Fathomless 2 - Abyss by Greig Beck - Cate Granger 2
⭐⭐⭐ Stars
Book Blurb
Cate Granger is chasing ghosts.
The monster shark she once encountered was a remnant of the ancient world - one that had escaped an underwater lair previously sealed off for millions of years. At great cost, Cate and her allies had killed the beast.
So, no more ghosts, no more shadows. All gone.
Or so Cate thought.
A research ship is sound-blasting the deep seabed looking for petroleum signatures. But in doing so they disturb something that has been hiding in the trenches for countless millennia.
What Cate thought was dead rises from the cold depths of hell. She, Jack Monroe, a Russian billionaire and her team of marine biologists are forced once more to enter the abyssal zone of the deepest ocean trenches, to confront a creature from the Earth's distant past.
Abyss by Greig Beck - Cate Granger 2
It is time to modify the famous quote to -
Hell hath no fury like a megalodon
We thought we saw the end of the war machine of yore unleashed upon the modern seas in the previous book after much mayhem and murder.
But the peace is short lived with humans pushing their limits on nature sometimes there is a pushback. Sound blasting the ocean bed for oil signatures acts as the harbinger for the demon of the deep.
For centuries fishermen across the world have been grappling with hidden murmurs, stories and gossips around fires spoken only when they are high, stories of hitherto unheralded and unimagined sizes of creatures that they think they have glimpsed or have heard rumors of people who claim to have had a glimpse and have been terrified enough not to go into the water in darkness. With no verifiable data and a negligible fossil record one can never be sure but seafarers over generations talk of two stories the kraken and a huge shark.
Abyss picks up from the last book with our protagonists especially Granger in mortal fear of the sea after her last adventure but has enough verve to seek out every one of the seafaring legends across the globe wherein there is any discussion or information about large sea creatures. Having come face to face with the giant living fossil and understanding that the sea rift created in the previous book released ancient organisms into the current oceans but none seemed to have lived to create their own tales. Still she has had the nagging doubt whether the seemingly invincible creature with practically no adversaries could be still out there hidden from humans.
The fact that a significant amount of the sea especially the land beneath has never been explored and practical considerations have always kept it out of the human eye.
My first thought when starting this book was that either the Megalodon from Fathomless made a return or another had slipped away from the rift. Grieg does warn us about the line he is taking here with the title but still the attack comes as a pleasant surprise and the incident of a submersible stuck deep on the seabed made a compelling story made more unpleasant when correlated with the 2023 real life crisis in the news in June of the Titan, the submersible which was exploring the Titanic and which was finally lost with all hands down including a young 17 year old. The book and real life merged and made this story seem so real with the pangs of someone stuck alone in a small chamber with no escape.
What I loved about this story was the compelling human emotions attached to the rescue of the submersible and which was juxtaposed with our protagonists still reluctant to join the rescue efforts because of their past traumatic experience.
The human element brought by Cate in the story is like any of us would have when faced with a single minded terminator which knows no stopping. Her subsequent regret at losing a dear friend, her indignation at her own impotence and her decision to face her fear by destroying her inner and outer demons carry this book from being another creature feature to a human interest one.
Enter the Russian oligarch, good friend and fellow adventurer with a mean machine as the team gathers together to go after the booty - Cate and Jack to kill a monster and Valery and Sonya after the biggest game hunt with the head as prize for their living room.
So far the story seems a routine search and destroy mission but it is when their submarine enters deep water and into the abyss that the book has another turn and Beck's expertise comes to the fore - creating a divine underground world where big is small and giants are a norm. Beck digs into his bag of tricks which we have seen blossom in diverse books like the Primordia trilogy and the Centre of the Earth trilogy (I have yet to start with the Mysterious Island series which are in my TBR) and he writes some very good monsters both real and imagined.
This was also where I was a trifle disappointed with the story as I hoped that this underground world would be explored but with the rescue on a timeline and a promise of another sequel this option is sent to the backburner and the rescue with a underwater fight with another titan followed by a clash of titans where things seem like the progress chart of a cup final.
The final clash with the megalodon is fraught with despair, loss and immense firepower before the protagonists come out on top with their own deep losses.
As I am writing this review, the third book in the series Leviathan has just released and I am hoping that some of my story remnants are fulfilled.
Recommended adventure.
⭐⭐⭐ Stars
Recommended
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