Darker Tide

by Mark Lawrence

This book is available on Wattpad only.

It's free!

https://www.wattpad.com/739601308-dar...

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction

Unknown Binding

About the author

My books vary a LOT - so here's a handy guide.

[My new book The Book That Broke The World is out now!]

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Mark Lawrence is married with four children, one of whom is severely disabled. Before becoming a fulltime writer in 2015 day job was as a research scientist focused on various rather intractable problems in the field of artificial intelligence. He has held secret level clearance with both US and UK governments. At one point he was qualified to say 'this isn't rocket science ... oh wait, it actually is'.

Mark used to have a list of hobbies back when he did science by day. Now his time is really just divided between writing and caring for his disabled daughter. There are occasional forays into computer games too.

Reviews

[Mark Lawrence]

Currently free!

A book with an 80s, Stranger Things vibe.

https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/18947...

Related to the short story Dark Tide.

Also available in ebook format to tier 3+ patrons on my Patreon:
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[John Mauro · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was about 12 years old, there was this great TV show called "Eerie, Indiana" about a bunch of kids in the late 1980s who ride around on their bicycles and investigate paranormal activity in the small midwestern town of Eerie, Indiana. It was campy fun, with just the right level of Stephen King-style horror, but for an adolescent audience. I looked forward to watching "Eerie, Indiana" every week, but unfortunately it only lasted one season. I remember being upset when the show was canceled—it was one of my favorites!

Darker Tide is the literary equivalant of "Eerie, Indiana." It's about a bunch of kids who ride around on their bicycles and try to solve the mystery of a strange dark fluid that is rising up from the ground and threatening to swallow up their town. Is it a toxic waste spill? Or is it something even more insidious?

The premise of Darker Tide is the same that Mark Lawrence explored previously in his excellent short story, "Dark Tide." However, he takes this premise in a completely different direction with the longer Darker Tide novel. Whereas "Dark Tide" was a pure horror story, Darker Tide is more of a blend of horror with 1980s adolescent nostalgia, similar to his Impossible Times trilogy (but replacing the sci-fi aspects of Impossible Times with horror/paranormal elements).

With Darker Tide, Mark Lawrence has captured that same campy paranormal vibe that I loved so much with "Eerie, Indiana." This book is a real treat. And it's free.

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.

this is the SIXTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your 2020 reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.

GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i've read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that's still a work-in-progress. however, because i don't have a lot of time to waste, i'm not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap 'em again.

i am doing my best.
merry merry.

DECEMBER 9: DARKER TIDE - MARK LAWRENCE

when i invited all of you (both of you?) to read this story with me today, i had no idea how long it was. pals, it is LONG. it's broken up into six parts, and estimated reading times are provided:

part 1 - 35 minutes
part 2 - 38 minutes
part 3 - 27 minutes
part 4 - 33 minutes
part 5 - 40 minutes
part 6 - 30 minutes

your reading speed may vary—mine did—but it was still way more time than i had anticipated spending on fulfilling today's short story challenge.

silver-lining-however, reading a long'un helped me feel like less of a cheaty-reader for having read those veryshort stories earlier in this project even though i know the only one judging me for that is me.

if you have the time, it's worth reading this one. although it features the same encroaching-darkness phenomenon as Dark Tide, it's more of a companion story than a sequel, so you can read this one independently without any confusion. there are some repeated elements between the two stories: a "ship" called Pandora (FUN FACT: Dark Tide has TWO...modes of transport named Pandora), the mantra "Hope floats," the image of a burned-out car with a gutted teddy bear, and the eventual mode of escape, but in this one, there's just more: more backstory, more character work, more conflicts, more time spent observing/evading the darkness and the additional threats it generates, more time strategizing an escape plan, more speculation around the cause of the event, more detail about what happens to people (and animals) the darkness has touched, more magic, and more mentions of a-ha.



it's set in 1985, and it has very strong stephen king/stranger things vibes—part coming-of-age story, part RUN FROM THE HORRORS story.

Elias didn’t understand how friendship worked. He didn’t understand the forces that would push him out of the car into the claws of monsters rather than let down a boy who almost broke his nose last fall over an argument about a skateboard. Intellectually he knew that whatever random collection of boys had been in his class at school he would have found friends. Robbie was just a roll of the dice. But he was Elias’s roll. This was his life. What had been given to him and what he had taken, and if he were willing to toss it aside because of fear, then what was any of it worth? If their friendship wasn’t special than neither was the life he was trying to protect.

(there are a lot of typos throughout this story and i have chosen to copyedit that passage instead of [sic.]-ing it—please don't sue me for tampering!)

anyway, not content with deleting my previous years' advent calendar stories, gr had "a problem saving [my] review," so i've had to rewrite all of this (certain that my original words were funnier and wiser all around), and i have reached the limit of how much time i am willing to spend on this silly little post and am feeling very scroogegrinch right now.

good day and bah humbug.

read it for free here

THE STORIES:

