The Descent (novel)

Last updated
The Descent
The Descent (novel).jpg
Author Jeff Long
Cover artist Rick Berry (paperback)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction
Publisher Crown Publishers (Random House) (hardback), Jove Books (paperback)
Publication date
July 1999 (hardback), November 2001 (paperback)
Media typePrint
Pages572
ISBN 978-0-609-60293-5
OCLC 40158953
813/.54 21
LC Class PS3562.O4943 D47 1999
Followed by Deeper  

The Descent is a 1999 science fiction/horror novel by American author Jeff Long. It describes the discovery and exploration of an extensive labyrinth of tunnels and passages stretching throughout the Earth's upper mantle, found to be inhabited by a malicious species of alternately-evolved troglofauna hominids.

Contents

Plot summary

A group of New Age trekkers in Tibet are trapped in a cave by a snowstorm and stumble across a mutilated, mummified corpse, covered with cryptic tattoos in both English and undecipherable symbols; the party interprets the former to mean that the body was that of a RAF pilot who had crashed on the other side of the Himalayas in the 1940s. How the pilot had made it across the mountains is a mystery, but a diagram among the tattoos suggests that the cave in which the party is trapped may be part of a larger network, one that might have an outlet elsewhere. As the blizzard shows no signs of letting up, the party pushes deeper into the network, discovering the remains of a slaughtered ancient army, displayed almost trophy-like, and a trail of gold coins. Becoming separated, the members are relentlessly killed by an unseen enemy, until only the mountain guides, Ike and Kora, remain.

Several years later, at a UN military base in Bosnia, multinational soldiers are guarding a forensic team excavating a huge mass grave, which satellite imagery shows being disturbed every night. The soldiers first assume that Serb soldiers are trying to destroy the evidence of their atrocities; a US Army Aviation officer named Elias Branch leads a reconnaissance-helicopter flight to gather evidence. After a crash, he finds his navigator brutally assaulted, is menaced by an unseen enemy, and is himself badly injured by his unit's supporting fire. Found scarred and half-mad, he raves about being attacked by "demons;" during his recuperation, he begins to exhibit dramatic physical changes, and begins taking an interest in local cave systems.

Near the edge of the Kalahari, a young nun, Ali van Schade, is about to leave a leper encampment at which she had been working. To her horror, she discovers that the lepers had saved her life by trading one of their own to be (in her place) mutilated and enslaved by an unknown presence, servants of a god they call "Older-Than-Old".

A few years later, Branch, monstrously deformed, is leading the world's armies in exploring a vast network of caves that he has been instrumental in discovering, underlying the whole of the Earth's surface. The "Descent" of the title refers not only to the literal act of descending but is also the term the narrative applies to large-scale military-led colonization of the planet's interior that begins at this point. Referred to as the "sub-planet", the labyrinth contains an entire separately-evolved ecosystem and offers rare fleeting glimpses of elusive albino humanoids. Scientists theorize these are troglofauna-like hominids descended from Homo erectus ; classified as Homo hadalis (as in Hades), they are commonly referred to as "hadals", or, pejoratively, "Haddie". While presently degenerate and brutal, the archaeological evidence suggests the "hadals" had once possessed a high level of civilization, having reached the Iron Age as far back as 20,000 years ago. The beings had apparently occasionally emerged throughout human history and had (rather viciously) mentored human civilization, thereby giving rise to the human concepts of Hell and demons.

After melting invisibly away from human encroachment for several months, the hadals spring a trap: a massive, coordinated worldwide ambush of the armies exploring and occupying the sub-planet. The attack is successful; world casualties number a quarter-million. Though an enormous initial shock, the dismay wears off quickly and humanity is essentially undeterred; the Descent recommences, in even greater force. Cities are built in the upper crust, three miles deep, while social instability grows and interest in space exploration diminishes.

Meanwhile, a mysterious Jesuit priest, Father Thomas, is assembling the Beowulf Circle, an informal group of scholars dedicated to the study of the sub-planet, with the eventual aim of discovering whether "Satan" (by which they do not necessarily mean a literal person, but some kind of long-term unified authority directing the activities of the hadal race) might actually exist. A member of the Circle persuades Ali to join the group; she is attached to an expedition funded by the Helios corporation, an unprecedentedly deep trek through a newly discovered fissure that traverses the floor of the entire Pacific Ocean basin.

