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A review by criminolly
The Deep by Nick Cutter
3.0
The Deep is a book that manages to be less than the sum of its parts. It's a sci fi horror novel about a terrible new disease threatening humanity and our efforts to defeat it. The only cure seems to be a weird substance found at the deepest point of the ocean floor and a brilliant scientist is sent to a secret lab in the Marianas Trench to research it. When contact is lost with the lab, his brother is recruited to go and find out what has happened.
There are many great things about this book, some fantastic scenes of body horror, some deeply creepy parts, an unsettling back story for the two main characters and some claustrophobic deep sea action.
The problem is the knitting of all of those elements together into a satisfying whole, which Nick Cutter fails to do. The book pivots frequently from one style of horror to another, and whilst they're all effective on their own, the constant shifting is dizzying. The various strands of the plot pull against each other, and Cutter's attempts to force them back together at the end requires a twist that I found ludicrous. A shame, because parts of this book are superb.
There are many great things about this book, some fantastic scenes of body horror, some deeply creepy parts, an unsettling back story for the two main characters and some claustrophobic deep sea action.
The problem is the knitting of all of those elements together into a satisfying whole, which Nick Cutter fails to do. The book pivots frequently from one style of horror to another, and whilst they're all effective on their own, the constant shifting is dizzying. The various strands of the plot pull against each other, and Cutter's attempts to force them back together at the end requires a twist that I found ludicrous. A shame, because parts of this book are superb.