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Book Review: The Deep by Rivers Solomon

 

The Deep by Rivers Solomon

Saga Press, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1534439863

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

 

Yetu is the historian for the wajniru, underwater beings created when slave traders threw pregnant African women overboard into the Atlantic Ocean. Although the women drowned, their children, born in the deep of the ocean, were transformed and have founded their own underwater society. As historian, Yetu carries the memories of all the trauma the mothers of the wajniru and the succeeding generations alone, to protect the others, and has done so for sixteen years, suffering tremendously from taking the burden alone. Once a year, she gets a three day respite from the memories when the wajniru hold a Rememberance ceremony. At that time, she carefully lets the memories wash back into the entire population so they can feel it collectively. The experience is physically as well as emotionally traumatic– author Rivers Solomon describes it as a seizure– but all the wajniru go through it together, and once they have absorbed the memories and can take no more, Yetu takes them back. Carrying all the history, violence, and trauma of her people has emotionally, mentally, and physically damaged and weakened Yetu, and since she has been carrying these memories since she was a teenager, they have overwhelmed her ability to establish her own identity. This time, after giving the wajinru’s memories back to them, Yetu decides to escape so she does not have to take on their pain again and can have an opportunity to discover who she really is.

Swimming to the surface of the ocean, away from her kind, Yetu is injured and washed into a tide pool. Thanks to nearby humans, and especially the prickly Oori, she begins to heal. An awkward friendship develops between Oori and Yetu, out of discussions about the ocean, family, and the past. Oori, the last of her people, does not know her history, and the fact that Yetu gave hers up is upsetting to her and causes Yetu to rethink whether she can really develop an identity without any knowledge of her history. It becomes clear to her that the increasingly stormy weather is probably due to the wajinru’s group anguish and that she must return to them to retrieve their history.

This story powerfully brings the point home about the physical, mental, and emotional effects of generational trauma that many Black people still experience, even generations after the end of slavery. The situation that created the wajinru is also not the only negative impact the “two-legs” have on them, even down in the deep of the ocean, as drilling for oil not only has a negative impact on the environment but causes the violent deaths of enough of the wajinru that they rise up to wash it away in a tidal wave.  The Deep is not fast paced, as for much of it Yetu is trapped in a tide pool, but it is a story that can be felt deep in the gut.

The Deep is the third iteration of storytelling based on the premise of an aquatic people born from drowned pregnant African women kidnapped to be enslaved(although each version can stand on its own).  A musical duo called Drexciya first imagined it, and their music created a mythology for an underwater utopia born from this terrible oppression. The hip-hop group clipping then wrote their own musical version, “The Deep”, a haunting song about underwater beings who rise as a collective against the “two-legs” after they begin drilling for oil, leading to dramatic climate change and destruction of the oceans, that won a Hugo Award for best dramatic performance. This novella takes the repeated line “y’all remember” from clipping’s song and focuses on the effects of history and collective memory that follow the uprising, While I’m not familiar with Drexciya, both clipping’s song and Solomon’s novella tell powerful, complementary stories about the violence and horror caused by white supremacy and enviromental destruction. Recommended.

I received this as a complimentary ARC from Saga Press through NetGalley.

Posted on November 13, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror edited by Lee Murray

Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror edited by Lee Murray

Adrenaline Press, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-940095-94-3

Availability: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Hellhole is a well-put-together anthology of horror stories, where the one common thread is that some of the action takes place underground.  Similarities end there, as the stories use mines, ocean volcanoes, underground city tunnels, river caves, and even the Moon as their settings.   What all the stories do well is two things: they deliver fast excitement, and they manage to take common settings and creatures and breathe new life into them, by throwing in enough twists to keep the reader interested.  There isn’t a bad story in the mix: the worst could still be rated at least as “fair.”  The rest all make the grade, from good to very good, with some being truly excellent.

