Tag: diving

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#BookReview: The Chamber by Will Dean

Esoteric Atmospheric Tale Not For The Faint Of Heart. Straight up, this is one of those truly esoteric books that, even with the glossary and map up front, isn’t going to work for everyone – despite not being fantasy *at all*, and in fact because it is perhaps *too* real.

This is the world of Saturation Diving, where divers work underwater under pressure for weeks on end, often repairing cabling or piping or other undersea infrastructure that makes above ground life possible/ globally connected for the rest of us. And here, Dean is as exacting in his depiction of the actual lives of these people as Andy Weir was in The Martian, with *even more* technical discussion since so much of this particular book is a group of these divers living and working together as they do in the real world – warts and all.

And yes, there are also larger forces at play – but we only see those from *inside* the Chamber, through the eyes of our sole narrator. (Ans some scream: “Yay! No multiple perspectives!” :D)

Overall one of the more interesting tales of 2024 just because of how true it is to its real-world subject material and how rare any open discussion of that particular role in modern society really is – but truly, be forewarned: It is extremely esoteric *due* to how rare that job is in the real world *and* the tale can be truly slow or even incomprehensible for some readers, if you simply can’t wrap your mind around what is happening in such a tiny and closed off space. For those that can though, this is truly a fascinating book on a few different levels.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Chamber by Will Dean was originally written on September 10, 2024.

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#BookReview: Chamber Divers by Rachel Lance

Reads Almost Like Fiction – And Should Give Soraya M. Lane Inspiration For A Future Novel. First, this is one of the better researched books I’ve come across in all of my Advance Review Copy reading efforts – over 1100 books since 2018 – at 45% documentation. Kudos to Lance for being so thorough there.

And she needs it – because this is one of the more fantastical nonfiction books you’re ever going to come across. A brother and sister experimenting on themselves – as their father, who also experimented on himself *even with chlorine gas*, had trained them to do – gathering a team of like minded scientists to push the limits of the human condition under extreme environments, later in a direct race to help save their country from annihilation.

Before Jacques Cousteau developed SCUBA, there were the scientists working to discover what, exactly, humans could survive under water. What, exactly, happened as the human body was compressed to ever higher pressures? What happened as that pressure was relaxed – either suddenly or gradually? How could we allow humans to survive at ever increasing pressures, and what, exactly, were the limits?

And then… Normandy.

It had already been tried once, and failed miserably – because the soldiers didn’t have the data these very scientists were racing to obtain. Could they get it in time for the next invasion attempt?

They could… and they would change the face of warfare (and, to be honest, some entertainment and other scientific pursuits) forever when they did.

This is their story, told for seemingly the very first time.

Very much recommended. And please tag Soraya Lane and beg her to bring this story to actual fiction.

This review of Chamber Divers by Rachel Lance was originally written on April 10, 2024.

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#BlogTour: Our Sister’s Grave by B.R. Spangler

For this blog tour, we’re looking at the latest pulse pounding thriller in BR Spangler’s Detective Casey White series that introduces a new idea into the series for the first time. For this blog tour, we’re looking at Our Sister’s Grave by B.R. Spangler.

Here’s what I had to say on the review sites (Hardcover.app, TheStoryGraph, BookHype, Goodreads):

Pulse Pounding Thriller In And Out Of The Water. This is one of those coastal murder tales where there is actually quite a bit happening both in and out of the water – and our team is right in the thick of all of it, after a diver dies underwater. With this tenth entry into the series – written loosely enough that if one doesn’t mind spoilers about the team’s relationships, nothing about (most) of the prior mysteries is spoiled here, meaning it is mostly ok for new fans to start here and work their way back, should they so choose – Spangler actually manages to incorporate a few things not seen in prior books in this series, including a few particular cultural touchstones that it is genuinely surprising that it took him this long to use, given the region he has chosen to set this particular series. And man, when he *does* incorporate them… he almost makes me want to drive up I-95 a few hrs and get to the Outer Banks this weekend myself. Even though I am in no way, shape, or form a diver of any sense involving diving underwater. 😀

Overall another solid entry in this series, one where yet again the stakes are raised in so very many ways. Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: Our Sister’s Grave by B.R. Spangler”