During their increasingly bloody journey through the cave system, the expedition scientists are guarded by untrustworthy Helios mercenaries and guided by Ike, the Himalayan tour guide from the first chapter, who had spent a decade as a slave of the hadals before being recovered by Branch's soldiers. On the way, the expedition uncovers the decaying evidence of a once-great hadal civilization, which may correspond to lost civilizations from human folklore, such as Atlantis or Mu.

Meanwhile, on the surface, a plot emerges within Helios to sterilize the sub-planet with a potent bioweapon and thereby open it to human settlement and exploitation. At the same time, the Jesuit's scholarly organization discovers that the hadals may have a mysterious method of transferring human consciousness from body to body, allowing for effective immortality; after the members of the Beowulf Circle begin to be brutally murdered one by one, the two storylines gradually converge.

Reception

In its review, A Darker Vision praised the verisimilitude of the book's spelunking scenes, with vivid descriptions of underground topography. [1]

Infinity Plus noted the novel to be a relatively rare contemporary entry in the once-common Hollow Earth subgenre, popularized by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne, with the very concrete hellish environment evoking Dante's Inferno , while the hadals could also be read as a homage to the Morlocks of H. G. Wells. [2]

The novel was also reviewed in the Denver Post , Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel , The Rocky Mountain News , Fort Worth Star-Telegram , Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel , Baltimore Sun , Kirkus Reviews [3] , Publishers Weekly [4] , Library Journal , and Booklist .

Notes

The novel was followed by a 2007 sequel, Deeper .

The 2005 film of the same name contains similar plot elements (a subterranean expedition trapped underground with carnivorous troglofaunal hominid creatures) but was not based on the book. [5]

One of the marketing devices for The Descent was a "postcard from hell". [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hollow Earth</span> Idea that the Earth is partially or completely hollow

The Hollow Earth is a concept proposing that the planet Earth is entirely hollow or contains a substantial interior space. Notably suggested by Edmond Halley in the late 17th century, the notion was disproven, first tentatively by Pierre Bouguer in 1740, then definitively by Charles Hutton in his Schiehallion experiment around 1774.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carleton S. Coon</span> American anthropologist (1904–1981)

Carleton Stevens Coon was an American anthropologist. A professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, lecturer and professor at Harvard University, he was president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Coon's theories on race were widely disputed in his lifetime and are considered pseudoscientific in modern anthropology.

<i>The Legacy of Heorot</i> 1987 novel by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes

The Legacy of Heorot is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes, first published in 1987. Reproduction and fertility expert Dr Jack Cohen acted as a consultant on the book, designing the novel life cycle of the alien antagonists, the grendels.

<i>Evolution</i> (Baxter novel) 2002 anthology by Stephen Baxter

Evolution is a collection of short stories that work together to form an episodic science fiction novel by author Stephen Baxter. It follows 565 million years of human evolution, from shrewlike mammals 65 million years in the past to the ultimate fate of humanity and its descendants, both biological and non-biological, 500 million years in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cradle of Humankind</span> Paleoanthropological site near Johannesburg, South Africa

The Cradle of Humankind is a paleoanthropological site and is located about 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, in the Gauteng province. Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999, the site is home to the largest concentration of human ancestral remains anywhere in the world. The site currently occupies 47,000 hectares (180 sq mi) and contains a complex system of limestone caves. The registered name of the site in the list of World Heritage Sites is Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa.

Louis Gridley Wu, a fictional character, is the protagonist in the Ringworld series of books, written by Larry Niven.

<i>Minotaur</i> (film) 2006 British film

Minotaur is a 2006 horror film, directed by Jonathan English. It stars Tom Hardy, Tony Todd, Ingrid Pitt and Rutger Hauer. It was filmed in Luxembourg, and is a loose retelling of the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

<i>The Descent</i> 2005 film directed by Neil Marshall

The Descent is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film follows six women who enter a cave system and struggle to survive against the humanoid creatures inside.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subterranean fiction</span> Subgenre of adventure fiction

