They Came from the Ocean

Creature Encounters

By: Boris Bacic

Narrated by: Chris Gatterdam

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

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

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.

Decent story, terrible narration

The story was OK, although it felt like it was not fully flushed out. Characters settings and concept all had a lot of potential, but nothing had enough detail to make it worth investing a lot of attention into. As others have mentioned, the narration was absolutely awful. The narrator has a tinny, echoing type sound. It almost seems as if they recorded the work inside a hall. Coupled with the fact that he does not know where to emphasize a sentence made for a very cringey and unpleasant listen. I think if the author had spent more time focussed on the mermaid aspect and setting up the actual settings, this could’ve been quite a good book. As it stands, I would read it if you had an extra credit you were trying to use up, but be mindful of the fact that the narrator is very difficult to listen to.

Awful narration

I have listened to well over 100 audio books and this is by far the worst narration I have ever heard. The story was fair but this narration totally ruined it.

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.