From Below

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This proved a claustrophobic read with an intriguing cast that kept me engaged throughout. I did wish for a little more depictions of the horrors, at the novel's close, but still feel impressed with all the author did deliver. I want to thank the publisher "Poisoned Pen Press" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this spooky novel and any thoughts or opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone! Firstly, sorry if I have limited sympathies for a couple who can afford to book a last-minute luxury holiday to Vietnam, even though only one of them works, and then call it off after a day and hang the expense. No. Some people deserve to be eaten by sharks. Not that I’m saying that’s what happens. No spoilers here. I’m just saying that when the husband got eaten by a shark I didn’t really care. How did he taste Sharky? “A bit rich.” Hahaha. Oh Sharky, you card! This was my introduction to the work of Darcy Coates and was an excellent starting point. I'm eager to find out what else she has in store for horror readers. The best summation/elevator pitch I can think of to describe this is extreme claustrophobia creepiness under the deep sea..

From Below by Darcy Coates | Goodreads

Darcy Coates makes good use of the claustrophobic setting and her characters, even though they are making some dumb decisions here and there, are more plausible in their actions as is usually the case in books like this. She also employs a dual timeline that lets the reader slowly uncover what had happened aboard the Arcadia in 1928 while in the present timeline our crew of divers will find out as well. This form of storytelling was working perfectly here. Despite having some solid characters in the beginning, especially the main protagonist Cove, I just felt this novel started to get dull and repetitive as I went through the chapters. I enjoyed all the great atmospheric elements of this, especially the underwater situations, but after a while, it just started to get boring. When I finished this book, I just wished that the book's focus had been solely on the 1928 period of the story. While there were some horrifying moments and fantastically gross parts in the present-day sections, it just didn't really deliver for me the way that the past sections did. Additionally, I felt like the reveal was unsatisfying and kind of wishy-washy. My personal problem was all the technical details made the read more of a "chore" to get through at times. My attention would be on a great scene, only to be derailed by silt moving (for the 500th time), or something else that took me "out of the moment". There was also one part that could have added so much more, if elaborated on, in my opinion.

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This was an unexpected and extremely enjoyable read by author "Darcy Coates". I appreciated the atmospheric and tense storytelling and I also became very engaged with all the characters. The story starts slowly and continues to build while giving hints of what is to come yet the reader will be completely surprised by the turn of events and the last forty percent of the book had myself holding my breath at times and feeling nervous at the disturbingly creepy happenings within the ship and what the poor crew were experiencing. I really was sitting on the edge of my seat by the time I finished this book. This was a terrific, eerie and spooky story for anyone who loves a good horror story taking place deep within the ocean. I now am a true fan of "Darcy Coates" and will look forward to reading many of her books.

from below: a reading list with Marcus Rediker History from below: a reading list with Marcus Rediker

The stones of the walls are broken off, and hurdled down at hideous creature. And it just might be enough toBut the Arcadia has not yet had its fill of death, and something dark and hungry watches from below. With limited oxygen and the ship slowly closing in around them, Cove and her team will have to fight their way free of the unspeakable horror now desperate to claim them. The dark deep realms of the ocean, a claustrophobic underwater world - and scene of The SS Arcadia’s final resting place. So, yeah, nothing like starting with an already scary plot foundation, deep sea diving, and adding a ship that went missing under weird circumstances, and supernatural elements. Like our protagonist mentions, professional divers can die in familiar waters. The unskilled and barely qualified crew in this story, plus the truly unsettling features of the area they're diving, begin us on a high level of Scary from the start. At least the sharks are good!” No, Sharky. The sharks are not good. They are bad. They are sub- Sharknado bad. When they are CG they flop about, moving through the water (and occasionally the air) with no physical presence. When they are puppets they are adorable, like sea puppies, making the way they are treated seem, frankly, unreasonably cruel. They pop up for all of thirty seconds at a time – budget, I assume – not making their appearance until easily past the one hour mark. Added to this the fact that the total time they are on screen for is easily under 10 minutes so not only is the majority of the movie gaspingly inept, it’s also a huge disappointment to fans of shark movies (and fans of James Woods' legal dramas).

