Horror In The Deep
Ten Novels That Portray The Fear Of Water
Yvonne Miller
Welcome to this frightening segment called Horror in the Deep. Now, I don’t know about you but there is not much that scares me more than the ocean, that is frightening but imagining what lies in wait, I’m not talking about sharks, I’m talking about undiscovered creatures, creatures with thousands of teeth, creatures that don’t need the light to attack, creatures that long to taste human flesh. That’s scary enough, right? Well imagine falling deeper and deeper, with no way to swim to the surface, your lungs get tighter and tighter. Every breath is a battle, the burning sensation feels like its enough to kill you. The pressure makes your head want to explode. Below I will list ten books that bring this fear to life. Books that left a lasting impression.
Sphere: Michael Crichton
A group of American scientists are rushed to a huge vessel that has been discovered resting on the ocean floor in the middle of the South Pacific. What they find defies their imaginations and mocks their attempts at logical explanation. It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently, undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old….
Maiden: T.C. Parker & Ward Nerdlo
A MAIDEN VOYAGE…
The Pepper Kay is no stranger to the open seas, but now she has a new captain: God. His maiden voyage aboard the newly-acquired vessel will be operated by a crew greener than seaweed. With a reputation like God’s, they were all he could find.
NO MAN’S WATER…
The Pepper Kay and her greenhorn crew, captained by God and his shady deckboss Nash, voyage into the brutal unknown of the Bering Strait in search of Dungeness crab. But, when a storm rolls in and the crew hauls from the depths an impossibility, something ripped from the pages of nautical folklore, tensions mount and the crew separates into factions: good versus evil.
THOSE WHO DWELL IN DARKNESS…
Nash has plans for their newest catch, plans God is not a part of, and the deckboss will wade through blood and chum before he allows his goal to be blocked. As the crew dwindles, laid low one by one, the remaining shipmates must faceoff against not only the human evil of Nash, but something much, much older.
The Deep: Nick Cutter
From the acclaimed author of The Troop—which Stephen King raved “scared the hell out of me and I couldn’t put it down.…old-school horror at its best”—comes this utterly terrifying novel where The Abyss meets The Shining.
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. Then their bodies forget how to function involuntarily…and there is no cure. But now, far below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, deep in the Marianas Trench, an heretofore unknown substance hailed as “ambrosia” has been discovered—a universal healer, from initial reports. It may just be the key to a universal cure. In order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab, the Trieste, has been built eight miles under the sea’s surface. But now the station is incommunicado, and it’s up to a brave few to 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.
Gyo – The Death Stench Creeps: Junji Ito
Something is rotten in Okinawa…
The floating smell of death hangs over the island. What is it? A strange, legged fish appears on the scene… So begins Tadashi and Kaori’s spiral into the horror and stench of the sea. Here is the creepiest masterpiece of horror manga ever from the creator of Uzumaki, Junji Ito. Hold your breath until all is revealed.
Pressure: Brian Keene
Off the coast of tropical Mauritius, an ecological catastrophe with global implications is occurring. The ocean’s floor is collapsing at a rapid rate. World-champion free diver and marine biologist Carrie Anderson joins a scientific expedition determined to discover the cause-and how to stop it. But what they uncover is even more horrific. Deep beneath the surface, something is awake. Something hungry. Something…cold. Now, the pressure builds as Carrie and her colleagues must contend with the murderous operatives of a corrupt corporation, an unnatural disaster that grows bigger by the day, and a monstrous predator that may spell the extinction of all mankind.
Dark Water: Koji Suzuki
A haunting collection of short stories from Koji Suzuki, author of the smash thriller, Ring, which spawned the hit film and sequels. The first story in this collection has been adapted to film (Dark Water, Walter Salles), and another, “Adrift” is currently in production with Dimension Films.
The Chill: Scott Carson
In this terrifying thriller, a supernatural force—set in motion a century ago—threatens to devastate New York City.
Far upstate, in New York’s ancient forests, a drowned village lays beneath the dark, still waters of the Chilewaukee reservoir. Early in the 20th century, the town was destroyed for the greater good: bringing water to the millions living downstate. Or at least that’s what the politicians from Manhattan insisted at the time. The local families, settled there since America’s founding, were forced from their land, but they didn’t move far, and some didn’t move at all…
Now, a century later, the repercussions of human arrogance are finally making themselves known. An inspector assigned to oversee the dam, dangerously neglected for decades, witnesses something inexplicable. It turns out that more than the village was left behind in the waters of the Chill when it was abandoned. The townspeople didn’t evacuate without a fight. A dark prophecy remained, too, and the time has come for it to be fulfilled. Those who remember must ask themselves: who will be next? For sacrifices must be made. And as the dark waters begin to inexorably rise, the demand for a fresh sacrifice emerges from the deep…
The Deep: Alma Katsu
Someone, or something, is haunting the Titanic.
This is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the passengers of the ship from the moment they set sail: mysterious disappearances, sudden deaths. Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner’s illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers – including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher – are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.
Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not – could not – have survived the sinking of the Titanic…
The Fisherman: John Langan
In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman’s Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other’s company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It’s a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.
The Terror: Dan Simmons
The “masterfully chilling” novel that inspired the hit AMC series (Entertainment Weekly).
The men on board the HMS Terror — part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage — are entering a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, they struggle to survive with poisonous rations, a dwindling coal supply, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is even more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror clawing to get in.
Yvonne Miller
Well, what can I say about myself? I’m a 33-year-old married woman and mum to 3 crazy boys, aged 13,6 and 4. My eldest has a genetic condition that causes a visual impairment so as you can imagine life can be very chaotic and provides many challenges along the way but I would 100% never change any of them. They fulfil my life beyond measure.
I adore books – I adore shouting about books! I’m a reviewer of mainly horror and dark fantasy. Whether that’s featuring werewolves, evil creatures or the depravity of humanity, I will read them all.
You can follow Yvonne on Twitter: @coycaterpillar
Please visit Yvonne’s Official Website: www.thecoycaterpillarreads.blog
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