Goliath: The Dreadful Deep

by Jeff Crawford

The year is 1836, and the place is Nantucket, Massachusetts, the center of the whaling universe. Captain Zachary Weatherall’s good wife is helping her husband stow all his gear in his cabin. They know it will be the last time they will see each other for at least two years.

While everything seemed normal, the captain and the first officer (whom the captain had confided in) were all but jumping at shadows. Whaling life is a life of danger, but the fear the wives had felt was something altogether different from that.
Days upon days of sailing without whales being spotted leads to boredom. All anyone on board wants is something to do, and then comes the first shudder through the ship. Everyone is on alert, trying to understand what they just felt, when it comes again, only much harder. In the darkness it is almost impossible to see anything but glimpses of what attacked them, but they can see that it is terrible.

Stranded in the middle of the night with nothing, the captain and his men must swim toward a nearby island in the hopes of escaping the source of the attack.

142 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 24, 2022

Reviews

[Jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goliath, to me, was the SparkNotes version of Moby Dick. It contains a large sea creature that destroys the ship, a Captain who lets his pride stand before the fate of his crew, and many deaths of said crew. The key difference here being that Captain Weatherall is more likeable than Captain Ahab....he wasn't letting a personal grudge guide him.

The book was pretty short and I think it suffered a bit in detail due to that. I wanted to see more how Zachary developed the bonds with his crew and how he and Anderson got their close relationship. It also ended rather abruptly; I finished reading and was left blinking at the back of the book wondering where the rest of it was.

The speech was a bit odd to follow here and there. I've read books set in the 1800s before but this dialogue seemed oddly starched and scripted in places. It just didn't flow naturally like dialogue should so it made the characters seem stilted sometimes, fluid in others.

Overall, not a bad choice other than giving me flashbacks of high school English Lit

[james mccarney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scary Sea

The storyline of ship being attacked at sea by a monstrous beast and marooned on an island was pretty good. Characters were just fine. Waiting to see what happens next, then getting that ending just didn't sit well. Took away a star just for the ending alone. Don't get it but I'm not the author telling the story. Could have been better.

[Oliver Kitchen · Rating 2 out of 5]

It doesn't so much end as it abruptly stops. Considering the length of this book and it's two sequels, I don't see why it wasn't published as one, maybe two books.

I want to be clear, this isn't a case of "I wish there was more" rather, this is an instance where I thought "this book doesn't feel finished"

[K-BRC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historical Adventure Gone Awry

This begins as a swashbuckling adventure then takes far left turn into the unknown- a place where SciFi fantasy mixes easily with the edge of horror or dark thriller.

[Rosie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good beginning to this saga. Read it while on a road trip. Kept my attention.

[wayne peters]

Review of this book.

I enjoyed the book. The ending was left hanging. It just was not there. The story just abruptly stopped. I was disappointed at this outcome.

[Emily Haynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stranded

A whaling ship has an encounter with something. It's not their usual sea creature. This one is not happy it wants revenge.