The Descent

Jon Krakauer

A remarkable novel, an imaginative tour de force...It is a rip-roaring good read.
— USA Today

Rocky Mountain News

The best beach-reading book in years.

Publishers Weekly

The premise of this millennial thriller is as audacious as it is problematic: "if there can be a historical Christ," one character hypothesizes, "why not a historic Satan?" Demystification of the ultimate Bad Guy is no easy feat, but Long (Angels of Light) brings it off, if just barely, in a dizzying synthesis of supernatural horror, lost-race fantasy and military SF. From the experiences of a varied cast of characters--including Sister Ali, a Catholic nun serving in South Africa, and Elias Branch, a major with NATO forces in Bosnia--a 21st-century think tank calling itself the Beowulf Circle distills a startling theory: The biblical Satan and his devils in Hell are mythic renderings of Homo hadalis, grotesquely malformed offshoots of Homo sapiens who for centuries have surfaced from underground hideouts to prey on human beings. With the help of Ike Crockett, an escapee from 10 years of "hadal" captivity, Beowulf infiltrates the Helios Corporation's mission to explore caverns honeycombing Earth's interior. Once beneath the Mariana Trench, Beowulf discovers that Helios intends to forcefully annex the world inside the earth's crust to further its business ambitions. Meanwhile, topside, Beowulf's theologians and metaphysicians surmise that the elusive "Satan" has evolved a human form to pass secretly among mankind. Like the subterranean trail blazed by its adventurers, the narrative twists, turns, dead-ends and backtracks. Inventive scenes of underground wonders alternate with talky stretches of scientific discourse and mawkish moments of romance between Ike and Ali. Though its devils prove disappointingly to be made in the image of humans, Long's novel brims with energy, ideas and excitement. 150,000 first printing; major ad/promo; film rights sold to Warner Bros. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

What if hell really existed? The premise of The Descent is just that. We first meet the protagonist of the story, Ike Crockett, as he guides a group of tourists on a Tibetan walkabout. Trapped on a mountain during a blizzard, Ike leads the group into a cave that just happens to be a gateway to hell. More hellish evidence soon emerges at sites as far-flung as Bosnia and the Kalahari Desert. Long, author of The Ascent (LJ 6/1/92), set on Mt. Everest, here chooses a subject that invites comparison to Dante--but his style is more reminiscent of early Stephen King, when characters still mattered. While some sex appears in the story, violence is a greater concern, though it does further the plot. The story is complex, with some surprising twists near the end. All in all, this is one of those compelling books that is difficult to finish but even more difficult to put down. Recommended for larger suspense/horror collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/99.]--Alicia Graybill, Polley Music Lib., Lincoln City Libs., NE Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Rocky Mountain News

The best beach-reading book in years.

Kirkus Reviews

The aptly surnamed author's long, long melodrama about a sub-planet sub-culture. Unlucky mountaineer Ike Crockett stumbles into absolutely the wrong cave one night. Spiraling downward faster than Alice did, he finds his own, terrifying kind of Wonderland plus lots of grief at the hands of the inhabitants, the horrible haddies (Homo hadalis is the technical term). Though the haddies, a lost species, come in a variety of sizes and shapes, usually they can be relied on for a vestigial tail, red or green eyes, and a rack of horns. Long (The Ascent, 1992, etc.) depicts them as big, strong, and resolutely opposed to any kind of accommodation with Homo sapiens. Also, as Ike painfully discovers, they've refined their torture and mutilation skills during eons of underground existence. Cut to Ali, a beautiful almost-nun laboring contentedly in a leper colony in South Africa's Kalahari Desert, who is about to have her own unsettling haddie experience. Ever-interested in an infusion of well-built breeders, since their home-grown types haven't been keeping pace and the species faces extinction, the haddies come that close to making Ali a kidnap victim. Eventually, she hooks up with Ike on an expedition exploring the stretch of haddie-land that extends beneath the Pacific. Ike, having escaped their clutches, is now a leading enemy expert and famous scout. Ali, passionate about philology, hopes the expedition will lead her to the origin of language. C.C. Cooper, head of the multinational corporation Helios and financial backer of the expedition, wants to colonize the sub-planet. Along the way, treachery, love, death, and a smattering of high-tech wizardry all get stuffed in as the group confrontshaddies and other baddies while wending its uncertain way across the perilous, uncharted sea floor. Decent enough prose and interesting characters, but, once again, Long buries them under an avalanche of plotting.

Library Journal

Q: what do a mountain guide, a beat-up military ‘copter pilot, and a linguistics-loving nun have in common in this book? A: they all become central to making sense of wtf is going on underground—and it’s not good. A horned, humanoid species called Homo hadalis—“hadals” for short—get ten kinds of pissed off when humans get anywhere near them. Sometimes they catch us, whereupon they promptly scare us, torture us and eat us. Here’s the equation: Horns+angry+torture=devils ÷ underground caves=hell. Creepy. Creepier when a megacorporation thinks it’s a license to print money. You’ll just have to bookmark your copy of Jared Brown’s Zero Mostel, A Biography (Atheneum, 1989.) and make room for this.