The Underworld

Even as an oceanographer myself, I was transfixed and transported by this book. And I loved hearing about the author’s own explorations to the deep. I love the pieces of deepsea exploration history that are in this book; that blew me away, even as someone who has contributed to exploration myself!

I loved the plotlines better than any movie or TV drama, for sure! And not only is the prose thrilling, ethereal, and beautiful, but it has helped me to renew my strength, as a foot soldier in the environmental call to action that is a huge part of this… show more.

I found this book particularly appealing because the author takes the reader on a fascinating journey to the ocean abyss—a hostile and little-understood ocean realm. On this journey, I soon learned that this strange and exotic underworld is a place of smoldering volcanoes, deep fissures, a geologically active seafloor, and bizarre and mysterious creatures operating under different biological rules than surface inhabitants. After reading this book, I wished to accompany the author on her many dives to this forbidding place.

As soon as I opened the pages of this book, I thought, “I want to be her!” …if only I were braver and not claustrophobic. At least I could accompany writer Susan Casey vicariously on her lifelong quest to go as deep in the ocean as humanly possible.   

When I graduated college, I volunteered on an oceanographic cruise to study the Gulf Stream. Even in my most adventure-seeking days, I am pretty certain that I would not have lobbied to dive to the deepest ocean trenches or to an erupting undersea volcano that will one day be the sixth island… show more.

This book dives into the abysses of the sea and our uneducated beliefs of what’s down there and how life, as we know it, emerged on Earth.

“Why do they look like that?” fish. “How do they survive down there?” sea life. The wonderous slip sliding of plate tectonics that shoves the skin of the Earth inches every year. We get a glimpse of the garbage (including atom bombs!) that we have dumped in our oceans without care.

Casey writes in conversational, visceral clarity as she reveals mysteries of the ages of shipwrecks, birthing islands, and the miracles deep, deep,… show more.

Susan Casey + the ocean = unbeatable combo. This time, she explores the history of the deepest, darkest depths and our changing perceptions of just what’s down there…or not.

Casey also layers in her account of her own plunges into the darkness, accompanying an eccentric millionaire in his deep-sea vessel. Danger, suspense, and awe—it’s all here in Casey’s thrilling narrative.

Susan is a gifted storyteller who also happens to be passionate about the ocean and all of its inhabitants. I've loved every book of hers that I've read.

The Underworld is her latest, and it's a thrilling, deeply researched, and fascinating (if not claustrophobic) read. The book is especially interesting in the wake of the recent Triton submersible tragedy.