From Below Movie Review | AVForums

Dread. In the brief moment he’d touched the metal, he’d felt the danger of the place. This ship wasn’t a gem on the ocean floor, waiting to be found. It was a trap. A monstrous, hideous trap. Unfeeling, unyielding." With that being said, I found the first 70% of this book absolutely riveting. I am constantly on the hunt for a world-altering scary story. Being a fan of both the Horror & Historical Fiction genres this book appeared to be my ideal match. Had Coates held steadfast in the general malaise which was being crafted throughout the first part of the story I am certain that this would have been one that I would have been loath to put down. Unfortunately, we read about the diving team, set in the present tense, who are exploring the Arcadia that lies 300 feet into the ocean deep. This group of people grows to become insufferable as they seem to willfully neglect logical thought & decision-making in the hopes of capturing more footage for the documentary they are shooting. Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, Autonomedia, 2004. And the actual horror of the ship is never explained. The closest description any of the characters get to them is calling them "zombies." So yeah, they're ocean zombies... but not, because they make it clear they don't want to eat the divers, just keep them entombed in the ship with them. Why? Dunno. How? Dunno. At one point, it's implied that the carbon dioxide awakens them, but then it's later implied that it's the simple presence of other living creatures. Unclear. Unexplained. Also? Where'd they come from? Dunno. Never touched upon. I needed something to explain this story, because everything the divers do is just stupid as hell and utterly inexplicable. When it comes to the later chapters up to the end, I wasn’t a fan of how they abruptly ended right when good stuff happened. It was very frustrating since when it happened and brought a little bit of a spark while reading, I was left hanging until the chapter after next when it returned to that specific timeline. Combine that with the slow pacing of this novel and it’s just something that leaves much to be desired.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own. Okay, budgetary constraints are a lot to do with what makes this film what it is and a lot of its shortfalls can be forgiven because of that. But it isn't just the dreadful compositing or weightless CGI fish that bring the film down. It's a mess from beginning to end. In short… take it away, Sharky: I have read many scary stories in my day. I am very familiar with the sentiment of fear both in a tangible, literal sense as well as what the emotion means logically; the way our brains transform within our bodies grasping for coherent rationals to the events transpiring around us. It is the gift of a great writer to provide the reader with an experience of immersion. The beginning of this book saw us meet a cast of characters in the present day as well as view the cataclysmic events leading to the sinking of the Arcadia, through the introspection of Harland, a crew member on the ship in 1928. I have read all three books in Gravekeeper series and thoroughly enjoyed them. While I appreciate all of Coates's work, I must mention that the Gravekeeper books stand out for their paranormal horror, which is quite distinct from the horror found in From Below.

From Below - Horror DNA From Below - Horror DNA

It would be wrong, however, to think that history from below ignores power relations or the powerful. As Geoff Eley argues, setting history from below against histories of “the bosses, bankers and brokers who run the economy” is to invoke a false antinomy. “Historians from below”, notes Rediker, “study power.” Darcy Coates' stories are all different that I've read so far and I'm very impressed with the variety. The premise she chose here was perfect; like space, the sea is another environment rife with fodder for horror elements. Pretty much loved this, and how Coates manages maximum creepiness paired with a feeling that things will generally work out. The only downside for me was that there were some sections that felt slow but the overall sense of unease and tension, helped me to overlooks this. For the life of me, I just could not bring myself to care about the present day story-line. It dragged along for a solid two-thirds of the book before anything really started to happen. It's such a shame because Coates did such a fantastic job building this sense of dread, isolation, and claustrophobia in the beginning of the story.Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976. There's a bit of repetitiveness in the book with the diving sessions, but I didn’t have an issue with it.