Review: 100 Fathoms Below

100 Fathoms Below by Steven L. Kent
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a 3.5-star review which is a fair representation of my experience.

The book is a straightforward vampire tale. One of the crew is bitten just before his submarine deploys from Pearl Harbor for a mission. As with the old shampoo commercial, he bites a friend, who then bites a friend, and so on, and so on.

The tale centers around how the unbitten crew reacts to the sudden presence of horror that is slowly consuming their ship. The crew are highly trained submariners. Their initial responses of treating the problem as a common virus/disease are predictable.

The characters are reasonably fleshed out with unique motivations and perspectives. The authors wisely placed this in 1980 due to the use of racism as a very minor plot element. Racism in the military was not unknown in 1980. Opposition to racism was more prevalent in 1980. The presence of racism as a plot element manages to accurately walk that line.

There are a few plot-related issues that keep this from being a solid hit.

- The crew's responses to the unfolding problems are predictable throughout the book.

- Chekov's Gun makes several appearances. As one example, the book talks about the crew and mechanical spaces but clearly doesn't mention the nuclear-powered engine room. It's not a big surprise when we find survivors here. Nor is it a big reveal as to why the vampires haven't taken over this space. There are many other occasions where something with an obvious implication of utility or danger is mentioned in one chapter only to be revisited as a "reveal" a chapter or two later.

- Up until the last few pages, there is zero effort to explore the motivations of the "big bad". Vampirism is the result of some entity. It is implied that there is a single source of it. Late in the book, it is implied that there is an intelligence for its motivations beyond the need to feed, but no effort is made to explore that intelligence.

- Spoiler - In the closing chapters, the captain intends to dump all of the dead bodies overboard and then return to Pearl Harbor. There isn't any consideration for the impact on his career (and that of the remaining crew) from bringing a partially crewed ship back to base without also bringing the bodies. What explanation will he offer? What proof will he have? That his career (and his crew's careers) is over as a result of this incident is left unacknowledged.

- Second spoiler - The vampires die when exposed to low levels of radiation. The crew has access to waste coolant water that is not radioactive enough to do them serious harm, but radioactive enough that contact with a vampire has instantly corrosive effects on the vampire. They have one...one!!...bucket available to slosh the radioactive water around the ship. No effort is made to locate spray bottles or other containers. Using radiation to kill vampires is kind of a neat twist. The execution was lacking. 

If you like vampires and you like books with a military setting, then this is a great book for you. It is a straightforward and entertaining read. You'll just need to enjoy it for what it is; straightforward and fun without any serious depth.

I think this could be an excellent movie!



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