Rolling in the Deep
Mira Grant
Subterranean Press
Fiction, Horror
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: The captain, crew, and scientists aboard the chartered cruise ship Atargatis thought they knew what they were getting into when they signed on for the Imagine Network's latest faux documentary, seeking "evidence" of mermaids in the most remote reaches of the Pacific Ocean. For the scientists, it's a way to get funds and some actual research on the side. For the ship's crew, it's a paycheck. And for the camera crew and host, it's just how they make a living. Imagine even sends along a team of real "mermaids", professionals who swim in custom tails at water parks and other aquatic events, so the cameras can be sure to catch "glimpses" of something in the water. A few blurry shots here, some vague scientific jargon there, add some interpersonal shipboard drama (mostly scripted), and that'll be the next Imagine ratings blockbuster in the can. Everyone sails home happy and well paid, regardless of what they actually "discover".
Nobody expected the probes to find something in the waters over the Mariana Trench. And nobody expected that something to follow the probes to the Atargatis... something with claws and teeth...
REVIEW: This short, chilling horror tale foretells doom from the very opening, when the Atargatis is revealed to be the star of another Imagine Network documentary on modern ghost ships, after having been found adrift and devoid of surviving crew. Even with that premonition of disaster, one can't help getting to know and even like the various characters thrust together on the ship, all of whom have their own reasons for taking part in a "mockumentary" all too reminiscent of many "reality" shows and events on popular cable channels these days. Grant's mermaids are rooted in biological plausibility, terrifyingly effective predators of the deep waters who bear only tangential (at best) connection with the common popular perception of happy, beautiful singing ladies in shell-top bikinis with technicolor fins. The collision of whitewashed fiction with cold-blooded reality - a collision in which reality inevitably wins - is at the heart of the story, and everyone who went into the Imagine contract believing they could somehow gain tangible benefit from an admitted deception pays dearly. It's also a culture clash, even if one of the cultures is so utterly alien that one is never quite sure how "human" or animalistic it is... not unlike many animal attacks, in truth, where mixed messages and inability to comprehend the other mind leads to tragedy. The action and danger ratchet up nicely, building to a horrific finale.
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