The Anomaly by Michael Rutger

 

This is a disappointing novel. The writing is remarkably good on just about all levels--pacing, dialogue, characterization, description, the prose itself--but the story itself just did not work for me. It's structured very like a Horror novel, but it's really not, it's more like a conspiracy thriller, where the conspiracy (mostly) plays out while the characters are (mostly) trapped in a cave in the Grand Canyon filled with implausible ... somethings, really they're like really crappy SF written by people who've read too much Fortean stuff and taken it way too seriously. The biggest problem is that it tries to make everything that happens something vaguely Lovecraftian, a reality we just don't perceive because we just don't believe it. I prefer my Horror (mostly) not to be dressed in the garb of science. (SF and Horror overlap, but ... this isn't it.)