The Black

By: Paul E. Cooley

Narrated by: Joe Hempel

Under 30,000 feet of water, the experimental exploration rig Leaguer has discovered an oil field larger than Saudi Arabia, with oil so sweet and pure, nations would go to war for the rights to it.

But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil, and it's about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.

The first book in Paul E Cooley's Parsec Award-winning series, The Black is a suspenseful thriller that puts the horror and action of movies such as Leviathan and Carpenter's The Thing right into listeners' hands.

This second edition includes a completely revised text.

©2022 Shadowpublications.com; 2nd edition (P)2022 Fireside Audio

Good character development & plot.

Enjoyed it very much. Will read the sequels. There shouldn’t be a 15-word minumum.

The Black

I enjoyed this book, it’s unlike anything I’ve listened to before but was full of action and suspense. I think it was well worth reading or listening to

I wanted to like this…

I decided to read this story, listen, rather, due to someone stating it was like The Thing and some other popular horror combined. That statement piqued my interest. Sadly, it did not meet expectation.

The story was interesting, and that something foreign, alien lived beneath the crust of our planet. It was haunting, and it was creepy, but the story was not told well. The execution was lost in repetition that just blew me away. Also, it bothered me how one minute everything this creature touched, dissolved, yet it could grow legs and walk without destroying anything . Actually, making everything look better because it was stripping down to bare metal so it was like chromed out lol.

Also, the story took so long to become engaging. I understand the need to describe the job, and to get us to find interest in the characters, but the technicality of everything just bothered me to no end. I can’t remember how long the story is, but if there was a six hour run time then The action didn’t get good until like hour 3 1/2.

I decided to not read the other book. Cheers!

Suspenseful mood

Loved the strangely calm and smooth writing, even in the throes of the chaos. My only qualm being the ending, looking forward to the next book.

Interesting

This is an interesting story. A different story from your normal book. Really enjoyed, very exciting. Recommend listen.

Good story but not much world building to me

Not bad, maybe not something I'd read again, but not bad. Read it on recommendation to it having The Thing vibes, which it kinda does. 2 main gripes. First is the world building was not really constructed. No place was described to the point I could picture it, so it was sort of hard to visualize what was going on in some scene, especially with character names changing from first to last usage constantly which also made it hard to keep track. Or if it wasn't between first and last names, at least the sudden jump between characters we never met, I honestly couldn't tell you unless I got a physical copy and color coded names. Second gripe is that if I took a shot for everytime I heard "[character] opened their mouth but then closed it" as a response to someone not having an answer, I could have downed a whole bottle of alcohol. Final note is anything really happening wasn't until the last 25%, which I get is try to build tension but still.

Decent concept, well performed.

Liked a few of the characters. Interesting concept but poorly executed in my opinion as someone who loves Eldritch horror.
No buildup or true terror — just flat storytelling and resolution.

Fantastic horror!💜

I felt this story had really great characters with the appropriate animosity towards each other as well as the camaraderie & banter between the close friends.
I envisioned this as a movie easily and tried to imagine the horror that was taking place in each scene. Listening to Joe Hempel’s voice acting talents made it very easy. Hence the chills this book gave me.
Well done everyone!
I highly recommend this book.

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The Black

This is the first book I've read/listened to by Paul E Cooley. This is not my normal trope to read, but as I was reading the synopsis, it reminded me of what my mother enjoyed so I decided to give it a try. It started a bit slow. It was detailed in describing the rig and vehicles, but so totally foreign to me that it was lost on me. I liked getting to know the characters and the conflicts between them. We get different point of views by the characters, the black thing, and even what the vehicles were seeing. I cannot say just when it picked up, but when it finally did, I was engrossed. I really want to know what happened after this ended.

Joe Hempel is an excellent narrator. His performance for both male and female was well done. He kept me engaged in the full book as I believe I would have skipped over parts of the book without his narration. I would have missed details if that had happened. His emotional performance had the audiobook rolling like a movie in my head, especially once the action started.

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Totally Enjoyable

For the most part I really enjoyed listening to this one. It was a little more....techniquel... I'm not even sure if that's the right word for it but its usually the kind of thing that will have me zooning out fairly quickly. But the narrator did such a great job that I was able to stick it out until I got to the really good parts. I actually just started listening to the second book last night, although I haven't gotten very far yet. I am dying to see what comes of all this.
If this was a regular ebook, I don't know if I would have made it all the way through and if I did, It would have taken me forever. But the audio defiantly made it more palatable for me. The whole audio was put together very well.

This was a Pink Flamingo Production. And I am part of the VIP review team. (I just couldn't get this one assigned to me for some reason so I bought it that way I wouldn't be lost of book two, which I did get sent. I think I have a second one coming up with that problem)