Starlight then informs him that she has since learned that the Deep has lied about his importance to the group, and he is, in fact, regarded as "a joke." She further threatens to burn his eyes out if he so much as touches her again. The Deep is visibly shaken by her threats, but tries to maintain a calm facade. 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. In The Troop, Cutter managed to get us invested in the fate of the boys trapped on that island. They were kind, smart, scrappy, selfish, brave and even evil in one case. When horrible things happened to them, we cared and felt terrible for them. In that way, The Troop was very Stephen King-like for me. Lucas is turned off from living. He’s been this way since his son mysteriously disappeared, many years ago.

Hellish, grotesque imagery abounds. You are going to see some crazy, deeply unsettling stuff. Trust me. I was half expecting the Cenobites from Hellraiser to show up at some point. This book is about a married couple that are searching a sunken vessel off the coast of Bermuda. They soon discover that this vessel was carrying drugs. The local drug lord wants these drugs. The couple are adamant about not supplying the local drug lord and they are fighting for their lives.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. When a sub resurfaces carrying the mutilated body of one of the researchers and communications from the station cease, two brave individuals are sent deep into the unknown to investigate. Just a note: the Trieste in this novel is probably a reference to the Trieste bathyscaphe, which in 1960 reached the deepest part of the ocean (the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench). The bathyscaphe was largely contructed in the Italian city of Trieste, which is where it got its name. So, while it’s possible that the author was refering to the Spanish word for “sorrow”, it’s more likely that he was refering to the previous deep sea exploratory vehicle. This is fairly realistic – those who commission and build exploratory vessels have a tendency to name them after other exploratory vessels (all the things named after the original HMS Challenger, such as the Glomar Challenger scientific ship and the Challenger space shuttle, attest to this). I have never seen the movie that was Unfortunately, The Deep barely has characters much less ones I cared about when the horrible things happened to them. In fact, the book only has one character that we ever really get to know -- Luke -- and he isn't terribly interesting or memorable or clever.

Disturbing dreams begin on the descent...childhood nightmares of a cruel and disgusting mother, aka Battle-Ax Beth, and worse, the millipede memory, (for me the most disturbing part of the story) that brings with it a painful, guilt ridden and heartbreaking loss. "Come Home Daddy."This is a very dark book in tone and description. The plot might seem to be one thing, but it turns out to be another thing entirely. It’s about the grotesque fears we harbor as children and then as adults ; how we embrace those fears through memory and or forgetfulness. Lovegrove, James (March 27, 2020). "Science fiction round-up: Alien's xenomorphs get medieval". Financial Times . Retrieved July 30, 2020. I was so worried about the dog in this story, literally the WHOLE TIME, that it made it impossible for me to enjoy it. Luke has agreed to venture to the deepest point on earth because he has nothing left to lose. His son Zachary disappeared seven years ago during a game of hide and seek with his father in the park. Luke's wife left him and then the 'Gets set upon the globe. Luke has a closet full of skeletons. In addition to his missing and presumed dead son, there's emotional abuse he endured from his mother, "Battle Axe" Beth, a prison trustee who went on disability, grew obese and set out to torment her youngest son. Then there are memories of a boogeyman that plagued Luke and later his son, which Zach called the "Fig Men" off his father's assurance it was just a "figment". A new substance, believed to be a miraculous cure-all healer, is discovered at the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the lowest known point in the ocean. It isn't long before a state of the art research center, populated with a select few brilliant scientists, is constructed eight miles below sea level.

As passengers board the RMS Titanic, first class stewardess Annie Hebley meets Mark, Caroline, and Ondine Fletcher. She is immediately drawn to Mark and the Fletchers ask Annie to regularly prepare milk for Ondine, as the baby takes to her instantly. Mark, who has a gambling addiction, is eventually approached by the Welsh boxer, Leslie "Les" Williams, who convinces him to sneak into the luggage hold and steal stored money from the luggage of John Jacob and Madeleine Astor. Les had discovered the money's existence by way of a con centered around him pretending to be psychic, much to the disapproval of his secret lover and fellow boxer, David "Dai" John Bowen. Before the money is stolen, however, the Astors' servant boy dies under mysterious and seemingly supernatural circumstances. Annie discovers Caroline's brooch on the boy and although she plans on returning it, keeps it on her person. Here’s an incredibly ambitious setting, prose as ornate as the boat, mood as ghostly as gothic, and what must have been enough research to build a ship of her own. Yet, The Deep is thrilling, rich, frightening, unsettling, and, nest of all, told from the heart. I’m going to have to read it again, because I’m not sure how she did it… The Deep is divine. I hear bugles blaring; the announcement of the arrival of a brilliant author.” –Josh Malerman, author of Bird BoxWhat worked about The Troop was that it had characters you cared about. That seems like a pretty crucial aspect of a horror book because if you don't care about the characters, then no matter how horrible the things are that happen to them then, well, it isn't very horrifying IMHO. (Yes, there are exceptions to the rule where you aren't supposed to care about the characters. This isn't one of them.)