Reviews

Nick Cutter’s “The Deep” is a thrilling sci-fi novel set in a post-apocalyptic world where a mysterious plague called “The ‘Gets” is terrorizing humanity on a global scale. This contagious and fatal disease causes its victims to slowly forget things - initially unimportant things, like where they parked their car or where they left their phone - until their body forgets how to sustain itself and the mind deteriorates completely. Hope for a cure seemed long gone until a mysterious substance discovered at the bottom of the Mariana Trench called “ambrosia” promised an end to the ‘Gets, and the possibility of a universal healer. To further research the substance, a special underwater lab called the “Trieste” was constructed at the bottom of the Challenger Deep along with a crew of scientists tasked with capturing a sample of the ambrosia. However, when an emergency transmission is sent from one of the Trieste’s crew members, a select few will have to travel 8 miles beneath the ocean to confront whatever waits for them on the ocean floor. Nick Cutter is a master at writing horror novels, and “The Deep” is no exception. His vivid descriptions and chilling atmosphere evoke a deep sense of dread throughout the story which I can still recall months after reading. “The Deep” features themes of insanity, claustrophobia, gore, childhood fears, and a great deal of body horror. I was thoroughly horrified and deeply entertained by this book and recommend it along with Nick Cutter’s other horror story “The Troop” to anyone interested in old-school terror that “scared the hell out of” Stephen King. I gave this book 4 stars and demand it pay for my therapy. “‘It’s still our world down there, Dr. Nelson,’ she said, ‘but that’s like saying that the ice ten thousand feet beneath the arctic icepack is, too.’”