mikerickson reviewed The Cavern by Alister Hodge
Review of 'The Cavern' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
It was becoming tighter the further he went. Rock scraping painfully against his spine and ribs. His fingers slipped off the next grip. Sam drew his knee to the side, dug his toes in and kicked back. He moved ahead another five centimetres, then wedged. The rock carved a crimson rent in the skin of his chest despite the coveralls, a burning line that was soon followed by a warmth of blood. Sam took a breath and shoved forward again, uncaring of any damage he might cause himself.
Nothing. Not a centimetre. His heart surged, a racing drumbeat loud in his ears. He needed a deep breath, and yet could barely draw air into his chest in the narrow gap.
"I... I think I'm stuck."
Man, fuck caves. You're several hundred feet underground in a tiny space that could collapse on top of you at any moment with limited air …
It was becoming tighter the further he went. Rock scraping painfully against his spine and ribs. His fingers slipped off the next grip. Sam drew his knee to the side, dug his toes in and kicked back. He moved ahead another five centimetres, then wedged. The rock carved a crimson rent in the skin of his chest despite the coveralls, a burning line that was soon followed by a warmth of blood. Sam took a breath and shoved forward again, uncaring of any damage he might cause himself.
Nothing. Not a centimetre. His heart surged, a racing drumbeat loud in his ears. He needed a deep breath, and yet could barely draw air into his chest in the narrow gap.
"I... I think I'm stuck."
Man, fuck caves. You're several hundred feet underground in a tiny space that could collapse on top of you at any moment with limited air in pitch black darkness and completely at the mercy of your equipment. And then these lunatics end up going further into the cave and then begin diving with scuba tanks when they find an underground lake?! Insanity.
Honestly I feel like the scariest (and thus, most engaging) parts of this story had to deal with the environmental challenges more than the bits I think were meant to be scary. And I wish those aspects were given more time than the monster (the monster on the cover starts eviscerating people on page 7, that's hardly a spoiler). Like there was a scene involving a narrow underwater tunnel that the team had to take turns going through one at a time (again, in utter darkness, but now they can't even talk to each other) that had me white-knuckling the pages. But whenever the local-legend-that-turned-out-to-be-true showed up I just kind of rolled my eyes and asked, "okay, so who's dying in this scene?"
I think this book suffered from showing too much of its hand too quickly. Yes, we get the tone set in the first chapter so we know what to expect for the rest of the story, but any potential mysteries get overexplained rather quickly, and I think the POV shifts to the secondary antagonists were more detrimental than beneficial; felt like I was seeing too much behind the curtain. It wasn't a bad book and was actually the perfect length, but it did very much feel like a cheesy SYFY original movie.
