The Deep by Nick Cutter

From the acclaimed author of The Troop—a book that is “utterly terrifying” (Clive Barker). “Fans of unflinching bleakness and all-out horror will love this novel….Each new shock is freshly disturbing” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

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. Their bodies forget how to function involuntarily. There is no cure.

But far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, a universal healer hailed as “ambrosia” has been discovered. In order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab has been built eight miles under the sea’s surface. But when the station goes incommunicado, a brave few 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.

When Brandon did one of his “here are some disturbing/creepy/horror books I read recently” videos and described The Deep, I knew I had to check it out.¹To be fair, I check out most of his recommendations.

Before I get into the actual review a couple of trigger warnings that I found – descriptions of gore, childhood trauma, child abuse, animal abuse, animal death, child disappearance, parental murder. I’m sure there are more, but those are the ones I found.

What would you do if the government called you and told you that your brother, who you haven’t spoken to in eight years and is doing some sort of scientific research eight miles underneath the Pacific Ocean, has asked for you and you need to go down there to find out what’s going on? Would you go? Because that’s what Luke Nelson did when he got the call that he needed to go eight miles below the Pacific Ocean to find out what was happening with his brother Clayton. What he didn’t bargain for was all the super weird and possibly supernatural things going on down at the bottom of the ocean – the darkest place on the planet.

I found this book to be a read that made me want to keep reading to find out what came next. I was totally engrossed in the story and needed to find out what was happening, what was going to happen next. Unfortunately, I kind of lost that towards the end of the book when there was a far more involved than necessary²In my opinion, it might not bother you. depiction of the end of an animal’s life. It was close enough to the end for me to finish the book, but I can say I wouldn’t re-read it.

The book was extremely well written. It was fast paced, easy to follow along with, and made sense. I enjoyed the author’s writing style, with the exception of the above mentioned scene. The characters aren’t well fleshed out at the start – for some we get little to no background, others we get background but it comes in bits and pieces – which actually works because it isn’t necessary immediately at the beginning of the book. There isn’t really much in the way of world building, but it takes place on Earth – not really much world building necessary if you ask me.

I gave the book three stars because of the depiction of an animal’s final moments that I just felt wasn’t necessary. It was far too long and drawn out and while I’m sure it was meant to tug on the heartstrings of animal lovers, I just didn’t find it to be necessary to further the story along. Up until that point, the book had been a four star book. Call me petty, ridiculous, or whatever you want, but when you just drop something like that into a book with no content warnings, that’s not cool.

If you like horror with a science fiction bend to it, I’d recommend this book – just keep in mind the things I’d mentioned above in the content warnings.