Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} From Below by Darcy Coates by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

From Below by Darcy Coates

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware spoilers! 

From Below is an aquatic horror novel by Australian author Darcy Coates, published in 2022. I'm fond of all fictional tales, regardless of how far-fetched, concerning the Loch Ness monster and kraken and other supernatural deep-ocean creatures, submarines, diving, underwater caves, and spelunking in general. What's not to love? I've ravenously consumed stories similar to this and consistently wanted to find more like it. I didn't actually realize that there was a full-on, named genre around the theme of "aquatic horror" until I read this one, though, and I eagerly went searching for more like it. 

From Below has got a plot that's been done often before, in which a ship has mysteriously sunk and disappeared, almost always taking countless human lives with it. Decades later, someone gets the idea of finding it and trying to puzzle out what happened. From Below is no different. In this particular take on the same-old, same-old, it's the SS Arcadia that disappeared sixty years before. It was touted as an unsinkable ship (seriously, shipbuilders really need to stop calling their creations unsinkable). The wreckage is discovered by submarines more than three-hundred miles from its intended route. A documentary filmmaker, Cove Waimarie, puts together a team of divers. A historian provides insight into the sunken ship. The goal is to film what's found and maybe, in the process, uncover the mystery behind the ship's unexplained disappearance. In addition to Cove as leader, the diving team members include those who'll operate the camera, a diving expert, and a biologist. Naturally, everyone involved has dirty little secrets they'd rather not have anyone else unearth, but good luck with that. Merging with each subsequent deep-dive, descent to the wreckage of the ship, the story of the original 1928 crew is woven. The tension is heightened in the intermingling as the unearthly horrors are unveiled and come out to play in their murderous manner in the claustrophobic environment. The time clock of limited air during dives and what will happen if divers surface too quickly really added to the escalating (sorry for the pun) suspense. 

So I've read a handful of Darcy Coates books now. By all rights, I should adore them. She consistently doles out supernatural tales that lean toward a horror edge, which is my favorite type of fiction. She's also an undisputedly competent author. I have no complaints about her writing skills. All that said, I've just never read anything by her that screams "unique take" on a frequently done story. Instead, all the offerings I've read by her are everything you'd expect from a book of that type, but not in a way (that I feel) is particularly compelling. In all honestly, I'm not sure if From Below is actually any better than other aquatic horror stories either. I just know I enjoyed it a lot, perhaps in large part because I'm a fanatic fan of deep-diving, underwater horror in my fiction. See my previous reviews for Caitlin Starling's The Luminous Dead and "Caver, Continue" and Michael Crichton's Sphere, all of which feature some of the most unique aquatic horror fiction telling I've encountered thus far.

The subject matter in From Below is what convinced me to try it. It came up as an audiobook on one of my library apps, so I borrowed it and listened to it compulsively for a week or so. Interestingly, the narrator of the audiobook was Abby Craden, who's a versatile voice artist in a variety of mediums. The strange/cool part was that at the time I was just randomly replaying one of my favorite videogames, Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning Fatesworn Edition. Abby Craden is the voice of Alyn Shir in that game. I didn't know this at first, but, while listening to the audiobook of From Below, I kept feeling like I knew that voice somehow. That's when I checked it out and discovered the connection. Craden does a fantastic job reading From Below. I even turned the speed down from 1.75 (which is what I almost always listen to audiobooks at because otherwise it's too long and drawn out; I usually have no trouble understanding fast-talking and following the story this way) to 1.50 to better savor it. 

However, the one problem I had with the audiobook version of this story is that I was overwhelmed with too many characters to keep track of and I wanted to get them sorted out to better enjoy the complexity. For that reason, I decided to purchase a mass-market paperback copy of the book (which was dirt-cheap) so I could "re-read" it and catch all the things I missed out on with the audiobook reading. 

While it could certainly be true that I just love this genre so much that I'd like any story in it, I thought Coates provided a well-rounded take on a frequently done plot. All the characters were fully-fleshed out, and the entities that overtook the SS Arcadia were convincing. The melding of past and present filled the book with nail-biting tension. Are there other and better variations on this theme? Sure, probably. But this one ticked all the boxes for me. I'm certain you'll see more reviews by me in this genre in the future. In the meantime, I recommend From Below as a good one in a sea of cleverly reimagined aquatic horror tales. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of 156 titles and 16 series. 

Visit Karen here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Sphere by Michael Crichton by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Sphere by Michael Crichton

by Karen S. Wiesner  

 

Be aware that there may be spoilers in this review. 

I admit I've always been fascinated by submarines. Here we have a deluxe trailer with all the bells and whistles that's put on the bottom of the ocean where people live in it. Mind you, the fact that I'm claustrophobic and terrified of allowing myself to be encased in a tin can--regardless of how fancy it is--holds zero appeal to me anywhere except in my imagination. 

Michael Crichton's 1987 supernatural psychological thriller Sphere depicts the perfect storm in a book that ticks all the boxes for me with incredible characterization, the coolest setting ever, and a plot that absolutely blew my mind the first time I read it and all the countless times I've re-read it since. The United States Navy discovers an enormous spacecraft of unknown origin on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean--that has English writing on it. They put together a team of the best scientific minds in the country to study it. This group includes a psychologist named Norman Johnson, the main character in the book, along with a mathematician, a zoologist, an astrophysicist, and a marine biologist who ends up being too claustrophobic to make the trip down and is therefore returned to the surface. They're joined by military personnel as they travel to the deep sea habitat that's been constructed at the bottom of the ocean to study the anomaly. 

Figuring out how to get inside the spaceship is the first hurdle the team has to overcome. Once they do, they find inside a mysterious sphere that couldn't possibly have been made at any point in Earth's past. Upon making this discovery, they're contacted by an alien entity that at first seems friendly and eager to communicate. As the being that calls itself Jerry begins to display increasingly child-like, bizarre behavior and "manifesting" deadly,  seemingly impossible sea creatures that attack and kill the crew, its power over the humans on the submarine grows. But is there actually an alien entity, or is the culprit someone or something much closer to home aboard the submarine? Even the most brilliant minds would find it hard to cope with the isolation and claustrophobia involved in being trapped in such a confining, remote, and exotic environment. Their grip on reality slips until even the protagonist isn't entirely sure what's real or true. 

Norman conjectures that the sphere allows subconscious thoughts to manifest in reality for those who figure out how to enter it. The sanity of the team members quickly begins to unravel as their trust in each other erodes hour by hour. The power of the sphere is irresistible to all of them, alternately too awesome and terrifying for any human being to wield responsibly.

I won't say anymore because the spectacular ending needs to be experienced personally. Suffice it to say, I can't imagine anyone who picks up this book will be disappointed with any aspect of the story contained inside it. 

With Sphere, Crichton apparently wanted to write a story about the discovery of an alien artifact with its host intact that was distinctly different than anything "recognizably human" whether it was "9 feet tall with spike teeth and it wants to eat you" or "3 feet tall and it wants to hug you". I'd say he succeeded gloriously. The 1998 movie adaptation with an all-star cast including Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, and Liev Schreiber didn't do particularly well in the theaters but is nevertheless a decently watchable rendition of the novel. 

Whether or not you've read or watched this story before, you might want to consider it if you're looking for a fast-paced, deep and well developed tale of the fantastical variety. 

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/