Joseph Sale Month: Descent from Techno Horror Anthology

Dark Hall Press Techno-Horror Anthology contains ten short stories in the vein of Shelley’s Frankenstein or Levin’s The Stepford Wives, based on the horrors that arise from humanity’s use of technology to harvest the knowledge of the gods.

Sale’s story, Descent, is about marine biologist, Dr Nicholas Pinter, and his exploration of the ocean using a new submersible that allows him to dive deeper than man has ever ventured before.

There is something fascinating about the creatures of the deep, and Sale captures the same atmosphere of wonder and chilling fear due to ocean exploration that he conjures in his novels set in space.

Dr Pinter and his crew may still be on earth, but the hostile conditions of the ocean floor render them just as vulnerable and reliant on their ability to get out of an emergency as if they were in the void of space.

There is a Lovecraftian flavor to this tale, and while I would have preferred the story had gone in a different direction, it contains the theme of wanting to know no matter the consequences, which I love so much from many of Sale’s novels.

A solid short story that packs a lot into a few words, I award Descent…