It Came from the Deep

Deadtime Stories #7

by A.G. Cascone

Randi and Garrett are in for the vacation of their lives in the coolest resort in the Caribbean. There's sun, and sand, and water sports galore. Unfortunately, something terrible is about to happen. Because there's a struggle going on in this tropical paradise. A war of the worlds between people who live in a hidden city at the bottom of the sea and the web-footed, gill-headed mutants who secretly run the resort.

Genres: Horror, Middle Grade

128 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1997

About the author

The team of Annette Cascone and Gina Cascone, sisters.

Reviews

[Austin Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one a bit more than my first Deadtime Stories book, Terror in Tiny Town. It has more creativity to it and some fun fish-monster action.
It does suffer from not thoroughly exploring the ideas it presents, and relying upon twists and turns that are all too obvious before they crop up. The ending was also rushed and there's a twist that sends the protagonists back into peril.
This one gets a 2.5⭐ from me, rounded down.

[Jason Harlow · Rating 3 out of 5]

This blatantly obvious knockoff of Goosebumps' Deep Trouble (that released just a few months before Deep Trouble II) follows two kids, Randi and Garrett, who meet each other at the Caribbean while on vacation with their respective families. Things get weirder and weirder as the people that run the resort turn out to be gill-headed monsters. This was fun and entertaining (and featured people being eaten alive!), but dragged at times and had way too many characters for its own good. I would recommend this to fans of stuff like this who are looking for a quick summer read, but go in expecting pretty much a carbon copy of Goosebumps and be prepared to have to suspend your disbelief over and over again.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this was not what I expected. Based on the cover I expected a Creature from the Black Lagoon type thing but the blurb promised a war of the worlds between a lost city and monsters running a resort. That get me pretty interested but while I guess that sort of happens, it's not the focus and is arguably a spoiler. That thing on the cover does not appear at all.

Instead, we've got Randi (see, that's how you do it, Hide and Shriek) going to a resort with her family after having won a free vacation curiosity of these odd people running the place. She meets a guy named Garret and soon they find out they were all only invited under the deal they participate in this ritual of NotEvenGonnaCheckToSpellt. Naturally, there is something sinister going on and the people running all this are kind of evil and have some wild plans.

So for one, this ended up being the darkest one so far. Like, there's a body count in this one and while it's not described in detail, it is fairly dark when these moments happen. This helps set the stakes which end up being fairly high. Actually, all the ones aside from Tiny Town have felt a bit bigger in scale than most series so that's something interesting.

It's paced fairly well, gets into things quickly but still has time to have this mystery being built up. It takes a while for the big plan to be revealed but that works in this context. Randi and Garret are fine, being smart enough if a bit slow on the uptake at times.

As things go on, it gets wild once we see why this is all going on. I don't wanna spoil it but boy it's something. It all leads to a bonkers third act that was fun but a bit stretched and the villain's defeat was cool but anti climatic with how it was rewritten. Plus once again the twist was forced although not as bad as others.

Overall, this was a fun one. It got pretty wild with decent build up and action, even if the story can get rather convoluted, even if its the kind I like. It's another better one for the series, at least as far as creativity and entertainment goes. ...And that's about all I got for this one.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Randi's and Garrett's families, along with numerous others, win a vacation to a beautiful Caribbean island, and quickly learn nothing is ever free.

[Kim Shayda · Rating 2 out of 5]

It had a weird ending