The Deep

De: Nick Cutter

Narrado por: Corey Brill

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.

Part horror, part psychological nightmare, The Deep is a novel that fans of Stephen King and Clive Barker won't want to miss - especially if you're afraid of the dark.

©2015 Craig Davidson. All rights reserved. (P)2015 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

A bit too long and doesn’t respect the readers time.

You know that part in a horror movie or story where a character is very clearly dreaming, they just haven’t caught up to the audience yet ? This audiobook is 10 hours of that. The main character slips so effortlessly in and out of dreams and flashbacks that by the end the stakes meant nothing.
All the while this could be exactly what the story was going for and it just worked too well on me, leaving me as exhausted as the main character. This would have been kind of a fun twist but a condescending speech at the end really feels like the author telling the audience how to feel, taking away the fun of going through the journey of the story. Also just a nitpick but there is a character extremely well suited to endure the psychological torment of an undersea horror, but the strongest willed character is the slightly religious veterinarian main character. Felt a little lazy but again, a nitpick.
All that said the performance is outstanding and for as little stakes as dreams and visions have, they are well written and imaginative. So much so that I wished multiple times the author would write a story as the main character of The Deep, because the most interesting parts of The Deep, occur in that characters mind.

Too much personal baggage but interesting plot

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Too much personal baggage belonging to the main character was over-the-top and a time waster. For example, why spend 20 minutes talking about the history behind the toy chest.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

I would have liked to have seen a resolution to the main problem at hand.

What about Corey Brill’s performance did you like?

Corey Brill's performance was quite good

Was The Deep worth the listening time?

No.

Any additional comments?

The story would have been enjoyable with about 70% of the unnecessary commentary removed.

Plague takes a back seat

If you could sum up The Deep in three words, what would they be?

Not about plague.

If you’ve listened to books by Nick Cutter before, how does this one compare?

I thought his other book "The Troop" was better than this one. I liked the book until about 3/4 of the way through. The last part seemed to be lacking.

Which scene was your favorite?

When the characters were down in the Challenger Deep, cut off from the world and having to figure things out by themselves.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I did. Then towards the end, I started not liking where it was going.

Any additional comments?

This was a great book until the last few chapters. I wasn't really keen on how it ended or where it ended up going. I had hoped for more of the plague angle to be explored.

Completely Wild ….

This book was the second book of Nick Cutter that i read. *If you didn’t/haven’t read/listened to the Troop - you need too! ASAP.

Both books took me on a wild ride of complete immersion - as if I was there and could see everything playing out, that’s how much detail this author goes into! What a movie this would be! I do have 2 complaints however with this book.
1. If you don’t like animal torture/experimentation this book does have an entire chapter dedicated to Luke, the main character, having to kill little bee (the dog). I, painfully, did listen though … and it was tough. Luke is a veterinarian and I do think he showed compassion and love as he knew she had to be put down. Was it tough to listen to and imagine? omg i was halfway sobbing, BUT, knowing how much emphasis & detail Nick Cutter put into letting the audience know that Luke truly did love this companion made it *a little* easier to swallow as it went on.
2. Evil does sometime win - and that is just apart of horror that isn’t displayed often. Normally good prevails or the bad guys get caught, but not in this story OR The Troop. (The Troop - kind of) Anyways, if you read/listened to 21 hours of this entirely & thought justtttttttt maybe, the smallest bit of hope - throw that shit out the window. The ending had me kind of deflated. I get why Nick Cutter ended it that way, but man was I hoping for the best.

Overall, I’ll give this a 4/5 - the narrator though? he deserves an oscar. He was AMAZING! I was creeped out several times with his emphasis or words or the sounds he’d make to really make you feel apart of the story had me in chills. Hands down amazing! bravo!

Check Triggers

If your sensitive to animal harm be careful, but easily skipped over. Story was ok. Some lazy problem resolution. Lots of things set up in detail then resolved in a sentence or two seemingly as an afterthought. Outside of that interesting concept, cool location a solid read.

Descriptive monsters! Very creepy

Made my skin crawl, but the animal torture was very disturbing to me. I wouldn’t listen again for that reason

Gross and fantastic! A true horror novel.

A true horror story. Gross and dark, the author shows no mercy. Almost traumatizing, this story is not for the weak. You will feel the intensity.

A Race to the Bottom

Dreams are tough to work with in writing for numerous reasons. By virtue of their being abstract, highly personalized and symbolic, and unreal, they lack tension. Also, the characters are, literally, asleep.

The back two thirds of this novel is essentially this:
1) A character has a lengthy nightmare.
2) A character sees something nightmarish.
3) A character thinks about making a decision to do something.
4) A character falls asleep.

The sense of hopelessness is real, but the sequencing and flow is jagged, and the characters just feel stupid and lack agency. Things happen to them, repeatedly, and they move around the underwater lab, aimlessly, seeing disturbing things.

Cutter's first novel is equally hopeless, but the characters feel more agentic, and the narrative feels like it's going somewhere. Not so with The Deep. Nor with its concepts. The plague is just kind of happening. The underwater lab keeps them where they are, but is not really worked or used otherwise. As such, this is well written, but flawed.

Damn good fun!

He does so well at making you feel all the feels the characters feel. Makes your skin crawl

The Last Few Chapters Ruined Me

I just finished the book and my fiancée walked in the room without me seeing her. When I noticed a figure in the doorway I jumped so hard I knocked my keyboard right off my desk. So yeah. It's creepy alright.

Also, if you're a fan of descending into madness with the MC (i.e. House of Leaves), this is a great and easier to read option. Left me wondering what was real.