Geophyrd
14-Jan-2008, 12:16 PM
Some time ago, I put a review of Descent on this website...this is a followup review of its sequel, Deeper. I know some people said they'd read the original...thoughts?
Jeff Long is an interesting writer. From what I understand from his bios, cadged from the back of books, he is an adventurer who likes to write about adventure. His heroes are manly men, who scale mountains, transverse canyons, explore depths. When he writes science fiction, its pretty good.
For example, Year Zero was a great book about the release of a pathogen from a holy relic. It was a vial of blood that contained a virus that hadn't been seen for 2000 years and for which we no longer have any antigens. So, they start cloning people from those holy relics, looking for someone who successfully survived the original virus to fashion a cure. Of course, that means they're cloning saints and (maybe) Jesus. Good stuff.
There were some other books in there, The Reckoning, The Wall, The Ascent, none of which I thought were amazing like Year Zero and The Descent.
Descent posited the notion that the Earth is full of tunnels, caves, depths inhabited by 'primitives.' It is Hell and its apparently ruled over by Satan ('Older Than Old') and a war stirs between the surface and the depths. Sure enough, it sings. Strong stuff, a great thriller. Before you know it, its over and you're missing it.
Now, Deeper comes along, a direct sequel to The Descent starring many of the same characters and plunging deeper (naturally) into the depths and history of the underground.
First, this is not as good as The Descent. I won't spoil it, but the scientific basis proposed in the first book is abandonned in the second. There is a Satan and he IS 'Older Than Old' and he's just kidnapped a whole mess of children from the surface. The novel is about finding them, bringing them back up atop.
There's a lot of internal dialogue going on and, as it turns out, the depths are haunted by the dead. Ali, a nun with a talent for language and trouble in the first book, is now agnostic carrying around the ghost of a dead daughter. There's another mother who's daughter is among those below, Ike from the first book who has changed unbelievably (unforgiveably), a military sniper and a film producer. All these characters are a bit confusing and each of their stories interlock, intersect, depart from each other.
To say its not as good as the first book isn't a terrible review. There aren't a lot of books out there as good as the first one. This is a good thriller and I hope Long returns to the underground again so I can actually figure out what happened at the end.
Jeff Long is an interesting writer. From what I understand from his bios, cadged from the back of books, he is an adventurer who likes to write about adventure. His heroes are manly men, who scale mountains, transverse canyons, explore depths. When he writes science fiction, its pretty good.
For example, Year Zero was a great book about the release of a pathogen from a holy relic. It was a vial of blood that contained a virus that hadn't been seen for 2000 years and for which we no longer have any antigens. So, they start cloning people from those holy relics, looking for someone who successfully survived the original virus to fashion a cure. Of course, that means they're cloning saints and (maybe) Jesus. Good stuff.
There were some other books in there, The Reckoning, The Wall, The Ascent, none of which I thought were amazing like Year Zero and The Descent.
Descent posited the notion that the Earth is full of tunnels, caves, depths inhabited by 'primitives.' It is Hell and its apparently ruled over by Satan ('Older Than Old') and a war stirs between the surface and the depths. Sure enough, it sings. Strong stuff, a great thriller. Before you know it, its over and you're missing it.
Now, Deeper comes along, a direct sequel to The Descent starring many of the same characters and plunging deeper (naturally) into the depths and history of the underground.
First, this is not as good as The Descent. I won't spoil it, but the scientific basis proposed in the first book is abandonned in the second. There is a Satan and he IS 'Older Than Old' and he's just kidnapped a whole mess of children from the surface. The novel is about finding them, bringing them back up atop.
There's a lot of internal dialogue going on and, as it turns out, the depths are haunted by the dead. Ali, a nun with a talent for language and trouble in the first book, is now agnostic carrying around the ghost of a dead daughter. There's another mother who's daughter is among those below, Ike from the first book who has changed unbelievably (unforgiveably), a military sniper and a film producer. All these characters are a bit confusing and each of their stories interlock, intersect, depart from each other.
To say its not as good as the first book isn't a terrible review. There aren't a lot of books out there as good as the first one. This is a good thriller and I hope Long returns to the underground again so I can actually figure out what happened at the end.