🎃 What I Am Reading for Halloween: "Into The Drowning Deep" by Mira Grant

Into The Drowning Deep was, like The Fisherman, on last year's Halloween list, but was cut due to time constraints and horror fatigue. In retrospect, I am glad it worked out this way, because this allowed me to better space out my nautical horror novels after The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack.

The book is about mermaids. I am always in favor of horror centered around mythological or folkloric creatures, but this take is, if anything, straight from biology class. It didn’t take me long to shake the mental Disney association for something more fearsome.

The premise is that a Sci Fi Channel-style entertainment company, Imagine, once lost a research ship while filming a cheesy documentary about the existence of mermaids. The recovered footage shows an actual mermaid attack, and so several years later, the company outfits a new, state-of-the-art ship, and sends it back for confirmation. The ship is chock full of scientists, mostly those just looking for a free cruise and a chance to do some oceanographic research. Others, however, are believers in the existence of mermaids, especially the "sirenologist' Dr. Jillian Toth, an outcast in the scientific community for her mermaid theories. Competent and cynical, Dr. Toth is married to but estranged from Theo Blackwell, whom Imagine has put in charge of the expedition. Other scientists with a personal stake include Tory Stewart, whose sister was a media personality who disappeared on the original expedition (that ship was the Atargatis, ancient Assyrian moon goddess and mermaid, and the new ship is the Melusine, European water spirit). Tory finds herself very conflicted after she starts to fall for Olivia Sanderson, nerd media star who is filling her late sister's role on this voyage. She is driven by a strong desire to avenge, in some way, her sister. Other characters acquire the same motivation, the one I find most understandable in works of literature, over the course of the voyage.

Other scientists include the sisters Hallie, Holly, and Heather Wilson, proficient in various science fields. Holly and Heather are twins and are deaf, and communicate in ASL. This becomes important later, as it turns out mermaids also communicate through a form of sign language.

The mermaids, as mentioned, are given considerable establishment in the biological world by the scientists who study them over the course of the book. Their movement and flotation, communication (mimicry of sounds they here, sign language, and their own language), and other biological functions are studied and theorized about.

Much of this study is done in dire circumstances. When the Melusine arrives above the Mariana Trench, Heather Wilson, ace submersible operator, becomes the first to descend, and thus becomes the first casualty. What follows is a considerable amount of tense waiting as the scientists celebrate the discovery of mermaids and go about their rare opportunity for oceanic field research; despite the fact that it is clear to the reader and to some of the characters that the mermaids will be arriving soon. The ship's defensive shutters have not worked at any point in the book, and their repair is a critical source of rising tension. In the mean time, Theo Blackwell attempts to retrieve a mermaid to bring to shore, sending out specially trained dolphins. The dolphin raid is one of my favorite parts, as the three dolphins (who seem more sentient and communicative than I believe dolphins are in reality) each have their own personality: two eager kids with differing degrees of realism; and the grouchy, fatalist uncle dolphin, Kearney, who recalls ancestral stories of the mermaids in the deep ("They sang no songs of their own, only songs stolen from the victims of their hunger. They were voiceless and cruel and terrible, and if not for them, the dolphins would never have needed to seek the shallows, or put themselves into the path of men, or choose the safety of cages over the freedom of the sea." p.233). Kearney has only gone along so that he might die free instead of in captivity. (This all reminds me, of course, of Jones, the cybernetic smack-junkie dolphin hacker from "Johnny Mnemonic"). He is soon granted this wish, but the resulting captive mermaid proves essential to the survival of the characters, as Hallie Wilson is eventually able to establish communication with it over the course of the wait and the eventual bloodbath. She, in the hidden holding tank, is one of several enclaves of characters who must survive the attack and venture into the danger to attempt to salvage the situation.

Climate change haunts the book; it takes place in 2022 and the California research university is described as being one of the vanguards of saving the surrounding population areas as they beat back wildfires and changes in sea salt composition. The book ends without much of an epilogue, but dark mutterings are made about the government using nuclear weapons to beat back the sudden counterattack from nature.

Did It Scare Me?

The tension of the middle act is ratcheted up to unbearable levels, and the inevitable mermaid attack has everything I'd expect from a science fiction-horror slaughter. Dr. Toth's ominous portents and rapturous fatalism do a lot to set the mood; and though the book is more scientific than folkloric, it makes plenty of atmosphere-setting nods to having "sailed off the edge of the map" or into the part labeled "Here Be Monsters." I have convinced myself that I am a touch thalassophobic, so I get a bit of a chill from touches like that. I did expect more characters to die though, especially two who shall remain unspoiled, one for a monster obsession and one for nefarious motives.