Rating: 
Summary: Interesting... implausable... unfulfilling.
Review: How are people supposed to breathe, five miles below the surface of the Earth?
If Satan is really a living organic being, how has he managed to stay alive for tens of thousands of years?
Why do people who spend a few years underground suddenly develop horn-like protrusions?
Why would a multi-trillion-dollar excavation project send only a dozen people down as its top-level security force, and then not check in with them for months at a time.
The answers to these questions and more are NOT in this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Overwrought and Overhyped
Review: I have to admit that this book, its plot, the very idea of it, is a GREAT idea. It had the potential to be quite scary, entertaining. And while a "journey to the center of the earth" is not an idea that is fresh or original by any means, the plot is de-Verne-inized by giving it a complete Y2k spin. 21st century science, 21st century military. But this books fails, in my opinion, on the weight of it's narrative. Jeff Long is a very good writer. He can string verbs and nouns together and taken sentence by sentence, it SOUNDS great. But, you know what? This is an adventure novel, pure and simple, and not the retelling of Dante's Inferno. The book WANTS to be much more serious than it is. It wants to be a social commentary (ie - shadowy corporations look to exploit and ultimately control the underworld), controversially anti-religious and scandalous (ie - one character used specious science and conjecture to prove the Shroud of Turin is a fake, also Satan lives and walks among us!!).... Other complaints? I didn't buy the science (some real lapses in this novel, including one wacky "time travel" subplot that the author never bothers to explain), nor the military's reaction to the existance of the underworld. Characters run around making dumb decisions...... After awhile, it gets tiresome. The author reached for the stars on this one, and then fell flat on his face. It would have been nicer if he'd been content to tell a plain-old rousing adventure novel. He certainly had all the ingrediants.
Rating: 
Summary: Reading Can Be Hell
Review: Suppose that there was a real (though purely naturalistic) basis for the belief in hell and a ruling figure of that nightmarish place. Suppose that it is discovered that an entire world -- including large populations and hundreds of thousands of miles of tunnels and cavernous "highways" -- is discovered lurking beneath the surface of the earth. And suppose what could happen when the world below collides with the world above. Mr. Long had a great idea for a story, and even a few very good opening chapters, but ultimately he is undone by glaring holes in the story information and predictable plotting. The opening really drew me, raised my 'reader's adrenaline,' much like the teaser sequence for an action/mystery television program (and I can't help cynically think that this is no accident.) The next few chapters, introducing more characters, did the same. However, problems develop very quickly in Long's storytelling style. The 'Haddies'--homo hadalis--are described throughout the book as having deformations and mutations. "Normal" humans who spend lengths of time deep under the earth's crust also seem to develop them. But except for an extremely brief paragraph somewhere around page 200, this is NEVER explained or explored. And it is one thing to develop cranial deformities; it is another to have humanoids with working wings! As another example, a main character early in the book is captured by the Haddies. According to the book's (flawed) timeline, he spends 11 years in the world of the hadals; yet we never learn what really happened to him and his experience is never used to help the scientists better understand them. For example, he never talks about the Haddies' culture, language, beliefs, family structures...nothing. And there is no story-internal evidence that scientists mined this character's experience for insights into the Haddies--quite the opposite, in fact. I also found my "willing suspension of disbelief" shattered after ONE MILLION humans disappear, economic colonization of the sub-planet promptly begins, as if nothing happened. And no satisfactory answer is given as to why the hadals exterminated so many humans, and then suddenly retreated. None of the characters in the book even wonder about this odd pattern of behavior, and none of the companies or governments seem the least bothered by the suddent and unexplained extermination of so many people. This book is comparable to a Crichton novel with slightly better character development but staggeringly less believability and logic. I recommend borrowing it from the library or a friend.
Rating: 
Summary: Ike rules
Review: What a great story! Almost makes you want to run down to your local tatoo/pierce parlor.
After I finished the book I went straight out looking for Jeff Long's other 3 books.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty darn good
Review: I bought this book (...) because it looked well above their usual selection. That it was. The concept of an ancient subterranean civilization was interesting, and much of the writing was exciting. It was overlong, and there were so many sublots that a number of loose ends remained. The ending was (I am sure) intentionally left somewhat ambiguous, and in such a way that it did not all hang together. The unintentional activation of the "homing device" by the two main characters, Ali and Ike, near the end of the book, seemed unlikely. The treatment of the reincarnation concept was also rather confused.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping
Review: This book takes the reader into hell with detailed descriptions that relate to all your senses, without getting wordy. There are quite a few main characters, most of which are well-developed and help to pull you further into their psyche and the journey into the underworld itself. The main male protagonist retained a sense of intended mystery which made him more viable within the plot. The story never got absurd or hard to swallow; nor did it present itself as a straightforward tale not worth delving further into. It is surely intellectually stimulating while being fast-moving.
Rating:
Summary: The Descent
Review: I found this gem of a book hidden among some really horrible top ten best sellers in an Airport convenience store. I opened the book and never put it down. It has incredible detail and fantastic descriptions of the depths of the Earth. The characters were alive and vibrant throughout and the search for Satan kept you guessing. I hope that this book will inspire Mr. Long to even more fantastic tales of Hell. I will have to read it again soon as I am sure that I missed some bits and pieces as I burned through chapter after chapter.
Rating:
Summary: Keeps your interest
Review: It keeps your interest, but it's a little confusing (too many main characters). Also, it's not really horror. In spite of this, I'm looking for more books by Jeff Long. I think he can write his version of The Stand someday.
Rating:
Summary: HELL OF A BOOK
Review: This is one hell of a book. Captures the reader immediately and doesn't let go until the very end. Jeff Long makes the unbelieveable believeable. Horrifying, thought provoking mystery.
Rating:
Summary: good premises, horrible development
Review: The idea is good, but he tries to cover too much without accomplishing anything. I am still asking myself questions about the plot that went unanswered. Why didn't the main roles underground die? what about the incidents? what happen to the bad guy owner of the corporation? why of the operation? the daughter detail? What happened to the civilization?The involution? They send the "whole army" to kill a character and the "whole army" is 3 soldiers? the details don't match up, nothing makes sense...
He places 1000 theories out there to make his ends meet, so he has an explanation for his storyline, but most of the book goes unexplained and is completely senseless.
Worse, it was like watching Buffy, after 10,000 years of ruling the world killing everyone, the bad guys die after their first face to face with the good ones.
He tried to parallel to stories, but only one keeps you reading, and then you relize that he didn't want to develop the other one because it doesn't make sense and because after the first hint you know the solution.
It also puzzles me why didn't the corporation just send an army to accomplish what they wanted to do. The whole "descent" operation was silly.
Interesting premises, but Tolkien did a superb job, Jeff Long did not. He had material to create a fantastic universe, but he didn't.
By the way, the characters are so unidimensional and lifeless. They change according to the situation.
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