They Came from the Ocean

Creature Encounters

By: Boris Bacic

Narrated by: Chris Gatterdam

Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Exploring the bottom of the ocean is scary. It's worse when something down there is stalking you.

Off the coast of New Zealand, there's an underwater mining facility 8,000 feet under the ocean. The crew stationed there knows that drowning is the least of their worries at such depths. That's why they panic when a maintenance member goes missing while out on a repair mission. He had only eight hours of oxygen, and almost a day has gone by since they lost contact, so the crew can only hope to retrieve his body.

Then, they receive a distress call from him - at a depth of 11,000 feet.

A small rescue team suits up and dives to find their missing crewmate. But descending into the unforgiving depths of the ocean is much easier than going back up, and the team learns that too late. Now, stranded at the bottom of the trench without the ability to call for help, they realize that coming down here was a terrible mistake.

There's something far worse down there than the crushing pressure, the ticking timers on their oxygen tanks, and the everlasting darkness that inhabits such depths. And it's hunting them one by one.

©2022 Boris Bacic (P)2022 Boris Bacic

It's rare to see a horror story utilize the bottom of the ocean

A pretty decent story! While creepy, suspenseful even at parts, it was very lacking in detail. The threat of the mermaids may have felt real, but we rarely got too see them (they also weren't very fleshed out). The characters fall a bit flat, as do most of their relationships. Some dialog feels clunky, if not down right odd. And the story falls victim to a shoe horned in sex scene.

It's a fun setting and premise, with a bad narrator, and aspects that could have been explored more. If things were fleshed out a bit more, this story easily could have reached five stars. If you like underwater horror and modern internet horror, then you'll definitely enjoy the book. It's nothing fantats, but it was a fun read.

pretty good

story and characters are solid. no complaints, pretty straightforward monster encounters which I enjoy, obviously.

My biggest complaint is the epilogue. it feels incredibly rushed and also like it's trying way too hard. it shoves a bunch of information to you in the last 2 mins which has no real payoff and just raises more questions that won't be answered because the stories in this series are unrelated. it also tried to impart some kind of life lesson which was unnecessary.

read the epilogue at your discretion, but I feel I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't, there is 1 loose end that gets explained but tbh it doesn't affect the story at all and actually kind of detracts from it.

as for the narrator - he intonates most of his sentences the same way which is irritating and makes listening a bit confusing because you can't really tell what tone it's in. he also mispronounces several words

Wasn’t scary to me, but still enjoyed the ride!

I heard about this novel after running out of music to listen to at work. I found it online when I searched “best cosmic horror novels.” Honesty, I’m not scared easily by books and movies. So I’ve been on the search for a good scare for a while now. So I sunk my teeth into this one. The overall horror throughout this novel was (in my opinion,) low. But admittedly there have been times where I audibly said “Oh that’s gross.” But wow, the characters and the overall plot, blew me out of the water. Usually horror flicks or novels don’t have that much of an interesting story. But I felt really attached to all the characters. Now I heavily disagree that this is a cosmic horror novel. But if you get your kicks from thalassaphobia, this is definitely for you!

Good story, lousy narrator

The narrator isn’t particularly good. Very stilted reading, doesn’t try to alter his voice for different characters, and mispronounces words. There are also 1-2 spots where a section repeats.

Good

Overall a great story, any questions as the story progressed was answered. I am assuming the narrator is newer, as the audio is not very crisp. They also just read the story, no voices or accents. Still alright to listen to though. I am terrified of the Ocean so, this definitely had me on edge.

kept me glued

I'm torn. This was a book that really kept my interest. I couldn't stop listening. yet, I'm so aggravated because there were characters I liked that died. I know that's life but working in a hospital, I like to read to get away from it and hope to have some happy time. It was also hard to believe how they crew were 10,000 ft below the surface. but play along.

I love mermaids so much that all this didn't matter to me. the fact it kept my interest was enough for me. If you listen to audiobooks, this narrator was just ok. not the best but good enough. He has a nice sounding voice at least.

Close but no good mic

I wish I could say I completed this story as I love the authors other works. This was a true struggle to get halfway through the store with characters with no depth (pun intended) making stupid decisions and having no true relationships that feel natural.

Ontop of all that while the gentleman voice acting is surely trying, the constant whispy echo was annoying from the get go as was the lack of energy and any variations while talking different characters. a re record with a proper set-up would improve it vastly.

Wow and wow

A well written on the edge of your seat kind of story. loved it. It gives you more to think about , with all we do not know about our oceans and the people we will never meet who finds out.

DO NOT BUY

This is, and I don't want to undersell this, THE WORST NARATION I HAVE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE TO EXPERIENCE. The story itself is totally lackluster. Boring long segments that totally lack the visual appeal of underwater horror. The character writing embodies all the problematic things people talk about regarding men who write women. I will say, there are some potentially interesting story elements and a couple of twists that could have revived this if the naration wasn't such a bicycle ride down a flight of stairs. How this has a bunch of 4+ star reviews is totally beyond me.

Soap opera

This is 90% sappy Hallmark channel movie soap opera and 10% " They ". Author was far more interested in melodrama than developing what was in the Ocean.