#sea terror

[cloudy-cloud-of-satan-sky]

Ok so you know that Pokemon breeds thing? I've decided to do one! So here are some Dragonite breeds. Don't pay attention to the names, I don't have a lot of imagination ;-;.

[michaelpatrickhicks]

Review: Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant

My rating: 4 of 5 stars Rolling in the Deep is, essentially, a found-footage horror movie committed to print. The Imagine Network, best-known for its chintzy monster movies and sci-fi programming, is taking a hit in the ratings. Faster than you can say Sharknado, they decide to break into the "hyper-reality" game with a documentary that's every bit as fictional as it is factual. Loaded up with a team of scientists, interns, and a mermaid performance troupe, the Atargatis cruises to the Mariana Trench to debunk or confirm the world's most enduring sea tale - are mermaid's real? The story is broken down into five sections, each prefaced with a transcript from a documentary about the Atargatis and its missing crew, warning viewers about the footage they are about see...err, read. Whatever. Roughly the first three-quarters of the book are devoted to the various passengers, mostly the ship's captain, the documentary film crew, and the scientists. This is a quick, breezy read, paced well enough to hit the approximate run-time of a longer found-footage flick. The downside to this, though, is that readers are not given much time to really get to know the people aboard the Atargatis or to really get into anybody's head. Thanks to the rules of found footage stories and the various documentarian notes coming up at regular intermissions, we know perfectly well that the fate of these men and women are sealed. Unfortunately, we're not given an opportunity to really get attached to any of these people, despite the slow burn toward the big finish. But that finish itself? Oh boy, does it ever get going; the mayhem really kicks things up a notch. Besides the violent, frenetic climax, the thing I most appreciated about Rolling in the Deep was Mira Grant's focus on the science. She's an author who can take mythological premises like mermaids, or horror staples like zombies in her Newsflesh series, and give them enough scientific credibility to make it plausible. Here, we get plenty of discussion of how mermaids would be evolutionarily credible in light of things we already know about deep sea life (the use of bioluminescence and symbiosis in attracting prey, for instance). Personally, I love Grant's knack for taking what might otherwise be little more than a riff on B-movie horror tropes and elevating them with scientific rigor, grounding all that face-ripping, throat-tearing goodness in a measured bit of reality. By the time the monsters make their grand entrance, we're all but primed to accept their existence and welcome them into the world with arms spread wide. View all my reviews

[michaelpatrickhicks]

Review: Fury of the Orcas by Hunter Shea

My rating: 4 of 5 stars All across the world, killer whales are suddenly going berserk. In marine parks and aquariums, orcas are leaping out their pools and tearing apart their trainers. In the Atlantic, pods are attacking ships with cunning, predatory ruthlessness. Orca trainers Chet and Rosario (who are also romantically involved) are thrust into the middle of it all, and are bound and determined to get to the bottom of why these orcas are freaking out in such meticulous and coordinated ways. Their race against time takes them on a globe-hopping whirlwind of violence peppered with a heady dose of conspiracy. Hunter Shea packs in a fair deal of plot points in only 150 pages, taking a bonkers idea and complicating it even further with some X-Files-like shenanigans. As with his previous sea-terror novel, Megalodon In Paradise, Shea ties in some of these elements with his ghost shark novel, They Rise. I still haven't read They Rise, but the gist of it is laid out well enough here that newcomers shouldn't feel too lost in the weeds. As is typical of Shea, the horror elements are well done and frenetically paced. When it comes to high-octane, pulp-styled, B-rated creature features, few do it as consistently well as Hunter Shea. You can count on this author to deliver whacky stories rife with mayhem and loads of fun. For pure entertainment value, Shea's a tough one to beat. Now that I've sank my teeth into a couple of his Severed Press aquatic horror themed books, and with They Rise moving up the Kindle docket a few more notches, I'm digging this unofficial series that particular book kicked off. And given how Fury of the Orcas ends, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for at least one more wonderfully cataclysmic entry. View all my reviews

[quarkmaster]

Nightmare

FORCEKETCH