The Sunken City

by Tim Curran, Joe Morey (Editor)

At the bottom of a prehistoric lake in Antarctica there is a city old as time, a relic of an alien pre-human intelligence. Somewhere, deep in its ancient labyrinthine depths, there is an ever-increasing source of power of incalculable menace.
Now an elite team of Navy divers is going down to investigate it, and what they find is a nightmare beyond imagining.
The city is not dead.
As it wakes from its deathless slumber of countless millions of years, so does the race that built it, unleashing a deadly force that will harvest the human race like cattle.
Trapped beneath the ice, haunted by the city, its inhabitants, and the monsters spawned from their own fragile psyches, the divers have only one chance to destroy it before it rises to engulf the world of men.
The clock is ticking.
And the city’s black heart is beating.

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Fiction, Cthulhu Mythos

234 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 28, 2022

About the author

Tim Curran lives in Michigan and is the author of the novels Skin Medicine, Hive, Dead Sea, Resurrection, The Devil Next Door, and Biohazard, as well as the novella The Corpse King. His short stories have appeared in such magazines as City Slab, Flesh&Blood, Book of Dark Wisdom, and Inhuman, and anthologies such as Shivers IV, High Seas Cthulhu, and Vile Things.

For DarkFuse and its imprints, he has written the bestselling The Underdwelling, the Readers Choice-Nominated novella Fear Me, Puppet Graveyard as well as Long Black Coffin.

Find him on the web at: www.corpseking.com.

Reviews

[Brian G Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alright! What we have here is some serious atmospheric and creepy horror that gets under the skin at times, and lingers long after you read it. Several scenes stand out to me with vivid descriptions that twist the eyes. The Sunken City follows the sequel to HIVE 2 and is a great filler to the inevitable HIVE 3. Tim continues to prove his mastership with a vocabulary that is unopposed; and interactions between characters that you'd be hard pressed to find elsewhere. This is a short read that is packed with terrors and mind melting scenarios. Do yourself a favor and head over to Weird House Press and pick up a copy! 5/5!

[Chris Berko · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was rereading books because I was kinda in a reading funk but I remembered I had a few Tim Curran novels sitting in my kindle and now the funk is over. Tim Curran is amazing and this book is no exception. Tons of fun and suspense and scary stuff. Recommended big time.

[Kelly Furniss · Rating 4 out of 5]

A elite team of Navy divers are sent down to the bottom of a prehistoric lake in Antartica to investigate a old city.
What they find is a nightmare beyond imagination.
A deadly force of spawned alien monsters.
The divers have no choice than to try destroy them before they take over!.
I really like the premise of the story and the creepy descriptions of the old underwater labyrinth City. The monster/ aliens added a pure horror element to the story but the battle Itself stretched out a bit too much to fully hold my attention.
Water and what lies beneath will always be one of the most popular fears of humans & Curran touches on that and makes you feel even more uncomfortable than you ever thought possible!.

[Marina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meine Meinung folgt bald in einem Lese-Vlog🧟‍♂️

[EPendleton · Rating 1 out of 5]

**Warning - I did not finish this book, I simply couldn’t do it. I probably would have had better luck wading through a pool of molasses then getting through this without wanting to bang my face on a wall.

I understand the need for a suspenseful build up. Heck, I enjoy that kind of thing. Many authors know how to craftily and articulately do this without repeating the same thing over and over and over. I get it, something bad is in the city, something “primordial” (over used word in the book), something we just know innately from birth is bad (reiterated over and over), and it shouldn’t be there (clearly this book shouldn’t be in existence either).

I’m not one to leave a scathing review of a book unless it is warranted, but this thing…. It’s like taking the same ten pages of “feelings” and having each character feel them over and over because there’s no substance to give the book. I’m not sure which I would enjoy more: reading this book or pulling my own teeth out.

[Moritz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5/5

I kinda wish that this had scared me more. I didn't experience the claustrophobic eeriness that I was expecting from an underwater horror setting and not much further eeriness either. The ending I really loved though, it was just the lovecraftian horror I was looking for.

