Review: An interesting premise, but...
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 09 6, 2013
Every sci-fi story has one gimme.  This one's gimme is that an intelligent civilization thrives in the deepest depths of the ocean, and has advanced to the point of exploring the upper reaches and even beyond - into our world.  I'm not giving away anything here, since that's in the prologue.  It's a great idea, and in the right hands, it could be a great book.I didn't finish the book because I couldn't get past the clumsy writing.  The characters seemed just a bit stereotypical to me and a little bit wooden, though if I'd stuck with it maybe they would have been fleshed out in interesting ways.  But there were too many things that just popped me right out of the flow.For example:  One of the intrepid explorers from the deepest depths rises up and up until at last she hits the surface - in the English Channel, a body of water so shallow it was dry land in the Ice Age.  What?For example:  Here's the introduction of a presumably minor character.  "McEachen, a former defensive tackle for the Chargers, who had turned to police work after an injury ended his playing career prematurely, stood six-four and tipped the scales at a lithe but muscled 250."  A lithe but muscled 250?  Seriously?  Why do we need the life history of a character whose sole purpose appears to be to get one of the major characters into the story?  And if we do need his life history, why does it need to be given up front, in one sentence, no less?  It jarred me right out of the story.After a number of instances like that, where I had to stop and ask, "Why am I reading this?", I answered my own question.  I'm not reading it.