The Deep

By: Nick Cutter

Narrated by: Corey Brill

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.

A bit too long and doesn’t respect the readers time.

You know that part in a horror movie or story where a character is very clearly dreaming, they just haven’t caught up to the audience yet ? This audiobook is 10 hours of that. The main character slips so effortlessly in and out of dreams and flashbacks that by the end the stakes meant nothing.
All the while this could be exactly what the story was going for and it just worked too well on me, leaving me as exhausted as the main character. This would have been kind of a fun twist but a condescending speech at the end really feels like the author telling the audience how to feel, taking away the fun of going through the journey of the story. Also just a nitpick but there is a character extremely well suited to endure the psychological torment of an undersea horror, but the strongest willed character is the slightly religious veterinarian main character. Felt a little lazy but again, a nitpick.
All that said the performance is outstanding and for as little stakes as dreams and visions have, they are well written and imaginative. So much so that I wished multiple times the author would write a story as the main character of The Deep, because the most interesting parts of The Deep, occur in that characters mind.

Too much personal baggage but interesting plot

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Too much personal baggage belonging to the main character was over-the-top and a time waster. For example, why spend 20 minutes talking about the history behind the toy chest.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

I would have liked to have seen a resolution to the main problem at hand.

What about Corey Brill’s performance did you like?

Corey Brill's performance was quite good

Was The Deep worth the listening time?

No.

Any additional comments?

The story would have been enjoyable with about 70% of the unnecessary commentary removed.

Gore got more and more outlandish

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The ending.

What do you think your next listen will be?

Get back to Stephen King, Dean Koontz or somebody else who knows how to write horror that is not just gore.

What does Corey Brill bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The most positive part about the book was the performance.

Did The Deep inspire you to do anything?

Avoid this author.

Any additional comments?

Seems like the author just wanted to make each scene more repulsive than the last. Only finished it hoping for something of interest which never happened.

Plague takes a back seat

If you could sum up The Deep in three words, what would they be?

Not about plague.

If you’ve listened to books by Nick Cutter before, how does this one compare?

I thought his other book "The Troop" was better than this one. I liked the book until about 3/4 of the way through. The last part seemed to be lacking.

Which scene was your favorite?

When the characters were down in the Challenger Deep, cut off from the world and having to figure things out by themselves.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I did. Then towards the end, I started not liking where it was going.

Any additional comments?

This was a great book until the last few chapters. I wasn't really keen on how it ended or where it ended up going. I had hoped for more of the plague angle to be explored.

A Race to the Bottom

Dreams are tough to work with in writing for numerous reasons. By virtue of their being abstract, highly personalized and symbolic, and unreal, they lack tension. Also, the characters are, literally, asleep.

The back two thirds of this novel is essentially this:
1) A character has a lengthy nightmare.
2) A character sees something nightmarish.
3) A character thinks about making a decision to do something.
4) A character falls asleep.

The sense of hopelessness is real, but the sequencing and flow is jagged, and the characters just feel stupid and lack agency. Things happen to them, repeatedly, and they move around the underwater lab, aimlessly, seeing disturbing things.

Cutter's first novel is equally hopeless, but the characters feel more agentic, and the narrative feels like it's going somewhere. Not so with The Deep. Nor with its concepts. The plague is just kind of happening. The underwater lab keeps them where they are, but is not really worked or used otherwise. As such, this is well written, but flawed.