AmySea

I am having a hard time rating Deep Fathom. The story itself was exciting, action-packed, and fun, if rather over-the-top and full of deus ex machina devices. It sprawled from outer space to the very deepest parts of Earth's oceans, and it had juicy entanglements with ancient and vaguely mysterious places such as Nan Madol on the Micronesian island of Pohnpei, and the area dubbed the Dragon's Triangle (the Bermuda Triangle of the Pacific). Since I adore all of those "mysteries" TV shows that go on about things like the Dragon's Triangle, mysterious lost civilizations, and crystals that have mysterious powers, of course this was a crazy story that I could abandon myself to. It was right up my alley!

Unfortunately, I think the audio narration marred my enjoyment of this story. The narrator was ok for the most part, but he was not glorious at intoning the speech of the female characters. Dr. Karen Grace is supposed to be a really smart Ph.D., but her words coming out of the narrator's mouth made her come across like a young woman barely out of her teens, probably not even through her undergrad studies, let alone an accomplished Ph.D.! Because of the narrator (I think), this pairing of Jack and Karen just didn't work for me. The narrator did a good job of projecting the fact that Jack had some miles on him, but he made Karen sound like a woman-child! I could not figure out why in the world he'd ever choose Karen over Lisa, who *did* come off as Jack's equal and frankly, as more of a woman, capable of giving Jack all that he was needing. Furthermore, every time Jack was supposed to have derisively uttered David Spangler's name, so help me, the narrator's way of doing this sounded for all the world like Jerry Seinfeld spitting out the name, "Newman!" It's a small thing, but good grief, it was distracting! And speaking of Spangler, he was a cookie-cutter bad-guy to the extreme (not the narrator's fault).

I guess in the end I'd have to say that I didn't quite enjoy this book in audiobook format. I had more problems and quibbles with the story and the characters than I'd have liked to have had, but, that said, somehow this story did sweep me along! I did look forward to listening to it every day, I just often found myself wondering what the story could have been if it had been read by a different narrator.