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rainbow_grace's review against another edition
4.0
Well, that was chilling. Not my usual type of story, but very well done.
knitcowboy's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.5
It's just not really scary. I did like it, but as a horror book idk. I want to be scared, but with this one I saw every twist coming, and you can only end so many chapters with "and he saw" or "and he screamed" before it itself becomes kind of silly.
I also didn't think the romance part was really that good. The rest of the narration feels very disconnected from that part, and it cuts the tension in a bad way when every time one of the main characters looks at the other and immediately starts to reminisce about how hot the sex was or that how he can't be falling in love because reasons ™.
What comes to the rest of the writing and the style? It felt really rushed, especially the start. Blue just really, really wanted to get to the horror part. Which I think made the story weaker, because the start is needed to establish normalcy which will be later broken, and just who the characters are and why I should care. Other than that, it's an easy book to read, and if you aren't aware of Dead Space, which especially the start feels like a riff of, then you're good, since you can't compare to what is a 100 times a better story.
Anyway, I'm still happy to see gay horror books. And the setting for this one was definitely different and interesting. Overall just an okay book.
I also didn't think the romance part was really that good. The rest of the narration feels very disconnected from that part, and it cuts the tension in a bad way when every time one of the main characters looks at the other and immediately starts to reminisce about how hot the sex was or that how he can't be falling in love because reasons ™.
What comes to the rest of the writing and the style? It felt really rushed, especially the start. Blue just really, really wanted to get to the horror part. Which I think made the story weaker, because the start is needed to establish normalcy which will be later broken, and just who the characters are and why I should care. Other than that, it's an easy book to read, and if you aren't aware of Dead Space, which especially the start feels like a riff of, then you're good, since you can't compare to what is a 100 times a better story.
Anyway, I'm still happy to see gay horror books. And the setting for this one was definitely different and interesting. Overall just an okay book.
suze_1624's review against another edition
4.0
Definitely somewhere between 3.5/4*
A chilling read about deep sea miners and scientists- and all the horrors of something going wrong at 7000ft down. And go wrong they do!
Armin and Mo got together v quickly - maybe we can blame the lack of dating opportunities at that depth!
Once strange things keep happening no one is safe - either from contamination or from those affected. Some gruesome deaths. Seemingly no way out. No obvious cause - beyond the ‘rock’ - for infection and who will or will not.
Set appx 115 yrs in future, we learn of things not going well for the world in short bios of crew when selected as soldiers. Creepy slithery things and a spider! Could definitely visualise as a movie and definitely in the region of a number of deep sea disaster movies.
Some good plot ideas - I was imagining USS Enterprise for the bathyshpere! Sliding doors etc.
The creepy voices. The discovery of a clue in peoples heads and who has it.
Armin and Mo did grow closer in adversity though the ending whilst kind of expected did kind of come quickly so I would have liked more of they why, how etc.
A chilling read about deep sea miners and scientists- and all the horrors of something going wrong at 7000ft down. And go wrong they do!
Armin and Mo got together v quickly - maybe we can blame the lack of dating opportunities at that depth!
Once strange things keep happening no one is safe - either from contamination or from those affected. Some gruesome deaths. Seemingly no way out. No obvious cause - beyond the ‘rock’ - for infection and who will or will not.
Set appx 115 yrs in future, we learn of things not going well for the world in short bios of crew when selected as soldiers. Creepy slithery things and a spider! Could definitely visualise as a movie and definitely in the region of a number of deep sea disaster movies.
Some good plot ideas - I was imagining USS Enterprise for the bathyshpere! Sliding doors etc.
The creepy voices. The discovery of a clue in peoples heads and who has it.
Armin and Mo did grow closer in adversity though the ending whilst kind of expected did kind of come quickly so I would have liked more of they why, how etc.
Spoiler
Glad it didn’t go the miracle cure routekeiden's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Incredibly tense and scary. Lots of gore, but surprisingly the characters had time to develop strong believable relationship! The plot is something to be proud of. The ending is even better.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gore, Murder, and Self harm
sarah1984's review against another edition
4.0
SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!
