"The Deep" is one of the most creative takes on the fantasy genre that I have ever encountered. The use of history to inspire a whole underwater society is absolutely spectacular.
Immediately the reader is immersed in a world long forgotten, but all too familiar. By chapter two, the reader has a good base understanding of the story. Unfortunately, the author falls into the trap of world-dumping by giving us all the details of the world and its history immediately. It can be a lot to process in less than 30 pages and is hard to keep up with.
The writing style is also a tad wordy and, at times, leads to confusion. "Amaba" seems to be equivalent to "Mom" where the capitalization is dependent on the context referring to the character and it isn't a specific name, but a general term to refer to someone. It threw me off guard seeing it in the uncapitalized form, but with a bit of inference power, I made it through.
Yetu is a fascinating protagonist and easily relatable to the reader. Everyone has, at some point in their life, been put in a position of power that their appointed did not fully evaluate them for. There is a strong character dynamic established between Yetu and Amaba and the reader feels as though they've known this character for much more than 12 pages by the end of chapter one.
Immediately the reader is immersed in a world long forgotten, but all too familiar. By chapter two, the reader has a good base understanding of the story. Unfortunately, the author falls into the trap of world-dumping by giving us all the details of the world and its history immediately. It can be a lot to process in less than 30 pages and is hard to keep up with.
The writing style is also a tad wordy and, at times, leads to confusion. "Amaba" seems to be equivalent to "Mom" where the capitalization is dependent on the context referring to the character and it isn't a specific name, but a general term to refer to someone. It threw me off guard seeing it in the uncapitalized form, but with a bit of inference power, I made it through.
Yetu is a fascinating protagonist and easily relatable to the reader. Everyone has, at some point in their life, been put in a position of power that their appointed did not fully evaluate them for. There is a strong character dynamic established between Yetu and Amaba and the reader feels as though they've known this character for much more than 12 pages by the end of chapter one.