Subterranean fiction is a subgenre of adventure fiction, science fiction, or fantasy which focuses on fictional underground settings, sometimes at the center of the Earth or otherwise deep below the surface. The genre is based on, and has in turn influenced, the Hollow Earth theory. The earliest works in the genre were Enlightenment-era philosophical or allegorical works, in which the underground setting was often largely incidental. In the late 19th century, however, more pseudoscientific or proto-science-fictional motifs gained prevalence. Common themes have included a depiction of the underground world as more primitive than the surface, either culturally, technologically or biologically, or in some combination thereof. The former cases usually see the setting used as a venue for sword-and-sorcery fiction, while the latter often features cryptids or creatures extinct on the surface, such as dinosaurs or archaic humans. A less frequent theme has the underground world much more technologically advanced than the surface one, typically either as the refugium of a lost civilization, or as a secret base for space aliens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Rollins</span> American veterinarian and novelist (born 1961)

James Paul Czajkowski, better known by his pen name of James Rollins, is an American veterinarian and writer of action-adventure/thriller, mystery, and techno-thriller novels who gave up his veterinary practice in Sacramento, California to be a full-time author. Rollins' experiences and expertise as an amateur spelunker and a certified scuba diver have provided content for some of his novels, which are often set in underground or underwater locations. Under the pen name James Clemens, he has also published fantasy novels, such as Wit'ch Fire, Wit'ch Storm, Wit'ch War, Wit'ch Gate, Wit'ch Star, Shadowfall (2005), and Hinterland (2006).

<i>Giants</i> (series) Group of five science fiction novels by James P. Hogan

The Giants series is a group of five science fiction novels by James P. Hogan, beginning with his first novel Inherit the Stars (1977). The series tells the discovery humans did not originate on Earth, but from an ancient civilization that developed elsewhere in the solar system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Berger (paleoanthropologist)</span> Paleoanthropologist, physical anthropologist, archaeologist

Lee Rogers Berger is an American-born South African paleoanthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. He is best known for his discovery of the Australopithecus sediba type site, Malapa; his leadership of Rising Star Expedition in the excavation of Homo naledi at Rising Star Cave; and the Taung Bird of Prey Hypothesis.

The control of fire by early humans was a critical technology enabling the evolution of humans. Fire provided a source of warmth and lighting, protection from predators, a way to create more advanced hunting tools, and a method for cooking food. These cultural advances allowed human geographic dispersal, cultural innovations, and changes to diet and behavior. Additionally, creating fire allowed human activity to continue into the dark and colder hours of the evening.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient astronauts in popular culture</span>

Ancient astronauts have been addressed frequently in science fiction and horror fiction. Occurrences in the genres include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malapa Fossil Site, Cradle of Humankind</span> Cave

Malapa is a fossil-bearing cave located about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) northeast of the well known South African hominid-bearing sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans and about 45 kilometres (28 mi) north-northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is situated within the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skhul and Qafzeh hominins</span> Hominin fossils

The Skhul and Qafzeh hominins or Qafzeh–Skhul early modern humans are hominin fossils discovered in Es-Skhul and Qafzeh caves in Israel. They are today classified as Homo sapiens, among the earliest of their species in Eurasia. Skhul Cave is on the slopes of Mount Carmel; Qafzeh Cave is a rockshelter near Nazareth in Lower Galilee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh</span> Archaeological site in Israel

Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh is a prehistoric archaeological site in Upper Galilee, Israel. It is situated 800 m (2,600 ft) from the Nahal Amud outlet, approximately 30 m (98 ft) above the wadi bed. It was found to house a fossil today known as the "Galilee skull" or "The Yabrudian Man".

The Rising Star cave system is located in the Malmani dolomites, in Bloubank River valley, about 800 meters southwest of Swartkrans, part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa. Recreational caving has occurred there since the 1960s. Fossils found in the cave were, in 2015, proposed to represent a previously unknown extinct species of hominin named Homo naledi.

Jerimalai is a limestone cave southeast of Tutuala, on the eastern tip of East Timor. Fish remains and fish hooks excavated in Jerimalai provide evidence for advanced fishing technique by inhabitants of Timor 42,000 years ago.

References

  1. "A Darker Vision review".
  2. "The Descent - an infinity plus review". www.infinityplus.co.uk.
  3. Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 1984, review of The Descent, pp. 824-825
  4. "Publishers Weekly".
  5. No available online source mentions any such connection; some reviews express surprise at the identical titles and thematic similarity.
  6. "Image, from Jeff Long Books".