[Myles · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think I've ever wanted to like an author more than I've wanted to like Tim Curran. This is my 3rd book by him after Dead Sea and Dead Sea chronicles. I love his settings and the claustrophobic atmosphere he can create, but his characters have always been just awful. At The Mountains of Madness is my favorite story ever written so I figured Sunken City will finally make me a Curran fan for life.

So what went wrong? Again, I just didn't like the characters. I know Lovecraft basically only had characters so the plot had someone to happen to, but at least you dont actively dislike them. If you combine Mountains of Madness with parts of other stories like Shadow Over Innsmouth and Dagon, unless you actually add something to make it your own and add to the mythos, then it's just derivative and you're using other people's ideas. Like putting lunchmeat on bread and then saying you cooked a sandwich. Finally, throwing a bunch of Lovecraft buzzwords in at the last 20 pages doesn't make something a Lovecraftian horror book, I really wish I liked this more.

[Naddlino · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wahnsinnig tolle Idee und super spannender Beginn.
Leider blieb beides irgendwo im ersten Drittel liegen. Das Buch hat zwar nur etwa 230 Seiten, aber es war tatsächlich zäh - eine kleine Meisterleistung. Schade ist es auch um den erhofften Horror-Faktor: Die Figuren hatten fast einen Herzinfarkt, weil sie sich so gruselten und ich wäre derweil fast eingeschlafen und hab die Welt nicht mehr verstanden. Das hat für mich leider nicht funktioniert, denn Story und Figuren entwickeln und agieren echt verdammt seltsam. Ich weiß gar nicht, was ich sagen soll, hier war so viel drin, was da echt keinen Platz und Effekt und Verstand hatte... Leider gehören dazu auch eine Menge Rechtschreibfehler.
Am Ende kann man es am besten so zusammenfassen: Hä..? Nee.

[Terry and dog · Rating 4 out of 5]

True cosmic horror. This book has so much packed in it, an incredible setting, good characters and monsters. The atmosphere and creepiness is amazing. The creatures so lucid, horrific and vast.
My only issue was that so much of the beginning, while enthralling, goes on a bit longer than I would have liked. A lot of the turmoil, horror and dialog was in the heads of characters and I was anxious to get to see the real creatures. Other people may be more patient than me, but it was a great book.

[Sahelanth · Rating 2 out of 5]

”The Sunken City” is a mashup of “Sphere” and “Mountains of Madness”. It’s not Tim Curran’s best.

His horror prose is excellent as always, but becomes unsatisfying. He keeps revealing scenes were hallucinations to avoid writing himself into a dead end.

The research is thin and the plot is slapdash.

If the back of the book grabs you, I’d recommend “Dead Sea” or “Grimweave” instead.

[Kaisersoze · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Sunken City is both the best and worst of Tim Curran.

There are few other horror authors who can describe a scene as well as Curran. He has the uncanny ability to put you right in the middle of the horrifying events he is describing, almost to the point where you can smell the stale sweat of his characters and feel the glistening tentacle that worms its way up an unfortunate's leg.

The problem is that he ends up describing that same thing in vivid detail five different times, as varying characters are exposed to that thing (or some approximation of it). This tendency simultaneously kills any pacing he has established, while also making for chapters which are basically boring to read.

This is the reason why I've tended to prefer his novellas in the past. And though this novel is on the shorter side (some 235 pages), it ends up feeling longer because of these repetitive scenes.

Still, Curran is a wordsmith and there is the occasional scene in which I did feel a sense of dread or a tingle on the back of my neck. So if he keeps publishing them, I'll keep reading them.

3 Nightmare Mothers for The Sunken City.

[Nick D · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book but just couldn't. It never clicked for me which is kind of strange. On paper, this book is checking a lot of my boxes. Spooky city buried beneath the ice and water of a frozen Antarctic lake that predates humanity. Cool. It's populated by the Old Ones and other horrors beyond comprehension. Neato. The city is being scouted by a secret team of Navy divers for the Pentagon. Awesome. So with all of these yummy ingredients in the pot you'd think I'd love the final product, a delicious modern strange-fiction stew (obviously it would have to be a seafood concoction with how much the genre seems fixated upon tentacles), but I didn't. Why is that?

