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A review by omgshnicholas
Dead Sea by Tim Curran
4.0
Starting with the pros, because they are numerous and praise is well deserved. Tim Curran is a master of description and a great storyteller. It would be difficult to read about drifting in a soupy sea and being afraid of fog for 98% percent of a VERY dense book, but Curran makes it hard to put the book down.
I’ve learned a ton of new words, I’m impressed with how much knowledge the author has about boats, I’m fully invested in the world and want to know more about it. I devoured the entire book without distraction from any other titles.
The cons: although there are few, they’re glaring enough that I feel compelled to write about them. First, the humor. I don’t feel like any of it landed and it was frankly uncomfortable. I understand that we were supposed to hate Saks, the character, but I just ended up hating the Saks sections of the book. I wanted to actually skip paragraphs just to move the story enough. It was too repetitive and it was EVERY sentence. If he was going to be that mind numbingly abrasive, I would have assumed the characters would try harder to get rid of him.
But the biggest let down of the book was the fog devil. Maybe it’s my fault for having expectations but with the book being described as fitting into the cthululu mythos and feeling lovecraftian, I expected a more well rounded final monster. There weren’t enough hints or peaks at it. And when we finally did get to see it, it was a confusing description of something people really tough to picture. I get it, he’s from another dimension. But I’m in this dimension. So I’m disappointed that the monster, essentially the big reveal, was more of a concept.
If the reveal was more satisfying it would have been an EASY five stars. Even hating Saks is really me nitpicking. But after 400 pages of me expecting Godzilla, and getting geometry clouds, it just feels like a let down.
I’ll still recommend it to anyone. Wonderful book regardless.
I’ve learned a ton of new words, I’m impressed with how much knowledge the author has about boats, I’m fully invested in the world and want to know more about it. I devoured the entire book without distraction from any other titles.
The cons: although there are few, they’re glaring enough that I feel compelled to write about them. First, the humor. I don’t feel like any of it landed and it was frankly uncomfortable. I understand that we were supposed to hate Saks, the character, but I just ended up hating the Saks sections of the book. I wanted to actually skip paragraphs just to move the story enough. It was too repetitive and it was EVERY sentence. If he was going to be that mind numbingly abrasive, I would have assumed the characters would try harder to get rid of him.
But the biggest let down of the book was the fog devil. Maybe it’s my fault for having expectations but with the book being described as fitting into the cthululu mythos and feeling lovecraftian, I expected a more well rounded final monster. There weren’t enough hints or peaks at it. And when we finally did get to see it, it was a confusing description of something people really tough to picture. I get it, he’s from another dimension. But I’m in this dimension. So I’m disappointed that the monster, essentially the big reveal, was more of a concept.
If the reveal was more satisfying it would have been an EASY five stars. Even hating Saks is really me nitpicking. But after 400 pages of me expecting Godzilla, and getting geometry clouds, it just feels like a let down.
I’ll still recommend it to anyone. Wonderful book regardless.