by lauara mauro
The sea is terrifying. I mean that sincerely. The ocean covers 70% of our planet, and, as editor Ellen Datlow points out, 95% of it is as yet unexplored. That means there exists an unfathomably vast amount of very deep, very dark water about which we know very little. In which anything might lurk.
Sharing this thematic starting point are fifteen original stories from a variety of authors which diverge and drift off in very different directions. For some, the sea is mostly a backdrop, or a plot device upon which a wider story rests: Simon Bestwick’s ‘Deadwater’ begins with the motif of a drowned drifter, and unfurls into an effective and authentic portrait of a damaged young woman seeking retribution; Bestwick has a unique knack for creating characters who are both highly complex and genuinely sympathetic. Terry Dowling’s unsettling ‘The Tryal Attract’ places a haunted skull centre stage, while Bradley Denton’s ‘A Ship of the South Wind’ takes place miles from any large body of water, and yet the mythology of the sea still pervades the narrative (you’ll also be hard pressed to find a cooler ship than the one in this story!) I confess I struggled a little with Michael Marshall Smith’s ‘Shit Happens’ – though not because it’s a bad story. It’s Stephen Volk’s ‘The Arse-Licker’ levels of gross, albeit with a well-developed sense of humour. Stephen Graham Jones’ ‘Broken Record’ is another humorous tale, a fun (and occasionally poignant) take on the ‘stranded on a desert island’ trope. Other stories take the oceanic theme and run with it. Lee Thomas’ ‘Fodders Jig’ invokes a Lovecraftian sea-beast in service of a genuinely unsettling disease narrative – a terrifying hybrid of neurodegenerative illness and possession, beneath which runs a genuinely touching love story between two older men. Ray Cluley’s ‘The Whaler’s Song’ is deeply eerie; a tale of stranded whalers on a remote Arctic island, this wonderfully written story evokes a paranoid tension comparable to Michelle Paver’s excellent ‘Dark Matter’, though it remains emphatically its own story. John Langan’s ‘The Deep Sea Swell’ is a Dramamine-induced nightmare, a claustrophobic tale set aboard a storm-hit ferry, upon which there is no escape from the vengeful creature stalking the corridors. And ‘Haunt’ by Siobhan Carroll is something completely different: a piece of short historical fiction, part ghost story, part Ancient Mariner-esque tale of cursed sailors slowly dying aboard a becalmed ship. It’s an effective and visceral tale, informed by real-life historical horrors – the irreparable injustices of the slave trade. (I was excited to note that the author is a tall ship sailor, and trained on board a ship called the Kalmar Nyckel, which I was previous familiar with – her authentic knowledge of tall ship sailing really lends flavour to the narrative.) ‘He Sings of Salt and Wormwood’ by Brian Hodge brings us back to the modern age; a surfer, who discovers a strange wreck while freedriving, and his wife, to whom the sea gives strange and unnerving gifts. And Steve Rasnic Tem’s ‘Saudade’ is a heartfelt exploration of loss, and moving on, more wistful than creepy, but no less of a story for it. Still others play with oceanic mythology. Christopher Golden’s ‘The Curious Allure of the Sea’ explores the mysterious effects of a strange symbol, a living metaphor for the calming influence of the sea which, when tattooed onto the body, invokes an obsessive need in those who encounter it. Alyssa Wong’s ‘What My Mother Left Me’ is a variant on the Selkie myth, making disturbingly effective use of the Selkie’s abandoned caul (I still have the occasional waking nightmare about empty, animated skin). Seanan McGuire invents a whole new mythology in ‘Sister, Dearest Sister, Let Me Show To You The Sea’, which starts off with teenage sibling antipathy taken to the extreme. The story takes a Little Mermaid-esque twist with the introduction of some sinister, but helpful eels, to whom the protagonist unwittingly trades her voice in return for resurrection. And perhaps the highlight of the anthology, A.C. Wise’s ‘A Moment Before Breaking’, which treads similar ground to Oscar-winning film ‘The Shape of Water’; a richly described mythology forms the backbone of a breathtaking story, which touches on several of my favourite themes: found family, and freeing oneself from the constraints of the past. I would gladly have continued reading had it not ended where it did; as it is, it’s a perfect snapshot of a much bigger world, with much bigger potential. A truly wonderful story. Datlow has chosen a diverse selection of tales, from authors with varying styles and voices, and it’s one of the anthology’s strengths that no theme or setting repeats itself; fifteen unique and interesting takes on a very simple brief is no mean feat, and there are no truly weak stories to be found here – favourites and least favourites are likely to be chosen on the basis of personal taste rather than quality. “The Devil and the Deep” manages to be of broad appeal, while still clearly written with fans of horror and the weird in mind. 
E3 HORROR ASCENDANT?
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