Then I asked the question.....
Who do I gotta sleep with to get this dang book?
I figured hooking for books hasn't been invented yet. I gave it my all.
Then, I finally got my grubby little hands on a copy of this book. Why do I do this to myself??!!!
I hate the frigging ocean and deep water!! It's one of my biggest fears. My dumb ass just needs that scare factor so I read this book.
Luke gets the message that his weirdo genius brother Clayton needs him. Clayton is 8 flipping miles under the sea at a lab called the Trieste.
He is working on a cure for the 'Gets. A plague that is sweeping and killing most of the country. You start not remembering little stuff, then the bigger stuff, then you just forget how your body functions and you croak.
A substance called Ambrosia has been discovered on the bottom of the ocean and it is the wonder thing of the day. It could be a cure for just about anything attacking mankind.
There is a specific depth you'll hit where the soul finds it impossible to harmonize with it's surroundings.
Luke heads down in the ocean to see what brother dearest is up too.
Fuck that. Brother and man-kind would be on their own if they expected me to go down that deep. It's deeper than any organism can survive. It's dark. I HATE DEEP AND DARK!!!!!
The first part of this book was the better part for me. Once they got into Trieste and realized how bonkers everyone down there was, except for the dog. I kinda got lost in the whoo-whoo part of the story. I will have frigging nightmares though so Nick Cutter did his job well.
The water wasn't the same down here.
Water is what runs out of our kitchen taps or a playground drinking fountain. It fills bathtubs and pools and yes, of course, the ocean- but at a certain depth, water becomes a barrier from all you remember, all you think you know.
You're trapped within it, a plaything of it.
Focus erodes. your thoughts mutate. The pressure.
The pressure. Horror, Fiction, Suspense **2.5-stars rounded up**
I'm emotionally exhausted. Unfortunately, my friends, I don't mean that in a good way.
This book was such a stressful experience for me; I just couldn't relax into it.
The Deep is my second Cutter novel. The first I read was The Troop, which I easily gave 5-glowing stars.
This one was much more difficult for me to get into and stay interested. Some of the things I did enjoy were the basic premise, the overall claustrophobic feel, and the Trieste itself.
I loved how Cutter made the Trieste feel like a character in and of itself, which reminded me of how The Overlook Hotel feels in The Shining.
There's no denying that Cutter has the ability to write some creepy-ass stuff. There were multiple times in this where 'monster' type entities gave me the complete heebie-jeebies.
That is what I am down for. Those moments were fantastic.
However, this being said, other aspects of this story didn't work for me at all.
If you follow any of my reviews or blog, you may know that I have a really, really difficult time reading anything where animals are harmed, killed or mistreated.
Although in The Troop, there were a few passages I had to skim over, rather than actually read, due to graphic animal content, it was a sprinkling here and there.
This one had quite a bit more. If you are like me and sensitive at all to that type of content, tread with caution.
I was so worried about the dog in this story, literally the WHOLE TIME, that it made it impossible for me to enjoy it.
It was a constant source of anxiety. There I was, sitting with my dog, reading with this incredible sense of foreboding. I just didn't like it.
I know this is a personal taste issue and may affect others completely differently, or not at all. That is completely fine.
Besides the animal issue, let's discuss one of the main characters, Clayton.
I hated Clayton with every single fiber of my being. And while I do not need to like every character, any character, actually, this went above and beyond.
I'm talking, he is just a terrible, horrible human being that I would rate right up there with Professor Umbridge as one of my most hated characters of all time.
There was not one redeeming quality about him and if I were his brother, I would never have even bothered going to the Trieste in the first place.
However, I understand that would have made a pretty short, and vastly less compelling story:
Clayton: 'Luke, come, Luke. I need you.'
Me: 'No.'
THE END
Horror, Fiction, Suspense okay, so the back of this book claims it is like The Abyss meets The Shining, and on the one hand, you might think to yourself yeah, well it's a horror book that takes place under the sea - pretty lazy comparison, that. but it's actually a perfect comparison, and one which goes beyond the obvious surface-similarities. this book is just classic horror writing. by which i mean classic MODERN horror writing, not that algernon blackwood stuff that relies too much on half-seen apparitions and insinuation. this one reminded me in all the right ways of it, with some shades of misery and also a little bit of the thing. it's a wonderfully self-contained horror story that uses psychological elements like claustrophobia, isolation, and paranoia in conjunction with its more supernatural elements in order to hit the reader from all possible angles simultaneously. and it is very effective.
apart from the flashbacks, it all takes place 8 miles below the ocean, where even without the paranormal creeping in, there are so many natural things that can go wrong. you know you're in a scary place when these terrifying-looking viperfish are the least of your worries:
if you read The Troop and you were all ewww too violent!! or oh no, the animals!! back away slowly from this one, because it's both more of the same and MORE of the same. it's not going to pull its punches just because you like puppies and mousies. i like those things, too, but it's not much of a horror novel if no one gets hurt, yeah? and this one will come to get you where you live. i mean, true - it takes place 8 miles beneath the ocean, which is probably not actually where you live, but it does that more insidiously-scary thing in its flashbacks that stephen king is so good at especially in it, which is to remind you of how fucking terrifying childhood was. of how the thing in the closet was completely real and you were so small and no one was on your side. this book will bring you back to that point where anything could happen in the dark.
the only disappointment i had with this book is that we didn't get more about the 'gets - the plague that inspires the whole undersea research situation in the first place. because that's what fascinated me from the beginning - the symptoms of the plague that had me rapid-fire self-diagnosing:
It causes people to forget—small things at first, like where they left their keys…then the not-so-small things like how to drive, or the letters of the alphabet. Then their bodies forget how to function involuntarily…and there is no cure.
because i know i have that disease.
and i would be perfectly willing to read a companion-book to this one that focused on what was happening on the surface either before or during this book, so if that was ever up for debate, know that i would heartily approve.
but this book?? fantastic, chilling stuff.
come to my blog! Horror, Fiction, Suspense i hope nick cutter is prepared to pay for all the fucking therapy im gonna need bc of this book Horror, Fiction, Suspense I’m No Scaredy-Cat, But…
I would call this book a psychological horror story. Let me begin.
Lucas is turned off from living. He’s been this way since his son mysteriously disappeared, many years ago.
There is something wrong going on with the people of earth. They are losing their memories. His older brother, who is a genius, is working on trying to help solve the problem.
He is working on a research vessel, eight miles under the sea. When the station is no longer responsive, Lucas is called upon to get down there and see what is happening and get his brother and the other scientists to return.
The atmosphere is disheartening. The station is dark and daunting and dingy. It’s horrific!
It looks and breathes as though it is dreamlike and delusory and deceitful. It plays with your mind.
Is it alive? Is it living? Is someone there? Are there monsters? Is that my son? Do I care?
Will Lucas complete his goal? Will there be a happy ending? Will anyone live to find out? I’m horrified…
Highly recommended.
Five horrifying stars. ✨✨✨✨✨ Horror, Fiction, Suspense
From the acclaimed author of The Troop—which Stephen King raved “scared the hell out of me and I couldn’t put it down.…old-school horror at its best”—comes this utterly terrifying novel where The Abyss meets The Shining.
A strange plague called the ’Gets is decimating humanity on a global scale. It causes people to forget—small things at first, like where they left their keys…then the not-so-small things like how to drive, or the letters of the alphabet. Then their bodies forget how to function involuntarily…and there is no cure. But now, far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, deep in the Marianas Trench, an heretofore unknown substance hailed as “ambrosia” has been discovered—a universal healer, from initial reports. It may just be the key to a universal cure. In order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab, the Trieste, has been built eight miles under the sea’s surface. But now the station is incommunicado, and it’s up to a brave few to descend through the lightless fathoms in hopes of unraveling the mysteries lurking at those crushing depths…and perhaps to encounter an evil blacker than anything one could possibly imagine. The Deep