The writing for all of them is solid, although the reader will have to adjust to different perspectives.  The majority are written in the third person, but there are some that use the first person, and even a couple written in the present tense, which some readers may find annoying.  In all of them, the action flows fast and hooks the reader within the first few pages: there’s no waiting around for unnecessary buildup of the plot.  One of the best examples is “Pit of Ghosts” by Kirsten Cross.  Tourists in an underground mine get a quick bit of background on the mine’s ugly history, then they are quickly stalked by creatures that somewhat resemble the Crawlers from the movie The Descent.  This might have only been an okay story if it continued on that path, but the story takes a major turn when the mine’s history plays into why the tourists were unwittingly chosen to be part of the group.  It’s a twist the reader likely won’t see coming, and it greatly elevates the quality of the story.

All of the stories do this to some degree: it’s what makes the book good.  In Jonathan Maberry’s “All the Devils are Here”, someone is trying to open an underground door to another dimension to unleash Old Gods. Seen it before.  But throw in a team of Special Forces soldiers with almost unlimited ammo trying to blast them apart, and you have something fun.  Michael McBrides’s “A Plague of Locusts” recycles the old “victims of biological experimentation gone wrong” plot and breathes new life into it with a fungus that does ugly things to its victims, allowing them to survive underground for decades.  Of course, someone has to go down there… and complete mayhem results.  For pure, over-the-top insanity, Jake Bible’s “Ginourmous Hell Snake” may be the winner.  Start with a big snake, add in an Amazon river cave, and a cult worshipping the snake.  Throw in two of the most entertaining characters in the book: trained mercenaries with futuristic weapons who act more like stoned California surfers, and are simply too laid back to be scared of anything.  When dudes meet snake, the craziness starts.  These aren’t the kind of stories you can read a little at a time– the excitement demands that the reader finish them right away.

The overall quality of the material in this anthology is high. The action and excitement is delivered in droves, and there are enough firefights and characters either torn apart or blown apart to keep gorehound readers satiated.  Factor in the originality shown to bring  tried and true plot devices roaring back to life, and you’ve got something the reader will not want to miss.  Recommended.

Contains: violence, gore

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Editor’s note: Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievment in an Anthology.

Posted on April 29, 2019 by , Reply

Short Fiction Review: “The Devil’s Throat” by Rena Mason

“The Devil’s Throat” by Rena Mason (in Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terrors edited by Lee Murray)

Adrenaline Press, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-940095-94-3

Availability: paperback, ebook

 

‘The Devil’s Throat” plunges the reader into an undersea volcano called the Devil’s Throat.  A team of scientists working from a floating research station near the volcano loses contact with one of their members while diving in the Throat.  They struggle to find out what happened to the missing scientist, and have to contend with the military showing up and trying to take over the rescue operation, for reasons of their own.

The best part of the story is the setting and the monsters.  For undersea monsters, authors have used sharks, snakes, and jellyfish, but…sea cucumbers?  That has to be a first, using those harmless looking things as creatures that are attracted to blood and attack humans.  The setting is also very good.  The Throat isn’t just a cylinder, it’s honeycombed with passages in its walls that provide additional chambers and dive holes for the characters to venture into.   While the scientists and military people are facing off within the volcano walls, the cucumbers are also an element that both sides must contend with.  The idea may sound silly, but the author takes it seriously and makes it entertaining, and it all caps off with two of the most perfectly written sentences to end a story.

The story is well-written in third person, and delivers good entertainment within its nineteen pages.  It’s a story that may well leave the reader clamoring for more, as there are plenty of plot devices in the narrative that could have been developed further.  Little detail is given involving the military experiments at the bottom of the Throat, or the genetic modifications done to the sea cucumbers.  This is worth the read, and would probably make an excellent basis for a much longer story or full length novel, as the material quality is good enough to provide the basis for one.  Recommended.

 

Editor’s note: “The Devil’s Throat” is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in Short Fiction. Monster Librarian does not typically review individual short stories, and this is an exception made specifically because of its inclusion on the Stoker Awards final ballot. 

 

Contains: mild violence

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on April 28, 2019 by , Reply
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