DECEMBER 1: NIGHT STAND - DANIEL WOODRELL
DECEMBER 2: MR. DEATH - ALIX HARROW
DECEMBER 3: THE FRUIT OF MY WOMAN - HAN KANG
DECEMBER 4: THE TINDER BOX - KATE ELLIOTT
DECEMBER 5: BABYCAKES - NEIL GAIMAN
DECEMBER 6: HIS MIDDLE NAME WAS NOT JESUS - NOVIOLET BULAWYO
DECEMBER 7: SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE - LILLI CARRÉ
DECEMBER 8: DARK TIDE - MARK LAWRENCE
DECEMBER 10: BREAK - MISHELL BAKER
DECEMBER 11: A RUMOR OF ANGELS - DALE BAILEY
DECEMBER 12: THE ENGLISHMAN - DOUGLAS STUART
DECEMBER 13: IT CAME FROM CRUDEN FARM - MAX BARRY
DECEMBER 14: NO MOON AND FLAT CALM - ELIZABETH BEAR
DECEMBER 15: A STUDY IN SHADOWS - BENJAMIN PERCY
DECEMBER 16: ART APPRECIATION - FIONA MCFARLANE
DECEMBER 17: THE SOUND OF FOOTSTEPS - SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA
DECEMBER 18: WE HAVEN'T GOT THERE YET - HARRY TURTLEDOVE
DECEMBER 19: THE DUNE - STEPHEN KING
DECEMBER 20: THE WORTHINGTON - EMILY CARROLL
DECEMBER 21: SUNBLEACHED - NATHAN BALLINGRUD
DECEMBER 22: BLOOD DAUGHTER - MATTHEW LYONS
DECEMBER 23: THE LINE - AMOR TOWLES
DECEMBER 24: PIGEONS - NIBEDITA SEN
DECEMBER 25: WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED, WHAT WE WILL FORGET, WHAT WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO FORGET - EUGENE LIM
DECEMBER 26: ONE/ZERO - KATHLEEN ANN GOONAN
DECEMBER 27: MATINEE - ROBERT COOVER
DECEMBER 28: ACCESS - ANDY WEIR
DECEMBER 29: UNNECESSARY THINGS - TATYANA TOLSTAYA
DECEMBER 30: HOOK - DANIELLE MCLAUGHLIN
DECEMBER 31: HE'S VERY WELL READ - CATHERINE LACEY

previous years' advent calendars (what's left of 'em):

2016
2017
2018
2019
2020

come to my blog!

[Christoffer Ladstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice discovery while staying indoor due to sickness. Now I feel even better living at the top floor of my 5 stories building, giving me more time to finish my raft! Next book on the shelf: "One Word Kill"🤩

[Sherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

More novella than short story with definite Stranger Things vibes which is right up my alley. Kids thrown into an impossible situation with almost, but not really, supernatural aspects because, hey, there’s some questionable science thrown in to give sort of an explanation to the horrific situation they find themselves in. There’s solid character and relationship development and enough tension that it kept me hooked throughout the day reading.

[Saeed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suspensful and cinematic. Keeps you on the edge of your seat (if you sat down while reading).

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a certain family resemblance to Stephen King--I couldn't help thinking of The Body, Cell and The Mist--but this was nonetheless scary, suspenseful and interesting.

Mr. Lawrence takes some time to provide a scientific explanation of sorts for the dark tide, and even though said explanation might or might not hold up under scrutiny, at least it makes sense in the context of the story. He is not afraid to introduce morally ambiguous characters, kill off a few good guys or have them change sides. The worst villains of this piece--other than the tide itself, if it can be described as such--are not the "tainted" people or the"crazies" as one might expect, but a very human couple.

[Joost · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always Mark’s books are filled with great adventures and endless possibilities. It’s fantastic to read such diverse stories in a style that never lacks pace and creates worlds that leave enough to the imagination. 5 stars, would read again!

[Liv · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually read this one out loud, which was quite fun. I got Ray Bradbury vibes from this short read, and my partner felt it was very Stephen King/Stranger Things. It does somewhat inconsistently switch between British English and American English, which I found slightly distracting. Other than that, I really enjoyed the imagery Lawrence uses and the characters. At several points, the scene is captured incredibly beautifully - like the fireflies stitching the night together - which I just loved.

[Doug Thomson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great wee story, reminiscent of Stranger Things and Mark's Impossible Times trilogy,

[Storm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Free and only available on Wattpad. Robbie, Elias and James, three teenage boys, see suspicious activity while building a tree house. The friendship and ribbing is reminiscent of Stephen King's The Body, adapted into Stand By Me.

"I don't think I've ever been as ... a live ... as I at ten running around the stockyard or the woods with ... well you wouldn't know them, but those boys were like brothers to me. We thought all that would last forever. We thought there wasn't a thing in the world more important than what we were about right then. And it doesn't matter that we were wrong. It was good. It mattered. So don't you rush to grow up, son. These are the days to stroll through."

The problem is the same Dark Tide seen in Dark Tide is now everywhere on their island, and spreading, going higher every night. They rescue a girl, with super powers ... so now the reader is getting strong 80s Stranger Things vibes.


It was good, but if it didn't feel so derivative and similar to other stories of this type it would be an easy 5⭐

[Michael Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleased to be given the link to read this book for free. I have been a big fan of Mr Lawrence for some time and this was a real treat. Had all the cliches you would expect; girls with special powers, curious and cool science teacher, single detached fathers and a dark world you cannot see. Mark has used these and made something immediately relatable and special. It kept me gripped throughout. With a short story it is essential that it hooks you quickly, and this really did the job. Thanks and I look forward to reading more.

[Queenie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly great prologue to this short story by Mark Lawrence.

Three young boys looking for adventure get more than they bargained for while building a tree house in the woods. There’s a real depth to the boy’s characters and the bond they form with a young girl they meet along the way as they deal with loss, guilt and a fight for their very survival.

Loved it!

[Marko · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is no different than the other works I’ve read from Lawrence, which have been nothing shy of stellar.

"[...] hunger is older than sorrow or fear and must be fed."

[Maria Wheeler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great. Some lovely use of language amid the horror.
Personal preference for Dark Tide though…

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark and spooky and very Twilight Zone-ish.
An excellent FREE story by my favorite author.

[Planxti's Imaginary World · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh!