A review by the_weirdling
The Descent by Jeff Long
3.0
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I loved the whole world that Long invented here. The original idea is great and he flushes it out pretty well into a fully formed world that doesn’t seem caricatured, even though it probably should. And that’s pretty awesome. I also liked the first part of the book, where his world is hinted at and then slowly reveled. It teases and then delivers well.
What fell flat for me was the rest of the book. The whole expedition into uncharted territory thing, complete with naive protagonist, the intense and competent outsider with a troubled back story who “knows the lay of the land” because “I’ve been here before”, the greed corporate double crosser who runs the expedition, the mercenary man-at-arms hired to protect them who goes rogue, etc., etc., etc. Its a huge pastiche of worn archetypes and exhausted plot devices that have been too over used. From about midway through the book I was able to predict every turn of plot that was coming for the next 250 pages or so.
Three stars for the great idea, the invention of the hadal world, and the fact that Long’s prose is always good and engaging. Two lost stars for the fact that I’ve read this book in a different setting dozens of times before and seen it’s movie equivalent many more times than that.
What fell flat for me was the rest of the book. The whole expedition into uncharted territory thing, complete with naive protagonist, the intense and competent outsider with a troubled back story who “knows the lay of the land” because “I’ve been here before”, the greed corporate double crosser who runs the expedition, the mercenary man-at-arms hired to protect them who goes rogue, etc., etc., etc. Its a huge pastiche of worn archetypes and exhausted plot devices that have been too over used. From about midway through the book I was able to predict every turn of plot that was coming for the next 250 pages or so.
Three stars for the great idea, the invention of the hadal world, and the fact that Long’s prose is always good and engaging. Two lost stars for the fact that I’ve read this book in a different setting dozens of times before and seen it’s movie equivalent many more times than that.