13/8 - I'm expecting this to remind me of the movie Sphere, with Samuel L. Jackson and Dustin Hoffman. In Sphere what is believed to be an alien spacecraft is found on the bottom of the ocean. Upon entering the craft it's determined that it's actually American and from the future. On board they find a 'perfect sphere' that floats in mid air and has an apparently impenetrable surface which reflects everything around it except humans. Over time the Sphere begins to effect the moods of the crew members, it invades their dreams and causes rifts that end in violence. I'm expecting a similar kind of plot with Down.
I'm only two chapters in, so only a couple of important things have happened so far - deep-sea miners have brought up a strangely smooth 'rock' found at the extreme depth of 7000 metres in a previously unexplored trench, and Mo and Armin (these two appear to be the main characters) have jumped into a sexual relationship within about a page and a half of meeting. That was quick and a little unexpected. I didn't really read the summary from the back of the book too closely, it immediately had a Sphere feel to it and that was enough to get me to borrow it. The instantaneous chemistry between Armin and Mo, as soon as they met, was a surprise. If I'd taken more notice of what was written on the back of the book I'd have known it was coming, not that it was an unwelcome surprise, it was just a bit abrupt. To be continued...
17/8 - Compulsive reading! The feeling of evil darkness slowly (yet quickly) creeping across the crew of BathyTech3 made the atmosphere thick with tension through pretty much the whole book, but it just got thicker with every cliff hanger chapter ending through the last 150 or so pages. A couple of nights ago (while I was in the middle of reading The Deep) I watched the movie Mission to Mars with Gary Sinise and Tim Robbins and realised that I'm terrified by the idea of being surrounded by any kind of atmosphere that is not conducive to oxygen breathing life forms - space or deep water. If you leave the safety of the oxygenated, pressurised environment that has been specially built to allow humans to survive in space and underwater then you will almost certainly DIE. No human can withstand the freezing oxygen-less atmosphere of space (spoiler for Mission to Mars), Tim Robbins sacrificed himself for his wife by taking his helmet off and his head (and presumably the rest of his body within the suit) froze in less than a second, he didn't even have time to take or release a breath. No human can withstand the massive amount of oxygen-less pressure that would be applied to the body at 7000 metres, one of the characters takes their helmet off while walking on the sea bed at 7000 metres and as soon as the helmet is off, long before he would've had a chance to drown, he is squashed flat by the pressure, almost like the impact a steamroller might have had if it had rolled back and forth over the body like he was pie crust dough that wasn't quite flat enough. The idea that a relatively thin piece of metal is all that stands between me and the freezing, squashing, dark depths of space or the world's oceans is enough to give me chills and nightmares. And that's way before terrifying fish with needle-teeth, purple glowy eyes and prehensile fins make an appearance.
I said before that I thought things got going between Armin and Mo too soon, I also think the ending was too short. Overall the whole book needs (and deserves, because it's a really great story) another 50 pages to flesh out Armin and Mo's relationship and to further explain the ending, especially Mo's eventual choice and what the mermaid fish's end game is.
Lastly, I want to congratulate my library on having at least one M/M fiction book. They got a bit bolder and branched out into erotica when FSoG fever swept the globe (I figured that was mostly due to advertising and local pressure), but I never thought the collection manager would be given the go ahead to include gay fiction in the catalogue. I always thought my library system was too old fashioned and stuck in its ways to be open to a book with openly gay characters who actually have sex (shock! horror! I thought I'd only ever be able to read decent gay characters in the occasional Kindle book). I guess I'll have to stop underestimating the Yarra Plenty Regional Library system, I'll expect even more from them from now on.
13/8 - I'm expecting this to remind me of the movie Sphere, with Samuel L. Jackson and Dustin Hoffman. In Sphere what is believed to be an alien spacecraft is found on the bottom of the ocean. Upon entering the craft it's determined that it's actually American and from the future. On board they find a 'perfect sphere' that floats in mid air and has an apparently impenetrable surface which reflects everything around it except humans. Over time the Sphere begins to effect the moods of the crew members, it invades their dreams and causes rifts that end in violence. I'm expecting a similar kind of plot with Down.
