Here there be monsters

Book Review:  Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant

An excerpt from the 2017 fictional documentary, Modern Ghost Ships:  The Atargatis, introduces this novella.  It states that the Atargatis was found adrift, two hundred miles from its last reported location -- minus its passengers and crew.  None have been found in the two years since the Atargatis was located and the Ghost Ships documentary was made.  What happened?  

After the introduction, the reader is taken back to 2015, to the beginning of the Atargatis expedition.  The cruise ship has been hired to take a crew of scientists and entertainment personnel to the Mariana Trench to search for mermaids.  No one expects to find the mythical creatures, but the "documentary" provides an opportunity to conduct some groundbreaking research on the Imagine Network's dime.  From this point on, we experience the events as they happen, with brief excerpts from the Ghost Ships documentary appearing before chapters.  The transcripts make it all too clear that the horror is coming to all of those aboard the ship.

Loved this book!!!  It's short but compelling.  Mira Grant, aka Seanan McGuire, writes monsters incredibly well (I've also read Feed which makes zombies entirely believable).

Book Review:  Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

It's been seven years since the Atargatis was found adrift, not a single person aboard.  Film footage of an apparent assault on the ship's occupants was leaked but many dismiss it as a hoax.  Marine Biologist Tory Stewart knows that it was not -- her sister was one of those aboard the vessel.  So, when Imagine invites her to participate in a second expedition, she accepts.  She wants to find the creatures responsible for her sister's death.

The Imagine Network also knows that the footage was real -- if possible, they would have kept it from the public, but it was leaked as soon as the Atargatis was found.  Profits are down but the CEO has a plan to turn things around.  The ship he sends on this expedition was designed with the mermaids in mind.  And, he's sending along a couple of big game hunters as an added precaution.

Despite my irritation with some of the characters, I enjoyed this sequel.  As with Rolling in the Deep, the reader knows that the characters are sailing into danger.  We have new characters, making new mistakes -- costly, but mostly believable mistakes.  We again have that slow creep of horror the longer the ship remains in the area of the Mariana Trench.  And we learn more about the mermaids -- their biology, their intelligence, and something of their culture.
 
It seems likely that Grant will continue this as a series.  I hope she does.
 

This book club has been going strong for 500 years

Book Review:  Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.

Art School graduate and former web designer Clay Jannon finds his next job at Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore.  It's an unusual bookstore.  There's not much business, especially during the late shift.  Most of the customers who come in don't buy books at all -- they borrow a series of volumes that contain nothing but numbers.  Jannon's curiosity gets the best of him and he recruits a few friends to investigate.  They discover a secret society that's been around for 500 years.

While this book has received several good reviews, my review is much more ambivalent.  I loved the premise -- a bookstore acting as a front for a secret society.  I loved the strangeness of the bookstore itself.  There are interesting moments and Sloan writes humor incredibly well.  The book glows in the dark, which is super cool. 

Aside of the trip to New York however, there wasn't much urgency to the story.  There's a lot of convenience involved -- Clay happens to have friends with the needed resources to solve this mystery.  Money is not a concern, nor is access to resources.  Even finding long-lost items happens relatively easily.  And, I have to admit, the final reveal was a disappointment for me.