Product Description

In a remote Himalayan cave a group of New Age tourists come across the mummified corpse of an RAF flyer. Before they can investigate the mystery, all except the guide are ritually massacred. In Bosnia, an American Air Cavalry patrol investigates a disturbance at a mass grave site and its commander catches a fleeting glimpse of a creature straight out of a medieval morality play. We are on the verge of discovering a new frontier. And it lies beneath our feet. A global labyrinth of underground tunnels and caves, miles below the surface, inhabited by immensely strong, savage devil-like creatures. Hell exists. The world's armies respond to the threat and are slaughtered in the dark. But from the panic comes a new resolve. . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #284553 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
This blockbuster confection of adventure, paranoia and horror is receiving bestseller promotion. Jeff Long gives a fresh spin to the underworld caverns of Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth by populating these vast spaces with demonic creatures whose existence explains the myth of Hell. They're our feral relatives, Homo hadalis or "hadals", afflicted with horns and deformities by a harsh environment where necessity is the mother of cannibalism. Greedy for new frontiers, governments and corporations move to exploit the recently discovered underworld. It's deadlier than they think; much hideous bloodshed follows. Long expertly hits a range of nerve-jarring emotional buttons, playing on our fears of darkness, monsters, mutilation, torture and worse. One major plot strand follows a literally bedevilled expedition through terror-fraught tunnels under the Pacific to the remnants of a 20,000-year-old civilisation below. Another speculates about the charismatic hadal leader "Satan" and his impact on world religion (this is where the Turin Shroud comes in)--a tastily paranoid reinterpretation of history. There's a slam-bang climax down in the deeps, with enough horrific trimmings to make readers nervously shield their tender parts. Though the incidental science is poorly handled and occasionally absurd, The Descent reads well as nightmare action-adventure. Not, as they say, for the squeamish. -- David Langford

Amazon.co.uk
In a high Himalayan cave, among the death pits of Bosnia, in a newly excavated Java temple, Long's characters find out to their terror that humanity is not alone, that, as we have always really known, horned and vicious humanoids lurk in vast caverns beneath our feet ... This audacious remaking of the old hollow-earth plot takes us, in no short order, to the new world order that follows the genocidal harrowing of Hell by heavily armed, high-tech American forces. An ambitious tycoon sends an expedition of scientists, including a beautiful nun linguist and a hideously tattooed commando former prisoner of hell, ever deeper into the unknown, among surviving savage horned tribes and the vast citadels of the civilisations that fell beneath the earth before ours rose. A conspiracy of scholars pursues the identity of the being known as Satan, coming up with unpalatable truths about the origins of human culture and the identity of the Turin Shroud, and are picked off one by bloody one. Long rehabilitates, madly, the novel of adventures among lost peoples--occasional clumsiness, and promises of paranoid revelations on which he cannot entirely deliver, fail to diminish the real achievement here; this feels like a story we have always known and dreaded. --Roz Kaveney

From the Publisher
Fantastic reviews for this genre-busting thriller
'A tour de force. A subterranean realm so expertly realised and credible, we feel it has existed all along. A dark, pervading, benighted beauty. If Kim Stanley Robinson's Martian colonists had headed down instead of up, this is the world they would have found' JAMES LOVEGROVE

'Without question, the best thing I've read so far this year. Long proves himself to be a wonderful storyteller. A stunning tour de force -- 'Crichton meets King meets Jules Verne', the jacket blurb proudly proclaims: never a truer word.' PETER CROWTHER

'This flat-out gears grinding, bumper-car ride into the pits of hell is one major takedown of a read. Long writes with unearthly force and vision. What emerges is a War of the Worlds against a world that can't lose. A page burner of a book' LORENZO CARCATERRA

'Absolutely bone chilling . . . every bit as good as Stephen King at his best' CHARLES PELLIGRINO

'Keeps the pages turning at a feverish pace and creates a world so vivid that we are compelled to follow him to the gates of hell' JONATHAN RABB

'An imaginative tour de force that succeeds both as sober-minded allegory and nail-biting thriller. THE DESCENT is equal parts Ray Bradbury and Robert Stone, Michael Crichton and T.C. Boyle. It is rip roaring good read' JON KRAKAUER

'A riveting read, fast paced, with an intricate but clear flowing plot, and a book that can be taken on so many different levels. Long has created a fascinating, thought-provoking and tremendously powerful story' SIR CHRIS BONINGTON

'The real achievement here is that this feels like a story we have always known and dreaded' ROZ KAVENEY

'A dizzying synthesis of supernatural horror, lost race fantasy and military SF. Long's novel brims with energy ideas and excitement' PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY

'A fascinating, credible look at good vs. evil, the degradation of colonisation and a theological treatise on whether hell really exists' DENVER POST

'A journey to the centre of the earth for the new millennium. Long blends science, myth and a superb imagination an entrancingly dark novel' BALTIMORE SUN

'An irresistible tale that will keep you up for three or four nights in a row reading, then induce another couple of weeks of insomnia while you try and eliminate the books lingering menace from your brainwaves' FORT WORTH STAR

About the Author
SALES POINTS 13,000 copies sold of VGSF trade edition THE DESCENT is a high tech adventure that explains ancient myths and beliefs from around the world Optioned to Hollywood 100,000 hardback copy first print run in USA Stunning review coverage, top ten listings in 1999 readers favourites polls Stephen King meets Michael Crichton meets Jules Verne