I'm only two chapters in, so only a couple of important things have happened so far - deep-sea miners have brought up a strangely smooth 'rock' found at the extreme depth of 7000 metres in a previously unexplored trench, and Mo and Armin (these two appear to be the main characters) have jumped into a sexual relationship within about a page and a half of meeting. That was quick and a little unexpected. I didn't really read the summary from the back of the book too closely, it immediately had a Sphere feel to it and that was enough to get me to borrow it. The instantaneous chemistry between Armin and Mo, as soon as they met, was a surprise. If I'd taken more notice of what was written on the back of the book I'd have known it was coming, not that it was an unwelcome surprise, it was just a bit abrupt. To be continued...
17/8 - Compulsive reading! The feeling of evil darkness slowly (yet quickly) creeping across the crew of BathyTech3 made the atmosphere thick with tension through pretty much the whole book, but it just got thicker with every cliff hanger chapter ending through the last 150 or so pages. A couple of nights ago (while I was in the middle of reading The Deep) I watched the movie Mission to Mars with Gary Sinise and Tim Robbins and realised that I'm terrified by the idea of being surrounded by any kind of atmosphere that is not conducive to oxygen breathing life forms - space or deep water. If you leave the safety of the oxygenated, pressurised environment that has been specially built to allow humans to survive in space and underwater then you will almost certainly DIE. No human can withstand the freezing oxygen-less atmosphere of space (spoiler for Mission to Mars), Tim Robbins sacrificed himself for his wife by taking his helmet off and his head (and presumably the rest of his body within the suit) froze in less than a second, he didn't even have time to take or release a breath. No human can withstand the massive amount of oxygen-less pressure that would be applied to the body at 7000 metres, one of the characters takes their helmet off while walking on the sea bed at 7000 metres and as soon as the helmet is off, long before he would've had a chance to drown, he is squashed flat by the pressure, almost like the impact a steamroller might have had if it had rolled back and forth over the body like he was pie crust dough that wasn't quite flat enough. The idea that a relatively thin piece of metal is all that stands between me and the freezing, squashing, dark depths of space or the world's oceans is enough to give me chills and nightmares. And that's way before terrifying fish with needle-teeth, purple glowy eyes and prehensile fins make an appearance.
I said before that I thought things got going between Armin and Mo too soon, I also think the ending was too short. Overall the whole book needs (and deserves, because it's a really great story) another 50 pages to flesh out Armin and Mo's relationship and to further explain the ending, especially Mo's eventual choice and what the mermaid fish's end game is.
Lastly, I want to congratulate my library on having at least one M/M fiction book. They got a bit bolder and branched out into erotica when FSoG fever swept the globe (I figured that was mostly due to advertising and local pressure), but I never thought the collection manager would be given the go ahead to include gay fiction in the catalogue. I always thought my library system was too old fashioned and stuck in its ways to be open to a book with openly gay characters who actually have sex (shock! horror! I thought I'd only ever be able to read decent gay characters in the occasional Kindle book). I guess I'll have to stop underestimating the Yarra Plenty Regional Library system, I'll expect even more from them from now on.
alexauthorshay's review against another edition
4.0
While I was happily surprised to find this on shelf at my library, that was probably the most satisfaction I got from this book. It's not bad by any means, and I loved the creatures and the science behind what was going on. It's clear Blue has thought out the process and the purpose, from the stones to the changing and everything between.
What kind of disappointed me was there weren't any surprises. Blue does a good job at setting things up so a reader wouldn't be angry over something happening out of nowhere, but I think it's so heavy handed that it takes away the element of apprehension. I had a pretty good guess about the things she foreshadowed, and if I was wrong, it was only ever about a detail or two.
The other thing was the relationship. I was doubly excited for this to be horror/scifi and a gay romance, but it's honestly not. This book should be read primarily for the plot, so I'm not taking away that much rating wise for the relationship. But after some casual hook ups, suddenly these two guys are in love with each other, and both of them seem surprised by this. At least one of them wasn't in it for a relationship to start with, but then they get super attached. There was a lot of hugging and kissing and 'don't be scared' comfort, which is fine in itself, but a) as the author so blatantly reminds us, this book takes place over about 10 days. Is it realistic for them to be acting like that after 10 days? and b) it was excessive, bleeding into my main issue of:
WHY THE HELL WAS EVERYONE SO CALM?
You have people on your ship cutting their eyes out and morphing into sea monsters and you guys are acting like it's just another day at the lab. Yes, you need to research and whatnot to figure out the cause, but not one of them ever screamed or cussed or fainted or anything. It was much too level headed for me to believe it.
I think this is where the book fell most short for me. I liked it, I wouldn't even hesitate to say I enjoyed it, but I wasn't invested in it whatsoever. Once I got 1/3 through, I did want to sit down and read it in one sitting, but it had everything to do with plot development and nothing to do with characters. I enjoyed the cast, but I wasn't emotionally attached to them in the slightest, leaving the "ending" rather flat for me, and the real ending as more of an ellipsis than anything else. Sure, a reader gets their HEA, but what about the rest of the world? What happens? The book is never really about the relationship, and then suddenly at the end it is. A very important thread gets dropped there, leaving too many open ends for a reader to be fully satisfied.
What kind of disappointed me was there weren't any surprises. Blue does a good job at setting things up so a reader wouldn't be angry over something happening out of nowhere, but I think it's so heavy handed that it takes away the element of apprehension. I had a pretty good guess about the things she foreshadowed, and if I was wrong, it was only ever about a detail or two.
The other thing was the relationship. I was doubly excited for this to be horror/scifi and a gay romance, but it's honestly not. This book should be read primarily for the plot, so I'm not taking away that much rating wise for the relationship. But after some casual hook ups, suddenly these two guys are in love with each other, and both of them seem surprised by this. At least one of them wasn't in it for a relationship to start with, but then they get super attached. There was a lot of hugging and kissing and 'don't be scared' comfort, which is fine in itself, but a) as the author so blatantly reminds us, this book takes place over about 10 days. Is it realistic for them to be acting like that after 10 days? and b) it was excessive, bleeding into my main issue of:
WHY THE HELL WAS EVERYONE SO CALM?
You have people on your ship cutting their eyes out and morphing into sea monsters and you guys are acting like it's just another day at the lab. Yes, you need to research and whatnot to figure out the cause, but not one of them ever screamed or cussed or fainted or anything. It was much too level headed for me to believe it.
I think this is where the book fell most short for me. I liked it, I wouldn't even hesitate to say I enjoyed it, but I wasn't invested in it whatsoever. Once I got 1/3 through, I did want to sit down and read it in one sitting, but it had everything to do with plot development and nothing to do with characters. I enjoyed the cast, but I wasn't emotionally attached to them in the slightest, leaving the "ending" rather flat for me, and the real ending as more of an ellipsis than anything else. Sure, a reader gets their HEA, but what about the rest of the world? What happens? The book is never really about the relationship, and then suddenly at the end it is. A very important thread gets dropped there, leaving too many open ends for a reader to be fully satisfied.
cathepsut's review against another edition
2.0
When you are halfway through a book and really do not want to pick it up again, it's time to say good-bye or start some rapid skimming. As I wanted to know how the story plays out, I skimmed a lot from about 57% into the book.
I really wanted to like this. I expected a mix of The Abyss, which I love to pieces, and The Last Days on Mars (Liev Schreiber, zombies on Mars, very creepy) and I wasn't that far off. The first 40% or so of the story were interesting enough, with some nice, initial story set-up. I liked the two main characters. But I also had misgivings, a lot of them.
World building: The story is set in the not so distant future and we get some backstory about a black-out scenario in Dubai. Why is the story set in the future? Why did the blackout happen? What is the state of society? The setting in the future has no relevance to the story at all and is just an unnecessary distraction.
The relationship between the two main characters is interesting enough, although the romance is pretty much non-existent. If it was supposed to be an important part of the story, it could have done with some more fleshing out.
