Back in 2012 animal planet released a program titled Mermaids: the body found. 16-year-old Nikki was enraptured by this new documentary. Years of faithful animal planet viewership and now they are presenting evidence of mermaids? I was thrilled. Unfortunately, the excitement was short-lived. The end of this now infamous “documentary” was nothing but a poorly rendered CGI mermaid jump scare. My trust in animal planet was shattered.
I can only assume Grant has seen the mockumentary as the premise of “The Drowning Deep” called it to mind immediately. The novel follows a group of scientists aboard The Melusine, A research vessel funded by the entertainment company Imagine, on the hunt for proof that mermaids exist. The expedition occurs seven years after The Atargatis, a research vessel also looking for mermaids and funded by the same entertainment company. The Atargatis expedition ended in tragedy. All members of the expedition: missing. The only thing left behind: video evidence of the vicious mermaids that attacked the ship and ate everyone on board. The world divided on if it is reality or a hoax.
There was a point in this book that I thought it would be one of my new favorites. A particular scene in a submersible was one of the scariest, most claustrophobic, anxiety inducing scenes that I have had the joy of reading in recent memory. Unfortunately, that happened in the first third of the book and nothing in the rest of the book measured up in terms of horror or prose.
I think the fatal flaw of this book is the amount of characters and storylines versus the extent that you can explore them all in 440 pages. Now that seems like a lot of pages, but when we consider how many characters we are following, it’s just not enough. There is Tory, Lewis, Olivia, Ray, Heather, Holly, Hallie, Jillian, Theo, Jacques Miksi and more. There’s also side characters, the mermaids, dolphin POV. The amount of characters that you need to keep track of is reminiscent of a Game of Thrones novel. Each character has their own specialization, discoveries they are making, fighting against the mermaids. There’s interpersonal relationships and inner battles. It was just too much happening and not enough pages to make it happen.
A small detail that took me out of it as well were the dates this is all supposed to be happening, the tech and scientific discoveries that have been supposedly made, and the year I am reading this. The book was originally published in 2017. The majority of the book takes place in 2022. I am reading this in 2026.
In the world of this book by 2022, we have decoded dolphin speak, communicate with them, and they back to us. As a reader in the year 2026 I find myself resentful that I had to Google “can humans speak with dolphins?“ to fact check myself and confirm we in fact cannot. It’s a nitpick that I would not have had if I were reading this in the year 2017, but some of the scientific progress that we have still yet to reach in modern times broke my immersion multiple times.
Was this ultimately a good book: yes
Would I recommend this book to a friend: yes, but with some caveats
Would I read this book again: the one scene in the submersible, absolutely not the whole thing.
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