It all comes down to the execution. Curran just doesn't deliver (in this guy's opinion). The characters are not the most developed or interesting (with the exception of Javonivic. All the men on the diving team and Orr feel the same and talk/think the same). The dialogue is also not great, which isn't doing these characters any favors. Worse still, the story feels repetitive at times as we are constantly told how the city is fear inducing and inherently maddening to an individuals psyche whenever any diver so much as looks in its general direction. And this happens again and again and again.

Now I know that part of that repetition is a problem with the genre as a whole. Curran isn't able to easily describe how and why the indescribable horror is happening because it's indescribable. This was a weakness of Lovecraft's too, by explaining and describing the monster or whatever in greater detail, you risk making it mundane. It's better in many cases to leave it ambiguous and let the reader fill in the gaps with their own imagination (I also believe Lovecraft used this as a crutch because he wasn't a very gifted writer when it comes to this arena, if you can't describe whatever well just call it an "indescribable horror" and call it a day). As Curran is retracing Lovecraft's footsteps and is set on this ancient city being inherently fear-inducing, fear of the place is literally written into our genes, we are constantly reminded again and again of how scary the place is. Curran does a good job at describing things the city can do elsewhere in the book, he doesn't need to repeatedly hit me over the head with a baseball bat to remind me, the reader, that I should be afraid. Show me why it's scary don't just tell me it's scary.

The book also is a little too willing to stay in Lovecraft's shadow. The Elder Things in this book are the same guys from At the Mountains of Madness. The book takes place in a continuation of the Cthulhu Mythos, with Curran's book taking place in the modern Era. Cthulhu, the King in Yellow, Dagon, the Deep Ones, Yog-Sothoth... all are mentioned and name-dropped to some degree despite most having little to no relevance on this particular story. Personally I feel that Curran might've had space to be more creative if he hadn't made this book so connected and dependent on Lovecraft's (and other authors, I know he didn't create the King in Yellow) previous work. Strange fiction produced by authors like John Langan or Laird Barron is influenced and inspired by the works of their predecessors without chaining themselves to every aspect of their work.

I wouldn't recommend this book unless the pitch, Pentagon Black Ops teams exploring the setting of At the Mountains of Madness, really excites you.

[Jordan Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The insignificant human race meets the eldritch gods in this novel of pure cosmic terror.

Having already penned 2 Lovecraft inspired horror novels, Curran delivers once again with The Sunken City a spin-off, sort of sequel to The Hive and The Spawning

In typical Curran fashion, The Sunken City is page after page of true atmospheric horror. From the claustrophobic depths of an Antarctic lake to the all consuming dread and despair of the ancient old ones, Curran proves once again that he is the true master of cosmic horror and an heir apparent to Lovecraft himself. There’s nothing fun, nothing happy about this one. Instead it’s bleak, dark, and incredibly tense from the opening page to the final sentence. Humanity is nothing compared to the vastness of the shoggoths and the ancient ones.

The descriptions of the said ancient ones, the eeriness of the sunken city, and the characters’ decent into absolute madness are, as always, top notch, as Curran weaves this story from one spooky moment to the next.

Things to drag a bit here and there so this might not be Curran’s magnum opus, however, The Sunken City is a novel that manages to be creepy as hell and fill your soul with the feeling of inconsequential existence.

[Darth Dragonetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Up next from Darth's Colossal Stack of Stuff is "The Sunken City," a 2022 novel by Tim Curran, horror writer extraordinaire. "The Sunken City" is a follow-up to "The Hive" and "The Spawning" (a.k.a. "Hive 2: The Spawning"). This fact is not advertised in the book's synopsis, making me wonder if the author intended this book to be a standalone story or part of a larger series. In any case, the book works by itself. The two Spawning books are difficult to find, and as far as I know, are only available in print for an exorbitant price.

