The Deep

By: Nick Cutter

Narrated by: Corey Brill

Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's Summary

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.

Deeply Disturbing; Descent into Madness

"The Abyss meets The Shining" and I would say also meets King's IT, and a quite a bit of Jeff VanderMeer's *weird fiction,* the AreaX: Southern Reach Trilogy. I can see why author Nick Cutter has amassed fans like Stephen King. To open this book, you are under the control of Cutter's chilling narrative in a setting that is completely foreign from what you know. He controls the horror with vivid imagery that (unfortunately for us) imprints itself on your mind. It is a multi-level horror attack that is claustrophobic, psychological, repulsive, and in the end, unfathomable. In other words..no happy ending and chances of some pretty macabre nightmares.

Readers, especially listeners, are at the mercy of Cutter's darkly creative mind as the book descends into the Marianas Trench and the total deprivation of the Trieste. Isolated 8 miles below the sunny surface in a pitch black world, a spider-like conglomerate of tubes form the lab. The lights illuminate only a tiny radius, lighting just parts of foreign creatures that glide in and out of the murky *sea snow* at the bottom of the ocean. The sounds are slurpy, slimey, and schllicky, and your mind does awful things with those sounds. At 8 mi. below, the pressure against the lab makes every sound a horrifying threat; they sound like bowels and digestion of a gigantic beast. It is almost traumatizing.

If not already terrifying, Cutter creates a pair of brothers that survived a very dysfunctional childhood that would be enough to induce nightmares. The older brother is the scientist that has not been heard from since the Trieste went incommunicado. Clayton spent his childhood escaping the abuse by unconscionably experimenting on (dismembering) animals. He is cold and without compassion, purely scientific. Luke has the opposite temperament; a veterinarian and a father that lost a son in a heartbreaking *missing-child* incident that haunts him. (Let's just say the boys have TONS of baggage between them.)

An issue I had with this book is the lack of story about the *Gets,* the initial catalyst for the story. So little is said about the effect on the world and how it motivates the trip down to the Trieste. That could be a whole great book. And for animal lovers...don't expect any mercy from this horror master. There are animals aboard the Trieste, cute, furry, animals and they don't fare well. The narration was spot-on, with great pronunciation of those onomatopoeia words that Cutter uses to make your skin crawl, and things slurp and splat and skitter.

Stephen King once said, “I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.” The Deep is one of those that swings for the terror, bounces on the horror, and lands square on the gross-out. If that sounds like your kind of read -- enjoy. A little too much like swallowing slugs for me personally, but to you horror fanatics I say...Bon Appétit! You'll love this.

37 of 48 people found this review helpful

Boring

The book the Troop is an outstanding book. This book below the standard of well written and the Author could’ve done so much better. Never has the word dark ever been over described to the point of boredom. Well read for a story that continually repeats itself over and over.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Strange & Senseless

Just a strange book start to finish. Ending makes no sense. Many unanswered questions in the end.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Pointless

I would not recommend this book. The constant cutting away from the narrative got old, as did the obvious never-ending (sometimes laughable) metaphors. There really is no story here. Just gory details of events that seemed like side notes to the story. I like horror a lot but did not think the writing was compelling here.

7 of 10 people found this review helpful

Strange

The narrator was very good., but the story left me tuning out, and I struggled to finish listening.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

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.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

slow story.

I've read(listened) to Nick Cutter's books before and this one was hard to stay interested in. Jumped around, and left me confused as to what was apart of the storyline and what was just extra words, unnecessary for the story.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Couldn't finish, too many flash backs, all over.

Couldn't finish. If I had to hear one more flashback about an incestuous mother or depressing kidnapping drama, I would have shot myself. It begins with such promise, a disease running rampant across the world a cure at the bottom of the ocean, It sounded great but I gave up at exactly 56% and I'm not looking back. I feel bad because nick cutter is an Canadian author but I can't help it. And the narrator left something to be desired.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

New to Horror; Not Impressed by The Deep

Any additional comments?

This is only my second modern horror novel. (I've just never been interested.) I'm pretty disappointed in The Deep.

Honestly, the novel is full of terrifying moments and imagery. That said, I had to make myself finish once I realized I was close enough to the end to eliminate the possibility of a truly intriguing resolution playing out. No really, the end was absurd, just stupid.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

less is more

Any additional comments?

There were so many horrible things going on at once, it totally lost its impact after the first half of the book. I just wanted it to wrap up at the end.
It had some good writing, and a lot of good ideas, but how many times can you describe a body being turned Inside out before it gets boring?...

Would have made a great Hellraiser movie though.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful