From Below – Book Review

by | Aug 31, 2015 | Book Reviews, Reviews | 0 comments

from-belowFrom Below
Jeffrey Hale
Severed Press
January 30th, 2015
Reviewed by Stuart Conover

Just when you thought it was safe to get back into the water, Jeffrey Hale proves us wrong with From Below. This is the first tale set in his terror-filled underwater world and if you love aquatic horror you are going to want to pick up a copy today. I’ve been seeing a small influx of sea creature themed tales as of late and can’t stress enough that I love it! What is actually surprising is how few of these have a Lovecraftian influence though Hale proves that you don’t need Old Ones to make a watery grave into something terrifying.

In From Below we follow Professor Nicholas Voigt who has been tasked to find the SS Ourang Medan which is long missing and suspected to have been lost in the Strait of Malacca. He has been hired by Bryan Dunston who is a millionaire that Voigt believes has given him a task that could end in academic fame and financial freedom.

Which is great, until he finds out that Dunston is actually looking for the ship to find a weapon of mass destruction which may have been onboard. Is the weapon what ended the lives of the ship’s crew? Or is there something even more mysterious at work?

While the book doesn’t have a Lovecraftian feel, there is a sea monster as well as a Nazi cult and just general evil people involved. While the plot itself was solid and the action, when present, was fantastic I did feel that the pacing was off. The introduction ran a bit long with a main character who you will probably be annoyed with – though right around the half way point things picked up and really flew forward.

I do love how the book ended off and am looking forward to the sequel but with the pacing issues this is one you’ll have to wade through to get to the good parts.

Disclaimer: A review copy was provided by one of our sponsors.

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