Taking some cues from Michael Crichton's "Sphere" and Paul Anderson's "Event Horizon," "The Sunken City" is a paean to your favorite creepy, supernatural science fiction tales. Does Curran's take on the genre measure up to these other stories? Frankly, no - though I still enjoyed the ride.

My first quibble with "The Sunken City" is just how truncated the beginning of the story is. While you can follow the narrative's setup, you'll feel as if you're not privy to all the juicy details. Just what happened at Kharkov Station? Why didn't the author make more of this? My understanding is that these things were covered in one of the earlier novels, but I didn't read them. With the accelerated beginning of the book, the tension does not have adequate time to marinate. Instead, we get the author telling us that the sunken city is menacing and that we need to be very afraid; and then we're already off to the races.

Once you get settled into the book's rhythm, it's an enjoyable journey. "Sunken City" is very much a psychological horror piece, with a decidedly Lovecraftian bent. Author Curran evokes mood better than any other in the biz, and he brings his "A" game with "Sunken City." The prose is absolutely dripping with the hardboiled, foreboding patois of which Curran is the master. How he cultivates such menace through written word is beyond me, and I marvel at his talent.

The science angle is much less developed than in "Sphere." I found myself wanting to be more immersed in the trappings of the science habitat, but Curran's focus is more on the psychological and horror angles, and I can't really fault him for that. Despite its quick setup, the book is paced somewhat slowly, with a narrative that doesn't feel terribly tight. Things do accelerate during the last quarter or so of the book, with a positively manic ending sequence. I was a little afraid that the ending would leave me wanting for more, but Curran crafts an acceptable - if abrupt - ending.

The characters in "The Sunken City" are merely serviceable. The cast is small and exists as more of a tool to interact with the Old Ones than anything else. Some of the character's backstories are interesting, and the ways in which their pasts are used to torment them are compelling. However, the characterization doesn't have the sheen that I've seen in most other Curran novels.

'Nuff said. I enjoyed the novel, though it wasn't my favorite. At the end of the day, I was entertained, and that's really what matters. And I'll most definitely be back for more of Curran's work. I suspect you will be, too.

[Mike Mclatchey · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's difficult to tell if The Sunken City was meant to be the long awaited third book in the Hive series or if it was meant to be something of a side step to that end. I've read the first two Hive books, a novella called "Blackout" and one short story by Tim Curran, and the novella seemed best fit to suit Curran's skills and shortcomings as a writer.

First of all, it's fairly well known that the Hive series is something of a sequel to the great novella "At the Mountains of Madness" by H.P. Lovecraft but the Hive series is not what I'd call Lovecraftian for the most part. That's actually OK by me, I tend to enjoy most riffs on a lot of Cthulhu Mythos tropes, but I would argue a lot of Curran's take is fairly divergent on the Elder Ones in Lovecraft's novella. At best Lovecraft may have hinted at this take rather than been more explicit about it.

Essentially, the whole Hive series is really what happens when various parties in the Anatarctica get a little too close to Elder Ones technology. From my perspective the genius of Lovecraft is that this race was so far beyond human concerns that it was more like explorers were sort of caught in the detritus of what was leftover, while Curran seems to see them more as actively malicious to explorers, with each book in the Hive series becoming more and more predictable as to the fate of its characters. The Sunken City is basically the most obviously military of the trio, but I felt from almost the first words and introduction of the characters what was likely to happen to them and I was not wrong. While this is thankfully a much shorter book than the two Hive novels, it still seems a lot of the first half could have been substantially trimmed so that we could experience less of the repetitive internal chatter of the protagonists and more of what actively happens.

Curran's strengths here were largely isolated to the visuals as the protagonists begin to explore the city in the title, with some creative and cool ways of showing how undersea life had been hijacked by the power behind the city. But I felt that over and over I was told just how frightened everyone was rather than it happening a bit more organically, which was really the (much more) major fault with the first two books. Don't get me wrong, in the end if you love Lovecraft the series is an interesting diversion, it's just that you continually wonder what could have happened with some skillful editing and feedback. The chatter often slowed me down rather than being more flowing and impelling to the plot. And you're left with the real question in the end, which is if the Elder Ones technology was so godlike, why was active interference even warranted when it couldn't prevent the one event in the book where it mattered?

