They Rise in Creatures, Creatures Everywhere!

Jul 08, 2021 Warren Fournier rated it liked it

As part of a Goodreads group read, I was able to experience my first Hunter Shea novel with "They Rise," but I was overall disappointed. Still, the book is entertaining, a love letter to "Jaws" ripoffs and animals-amok scifi horrors of the 70s and 80s. If you like literature and movies in this subgenre, you will enjoy this book as much as hot buttered popcorn. But for me, the end product fell to the level of mediocrity when I was expecting something different and refreshing.

"They Rise" sounds m As part of a Goodreads group read, I was able to experience my first Hunter Shea novel with "They Rise," but I was overall disappointed. Still, the book is entertaining, a love letter to "Jaws" ripoffs and animals-amok scifi horrors of the 70s and 80s. If you like literature and movies in this subgenre, you will enjoy this book as much as hot buttered popcorn. But for me, the end product fell to the level of mediocrity when I was expecting something different and refreshing.

"They Rise" sounds more like a zombie horror, evoking images of the dead rising from their graves. But what we have instead is schools of hungry prehistoric fish rising from deep ocean trenches in the Bermuda Triangle, supposedly released from an icy slumber due to global warming. The behavior of these fish is so comically ridiculous that I had a hard time suspending disbelief, and the reader must be able to do this throughout a work of fantasy in order to fully appreciate the narrative. I was willing to buy into giant chimaera fish wrecking havoc on tourists and fishing fleets in Caribbean waters. But the title of this book should have been "They Fly." Because these pesky piscine predators spend more time leaping through the air and flopping around on deck than in the water.

Chimaera are supposed to be deep sea fish, but this is not a story that takes place within the confines of submarines, underwater lab facilities, or diving suits. All the action takes place on the surface. So Hunter Shea's setup contains no palpable threat to humanity unless he has them constantly snatching people from behind railings, jumping onto boats, swallowing people in midair, and knocking down helicopters. And how these fish, dormant for a million years, would know there is food on these non-nutritious floating boxes we call boats so that they would expel all their energy hoisting their ponderous tonnage onto the decks of watercraft is beyond me. Also, there are literally thousands of these chimaera that have been awakened at once--what kind of natural event could have suspended so many of these critters alive in prehistory? Why were these the only species that apparently had been preserved and revived? We never know. We're supposed to just be awed by all the giant fish flying around and landing magically on top of people. It's as ridiculous as the shark leaping out of the water and roaring in "Jaws 4" or a tornado flinging around man-eaters that snap at anything moving in the air in "Sharknado," without the self-aware element of parody.

And speaking of humor, the attempts at comedy here do not work. There are a few exchanges between characters that are supposed to pass for witty banter, but are not very clever and do not bring even a faint smile to the corner of one's mouth. In fact, the writing overall is very pedestrian and, at times, immature. There is no art to the prose, just straightforwardly delivered horror tropes we've all seen before with no hint of originality.

Still, Hunter Shea manages to avoid the pitfalls of other writers who produce unpolished and adolescent thrillers--his characters are not annoying, unlikeable snips. For the most part, his cast features sympathetic personalities that the reader would hate to see squashed like a water balloon between the grinding maw of a chimaera. The only irritating element was how everyone, including the military, turns to the main protagonist for help simply because he has studied chimaera for 10 years. But these fish are not really chimaera, and so his expertise really does not apply. In addition, any knowledge he has does not seem to provide any further solution other than lobbing bombs at them, shooting them with big guns, and burning them with gasoline. He finally does come up with a solution that is almost as brutal as the fish themselves, but I won't go into spoilers for this review.

Others have commented on the gore and carnage in this novel, and I must admit that the way the chimaera kill their victims is interesting as it is gruesome. But I didn't find this to be an overly gory book, nor particularly scary.

Though not marketed as YA, this book would be most appropriate for young teenagers budding into the next generation of horror fans, cutting their teeth on such fare as my generation did with Zebra, Leisure, Onyx, and Tor paperbacks decades ago. A very mediocre entry into this subgenre of the creature feature that provides a few hours of mindless fun, but will largely be a gateway drug for those readers destined to move on to be horror junkies while being quickly forgotten by the "normies."

Score: A solid 3 stinky fish heads. ...more

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Jul 03, 2021 Michelle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: horror, 2021

They Rise is a quick creature feature with lots of action and gore and giant man-eating fish.

They weren't sharks and they sure as hell weren't whales. They looked like something straight from a drive-in horror movie.

This is my fist book by Hunter Shea and I enjoyed the deep-water adventure reminiscent of tales like Jaws and Piranha. The pace was fast and the ancient chimaera's were badass with their armor and toxins and crushing, toothless mouths.

When the first one clamped down on his leg, he ...more

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Mar 05, 2016 Kasia rated it really liked it

This was a fun and well paced marine story with a bite…I was hungry for a creature story I could breeze through and still enjoy this weekend and all the drinking in the book made me laugh, reality has a firm foot planted here even if the rest is pure gore and fantasy. Shea seems to get better with each new story.

Fleshed out characters and real life situations criss crossed with fish from hell that clearly missed the etiquette memo were always the front runner here. You have different scientists ...more

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Dec 03, 2018 Scott Neumann rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: cryptids-nature-gone-amok, novellas-and-short-stories, horror, books-ive-re-read, favorites, eco-horror

My first book by Hunter, and the one that made me a life long fan It's got everything you can ask for non-stop action, escalating horror, and suspense to keep you reading till the end. You wont be disappointed. ...more

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Apr 08, 2019 Tyler Gray rated it it was amazing

Shelves: cryptids-and-creature-features, favorites, own-physical, own, killer-nature

My first read by Hunter Shea, but judging by how much I loved this, it will be far from my last!

Part Jaws? Well, yea I guess. I honestly felt “meh” about Jaws, the book (and I read it before I watched the movie, which I enjoyed a bit more), so if this is part Jaws i’d say it took the best parts of it and threw out the boring crap. That’s not to say that this book isn’t fleshed out though, because it is!

A fisher catches more than he bargains for off the Miami shores. A fish unlike anyone has seen ...more

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Jul 05, 2021 Denis (deez_bookish_adventures) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2021, horror

Great story! Action-packed from start to finish.

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Jul 13, 2021 Melanie rated it liked it

Shelves: horror, owned-books, group-read, buddy-read, cce-group-read, secret-santa-2019, 2021-mount-tbr

70's Piranha movie meets Jaws meets The Meg with nano-drop of global warming side-effects thrown in for the political fun of it. Fun, gory and totally ridiculous, I sniggered my way through this, and although it's not Shea's best work, I will always go back for more Hunter :)

...more

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Jan 27, 2016 Laura Thomas rated it it was amazing

Shelves: horror

After reading some other books by this author, I knew one thing about his newest release. It would be crammed with action, suspense, and horror. He didn’t waste any time dropping me into the water and using me as chum for his shark swarm.

Some kind of new shark, or maybe it’s a prehistoric one, has appeared in the waters of the Bermuda Triangle. As their numbers grow, along with their size, the victims rise at a staggering rate. Think you’re safe in a boat? Nope. They can just leap aboard and sna ...more

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Jan 24, 2017 Ami Morrison rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, sea-creatures, horror

Marine biologist Brad Whitley has studied the chimera fish all his life. He thought he knew everything about them. He was wrong. Warming ocean tempertures free leigons of giant prehistoric chimera fish and they are destroying everything in their path. The sea is going to run red!

Hunter She is a very fun monstrous creature story author. I've read a few things by him already and I was very excited when this book came out and looked forward to reading it. I was not disappointed. Fish the size of ca ...more

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