Welcome to my Monday Minis reviews
For today I bring you
The Abyss Above Us
by Ryan Notch
A Science Fiction Horror Story
MY REVIEW
So here goes. I’m going to try to explain what this book did to me.
It kept me awake. It was late at night and I was falling asleep. Then that feeling of falling hit me and startled me awake. My first thought was about this book, what I thought was really happening. A dread for what was coming from far, far away. As I drifted towards sleep it happened again.
Not wanting to have it keep happening, I grabbed a cozy mystery by my bed and read from it for a while, finally falling asleep. The same thing happened the next night, so I put the book aside until the weekend so my work didn’t suffer from lack of sleep.
I finally finished the book. And I can’t tell you what it was that affected me so deeply. I’m not one to scare easily. And this book didn’t horrify me so much as fill me with dread, with a sense of impending doom.
Shaw is brought in to help some astronomers with a computer problem. They found a strange signal from an empty place in space but their computers can’t isolate it because they are all interconnected and way old.
Shaw tracks the connections to a blank wall. Considering that it doesn’t lead out the other side he correctly deduces there is a room walled over. A forgotten room with a computer in it, receiving the signal. If they can get in there, they can start to try to understand it.
Down comes the wall and out comes the nightmares.
It all starts gradually. people start acting strange. All of the people who listened to that signal. Soon they start to die, but not by murder. Oh no, it’s worse than that.
Shaw feels responsible. He should never have hit that reply button on that stupid computer. Just what response did he send to the unknown? What hell had he unleashed?
It was coming. It would be here soon. What would happen then?
You’ll get a couple of different POVs but the main one is Shaw. His thoughts and his terror. But several other characters have crucial roles, adding to the suspense and drama. So many are flawed, and one is just plain nuts.
And there’s some technical jargon. It is a computer problem and contact from outer space that starts this whole thing, after all. I got most of it and could guess at the rest. And the thought of our universe ever expanding leaves me bewildered and awe struck. There’s so much out there. There has to be other sentient beings right? Why do we think we’re the only ones? Who’s to say we aren’t being watched, haven’t already been contacted? Who’s’ to say they want to be friends? See why I couldn’t get to sleep. Paranoia!
What got this all the way to 5 stars was the ending. It killed me. It just left me hanging out there. No answers to my nagging questions, no resolution, and no idea what was coming next. I’m worried about that! I know it sounds weird. I should be mad, I should knock off a star in the rating because of it. But that ending fit the mood of the whole book. And thank you, the next book is available so, while dreading it, I’m also looking forward to what comes next in the finale. I’m going to get my answers.
5 Stars
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Synopsis
There is a place in the sky where there are no stars, no matter how deeply the astronomers gaze into it. Atop a lonely mountain stands a mighty telescope that turns towards the coordinates of this abyss nightly, as if drawn to it. Receiving its commands from a computer that hasn’t existed for twenty years.
Introverted network engineer Shaw is brought in to find out why.
All too soon he finds that while the night sky may be dark, it is not silent. A signal is coming from those coordinates. Creating a sound liquid and hypnotic with layers of data that suggest anything but randomness. A siren’s song that leads to horrific suicides in everyone who listens to it.
By the time Shaw realizes this, it’s too late to stop the signal he sent back into the night. A signal obviously received, for the abyss has begun to move.
And it’s moving towards us.
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For more about Ryan Notch and his books click HERE