[Logan Kedzie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's Aliens meets The Mountains of Madness, but underwater.

The quip at first was going to be "and it needs more Aliens and less The Mountains of Madness, because I found myself not attached to the characters and so unmoved as they met their ends. But then I realized it wasn't them meeting their ends, because what might be The Bad Event for a character in a different horror book is only a warmup here. And therein is the problem.

Curran is pointedly skilled at disturbing fiction, like the sort of thing that you drop when reading because you're worried about the words themselves crawling off the page and masticating your skin. But as much as I feel that I prefer character-led versus plot-led storytelling, the paucity of narrative here is too much. If you start the weird gore at an eight and have a bare bones plot, there's nowhere to go.

It's frustrating, because the author's talent for writing the grotesque is the same thing that holds him back. Because that's what Curran wants to do, and what he's good at, rather than break out ye olde three act structure and make a less chilling but more effective novel. Structurally, this might have worked better as a group of short stories, or a series of vignettes, where he could just do character internal trauma working its way out, and have that be part of a tight set, rather than rotating around with so little happening otherwise.

There is a geeky sort of protest too in how this is a heavily codified version of the Mythos, as if Curran was writing for an RPG supplement - or more to the point that the characters had read one, which tended to run contrary to my suspension of disbelief.

Great if you want a hit of spooky imagery, but not much of a book to read.

[Walt · Rating 2 out of 5]

The plot of this book isnt super original. Its a cross between HP Lovecraft's story At the Mountains of Madneas and James Cameron's 1989 movie The Abyss. As a big fan of bith though, i thought it was worth a try. Curran does a decent job of invoke the style of HP Lovecraft. At times he tries almost too hard leading some of decriptions to be almost nonsensical instead of descriptive. Curran is able to recreate the psychological terror and existential dread that is a hallmark of lovecraftian literature. The problem was he cranks it up to 11 at the very beginning of the book and tries to maintain that same level of intensity for the next 200 pages, which just isn't possible. As a reader you get burned out on it. Had it started low and then slowly ratched up the psychological fear over the course of the book it would have been much better. The conclusion of the book was easy predictable. It leaves the reader dissatisfied due to its simplicity and finality without really concluding many of the characters story arcs.

[William (Mr. Bill) Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sunken City -- bring a friend

I enjoyed this creepy story. I confess, I do have a phobia about all things dealing with bodies of water. As you might imagine this had a serious impact on my commitment to learn SCUBA diving along with a group of work friends. Despite this fear, I successfully completed several diving courses including Rescue Diver. I can think of no more amazing experience than exploring the beautiful ocean environment via SCUBA diving .... as long as I can reach the surface safely. The events that lead to the exploration of The Sunken City is one adventure or experience I would never be apart of. Everything I could imagine occurs to these professionals in the course of their research. I doubt I would be able to read this story on any water craft, rowboat or cruise ship, but that's just me. No matter where you read this book, make sure you can reach land before it gets too deep.
== Mr. Bill

[Johann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrific...in a good way

Orr is the leader of a Naval Divers Unit that has been called to active duty for a mission of extreme importance. He has selected four of his best to go to Antarctica and find an electromagnetic anomaly. The problem is, the anomaly source seems to be coming from below a glacier and deep into waters that have barely been explored.
An entire city is down there, but this is a city that was never made with human hands.
And the makers of this city may still be down there.
Will they find the anomaly? And if they do will they survive to tell about it?

This was creepy. I felt dread the entire time I was reading this and for good reason.
If you love LovecraftIan works and an author that has the skill to feel that fear of the unknown then this is for you.
Highly recommend!!

[Larry Paradis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Plain & simply, a very VERY COOL read- I LOVED it! The more I read, the harder it was to out down.

