The Deep: What Makes Us Human Makes Us Prey

On the surface (pun intended), this book is an underwater horror story but it brings in elements of cosmic horror, body horror, ghost stories, and so much more.

This is the first book by Nick Cutter that I've read, but it definitely won't be the last. In The Deep, Cutter has created a manifestation of terror that is so compelling, so utterly effective, that I can't recall anything like it.

This book melds a bunch of different kinds of horror, or elements of horror at least, together. At the start, we learn about an apocalyptic plague: the 'Gets. Those infected experience pus-filled scabs before the forgetting begins. It starts like absent-mindedness, but gets bigger and bigger until the body forgets how to function, and the person dies. No one knows where it came from, and there is no cure.

Soon, almost by accident, scientists discover an amazing compound that seems to be a universal healing agent, the world's only hope against the plague. The world's governments spend trillions of dollars to create an impossible research station deep in the Mariana Trench. They must research and conquer this mysterious healer. What they do instead is unleash unspeakable, ancient horrors.

What I found so compelling about this book was the way that it scared me on multiple levels. First of all, the research station is depicted in the most claustrophobic terms - and the pressure never lets up. That's another poorly disguised pun, because the station is under constant threat of catastrophic failure: the pressure exerted by being 8 miles deep in the ocean could crush the entire structure instantly with only the tiniest breach. The geometry is off, with the station designed around the structure of an egg. There are tiny crawlspaces between rooms that close in like tunnels in a cave.

There is also a fair amount of body horror. For those who don't like horror involving animals, this may be one you want to skip out on as there are some animal research subjects that are part of the narrative in rather gruesome ways. And the people don't fare any better! There are body parts and squelching and all manner of visceral horrors throughout the story.

There is also a sort of ancient horror elements tied to the events of the story, a little bit alien, a little bit drowned god, a little bit ancient sea creature. Things get strange almost immediately after our protagonist, the brother of one of the station's three scientists who have stopped communicating with the surface, arrives to find out what has happened. Things are never quick right, and as the incomprehensible continues to show itself in deeper and more disturbing ways, the whole situation seems teetering on the edge of madness.

And then there is the ghost story element. Luke, our protagonist, is haunted by the loss of his son, the dissolution of his marriage, the memories of abuse suffered at the hands of his mother. His trauma is reflected in the horrors he encounters in the research station, and it shapes and molds the growing terror that he feels.

I loved this read, and like I said earlier I will definitely be checking out more of Cutter's work. However, if I may be permitted one petty grievance: on two separate occasions in the book, Luke is having flashbacks to earlier points in his life, and he describes something in the scene as being illuminated by the light of the new moon. The new moon. That phase of the moon where it famously does not give off any light.

If this had happened once, I might have chalked it up to a lazy editor missing it, a confusion between a new moon and a full moon that just made it through without being caught. But when it happened a second time (and in the second scene, the light is mentioned twice), I was left confused. If he had used the new moon to describe the darkness in a scene, I would have understood, but he specifically used words like "illuminated" and "silvery." For a second, I almost stopped reading; after all, this narrative of this book demands that you trust a whole lot of complicated science-y sounding stuff for the story to work, and I wasn't sure that I was willing to buy that from someone who seems to be confused about the phases of the moon.

Luckily, I pushed through and gave myself over to the growing horror and paranoia of this read. Definitely a recommend for those who like tight, claustrophobic narratives and big, apocalyptic stories. Very creepy, lots of visceral horror and gory scenes, and some very compelling relationships to push the stakes even higher.