Sex scenes are not shown in the beginning, you get the usual fade-out of books with a low PG rating. Until about 40% into the book, when out of the blue there is a pretty detailed and explicit scene. I like explicit sex, but either you write descriptive sex scenes or you don't. Both in the same book does not work.
At that point in the book the writing suddenly started to get pretty uneven and scattered and I almost stopped reading. There was no real tension to the story, and unexplained leaps and holes in the plot, that had me going back whole chapters to re-read and figure out what I had missed. Action scenes were only talked about, but not shown.
You never get a feel for how many people are on board of the pod. You are told, but not really shown. During the course of the book people change and die and I had no grip at all, how many were left. New people kept popping up to do things, when needed and it threw me to read sentences like "Most of the pod is still confined to quarters." At that point I was surprised that anybody was left to be confined. They all felt interchangeable and did not get any backgrounds with the exception of Mo and his unexplained past in Dubai.
The scientific setting could have added interest, but also did not happen. They bring the mysterious rock on board and I would have thought you get some insight in what they do with it and maybe some technobabble, but nothing.
So, the beginning is interesting, but lacks character and world building. The romance is lacklustre. The sex happens out of sight with the exception of one scene, followed by nothing. Instalove with some sort of happily ever after. Some action, a little creepiness early on, but it didn't hold my attention through the story. Plot holes, leaps in logic, very meh experience for me. I am glad I made it through the book and read the ending, but if I had dumped it halfway through, I would have been ok with that, too.
I was debating between giving this one or two stars and finally chose two -- it is a good plot idea and there were parts that I enjoyed, even if the book as a whole left me diasappointed.
Free ARC, provided by NetGalley, thank you!
I really wanted to like this. I expected a mix of The Abyss, which I love to pieces, and The Last Days on Mars (Liev Schreiber, zombies on Mars, very creepy) and I wasn't that far off. The first 40% or so of the story were interesting enough, with some nice, initial story set-up. I liked the two main characters. But I also had misgivings, a lot of them.
World building: The story is set in the not so distant future and we get some backstory about a black-out scenario in Dubai. Why is the story set in the future? Why did the blackout happen? What is the state of society? The setting in the future has no relevance to the story at all and is just an unnecessary distraction.
The relationship between the two main characters is interesting enough, although the romance is pretty much non-existent. If it was supposed to be an important part of the story, it could have done with some more fleshing out.
Sex scenes are not shown in the beginning, you get the usual fade-out of books with a low PG rating. Until about 40% into the book, when out of the blue there is a pretty detailed and explicit scene. I like explicit sex, but either you write descriptive sex scenes or you don't. Both in the same book does not work.
At that point in the book the writing suddenly started to get pretty uneven and scattered and I almost stopped reading. There was no real tension to the story, and unexplained leaps and holes in the plot, that had me going back whole chapters to re-read and figure out what I had missed. Action scenes were only talked about, but not shown.
You never get a feel for how many people are on board of the pod. You are told, but not really shown. During the course of the book people change and die and I had no grip at all, how many were left. New people kept popping up to do things, when needed and it threw me to read sentences like "Most of the pod is still confined to quarters." At that point I was surprised that anybody was left to be confined. They all felt interchangeable and did not get any backgrounds with the exception of Mo and his unexplained past in Dubai.
The scientific setting could have added interest, but also did not happen. They bring the mysterious rock on board and I would have thought you get some insight in what they do with it and maybe some technobabble, but nothing.
So, the beginning is interesting, but lacks character and world building. The romance is lacklustre. The sex happens out of sight with the exception of one scene, followed by nothing. Instalove with some sort of happily ever after. Some action, a little creepiness early on, but it didn't hold my attention through the story. Plot holes, leaps in logic, very meh experience for me. I am glad I made it through the book and read the ending, but if I had dumped it halfway through, I would have been ok with that, too.
I was debating between giving this one or two stars and finally chose two -- it is a good plot idea and there were parts that I enjoyed, even if the book as a whole left me diasappointed.
Free ARC, provided by NetGalley, thank you!
ogokoo's review
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
A must read for lovers of gay romance, horror or sci fi!!!!
inferiorwit's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Death, Cursing, Gore, Sexual content, Violence, and Vomit