Deep Fathom
by James Rollins
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Book Summary Information
Author: James RollinsEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-07-03
ISBN: 0380818809
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Harper
Book Reviews of Deep Fathom
Book Review: Flawed but enjoyable
Summary: 4 Stars
I read James Rollins's "Black Order"---a relatively recent book---before going back and reading "Deep Fathom." One of the things I most liked about "Black Order" was the characterization. Rollins showed great skill in painting characters with the briefest of brushstrokes, and his characters were interesting and engaging, from main characters to walk-on parts to even the nastiest of villains. I wanted to know what happened to them, good guys and bad guys alike. In "Deep Fathom" I can see the beginnings of these skills---the main characters and their allies are intriguing, interesting, and wonderfully fun to read about---but it's obvious that Rollins has improved since then as well.
Minor characters are drawn in every bit as quickly, but often not as skillfully, making it harder to care about their fates. In particular, the villains are extremely black-and-white, one-dimensional eeeevil bad guys, with little to make them compelling beyond their use to drive the plot and threaten the main characters. There's a brief attempt at giving depth to one of them---David Spangler, an old enemy of Jack's---by providing a few meager childhood explanations for his depravity, but depth really needs to come from depiction, not background. Not even that much thought is given to the vice president-now-president, who takes horrifying glee in the idea of starting a nuclear war without so much as a flicker of regret or second thought.
As usual, Rollins provides a high-tension thrill ride. It appears he's always had a great feel for action and pacing, and even on those occasions when I wasn't 100% on board with the story I was still pulled along and engrossed by it.
The story involves a fascinating archaeological mystery---was there once an entire continent that has now sunk beneath the waves of the Pacific Ocean? If so, what happened to it? How does Easter Island tie into it, and the Bermuda Triangle, and a mysterious pillar of crystal found jutting out of the ocean floor---with writing on it!
However, unlike Black Order, which despite some highly unusual plot points succeeded in causing me to suspend disbelief pretty much entirely, I had a little more trouble with that here. Partially I think that's because some events---particularly toward the climax of the book---wrapped up a bit too neatly and conveniently.
So is this book worth reading? Absolutely! It's a fun read with a fascinating plot, and just because Rollins has improved since then hardly means that you shouldn't go back and read his earlier work if you haven't already. Consider my rating a 3.5.
Summary of Deep Fathom
On The Day Everything Changed Forever...The millennium's first eclipse of the sun cast a shroud over the Earth. And then catastrophe struck...
On The Day The End Began...
Solar flares have triggered a series of gargantuan natural disasters. Earthquakes and hellfire rock the globe. The death toll rises at an unimaginable rate. And in the midst of chaos, Air Force One and America's president have vanished from the skies.
The Sea Revealed A Mystery
Ex-Navy Seal Jack Kirkland surfaces from an aborted underwater salvage mission to find the Earth burning -- and the U.S. on the narrow brink of a nuclear apocalypse. Now, aboard his oceangoing exploration ship, Deep Fathom, Kirkland is on a desperate mission that is leading him to an earth-shattering discovery miles below the ocean's surface. For devastating secrets and a power an ancient civilization could not contain have been cast out into a modern day -- and they will forever alter a world racing toward its own destruction.
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