The detailing of the underwater 'alien world' (or city) was spectacular. Curran's description of what the characters felt and saw truly made my heart flutter with anticipation...like, 'What in the H is gonna happen NEXT!?!!'
This book strongly reminded me of a favorite book of mine titled "The Deep" by Nick Cutter. Ya know, I bet the two of yall could write a helluva book together! Just sayin'!!
Well, as always, whenever I finish a Tim C. book, there is a bit of disappointment that it's over! Please, PLEASE, Mr. Curran, keep on a'writin' because ALL of your books (&novellas) are wickedly awesome; they truly are a treat to read/devour! (Really, I could go on & on about them..... "Dead Sea" may be my absolute favorite.)
~Laura
Myrtle Beach SC

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

The SUNKEN CITY, by Tim Curran, is the 3rd novel in his Hive series. Shorter than the other two installments, this novel focuses on the underwater alien city discovered in HIVE #1 but at a time distant by 5 years from the previous novel. Similar in atmospherics to the rest of the series, this story is tighter than the first and better edited, like the second. I found the story intriguing in that it further explored the origins of the creators but also harkened back to Lovecraft's original Cthulu mythos, even moreso than AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS, of which this series was intended to be the unauthorized successor(s). I can't tell from this book whether or not the series is now at an end or if there will be more to come, but I could make an argument either way on that question. Recommended for those who love Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

[Megan Woodrum · Rating 1 out of 5]

oof no thanks

Poorly written, tons awkward grammar to the point that I started notating them. I got to “Although the deck lighting which burned constantly—didn’t dare turn it off, God no-lit up things pretty good…” and noped out.
Also gross and misogynistic with the only female having an undeniable urge to mother everyone.
Oh, also the characters were inconsistent, she’s a creationist and then talks about evolution; while possible, it seems like it was just a goof.
Do yourself a favor and skip.

[lina · Rating 5 out of 5]

SPEACHLESS HERE

What can I say? Hmmm this book was a page turner. I will not give spoilers away and I just can't. Lets just say it reminded me of H.P Lovecraft writing. But let's say this as a example: I have a background on my PlayStation 4 and it is a sunken ship with a zombie head and the noise is bubbles that I felt claustrophobic for a second and had to change the back ground. It creeped me out when I was reading the book.

5 never going to Antarctica out of 5

[Jessica Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick, easy read. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the story and the references to H. P. Lovecraftian horror. The writer's descriptive feeling of dread around everything involving the discovery of the city was well done. 4 stars because I wasn't very impressed with the characters. They seemed very one dimensional and predictable. Overall though, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick, spooky story involving Lovecraftian horror.

[David Hart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't finish it.

I was at 51% through when I gave up. Way to much psycho babble and telepathic BS and flashbacks. I realized that I didn't even care if all the characters died or what was going to happen. The writing was fine and flawless. The story was punishing. Sorry. I can't recommend.

[Crystal Pegasus · Rating 5 out of 5]

well worth sticking with

I went at this in fits and starts. The initial chapters just didn’t resonate. They were a bit slow. But I stuck with it and the payoff was well worth it. This is totally unique horror, although based on Lovecraft. Tim Curran has a magnificent mind for horror. His creatures are unique, he builds tension as only he can.

[Robert Hobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the first line, a gothic intensity crawled across the page. The weight of fear grew exponentially with each turn of the page. We experienced each person's bravery and darkest fear. I enjoyed the book, though I do wish it was available in paperback. Mr. Curran if not expertly avoiding Lovecraftian terms, used them in such a way as to not be cliche.

[Matt Fry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Event Horizon underwater

Mr. Curran absolutely does not disappoint here. Little bit of a slow start, but once it picks up it never stops. If you’ve read anything by this author in the past you kind of know what to expect.

[FictionFreak · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the spirit of Lovecraft with the Curran touch

This is one of my favorites in Tim Curran’s eldritch/ancient horror type novels. I loved the claustrophobic setting and the tension. This needs to be a movie! I say that about a lot of his books, though. Check it out!

[Tabitha Emerson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stagnant

A lot of the action at the end was really good and really well written, but so much of the rest of it is so stagnant. So little progress and movement for most of the book. I really didn't feel rewarded for sticking it out. Not really worth the time.