It really amazed me that the characters had such a sense of humor. I suppose that in a story with such serious subject matter and that was supposed to have had a non-stop creep factor, some humor was appropriate and even necessary, otherwise, we would have been left with stale, flat shadows of the people that were moving from one dangerous situation to another. This is a story about a monster, a new species, or at least a never-before-seen species, of octopi that dwelled in the Antarctic Ocean. A previously retired tanker ship is retrofitted by the Navy and DARPA and sent to Antarctic with a team of scientists in the hopes of discovering this octopus and using its venom as a pain blocker for soldiers. This gave the ship and the men a reason for being there, but in reality, it isn't like ONLY THIS octopus had venom that would block pain...this has actually been used in some form for several decades. Anyway, as you can imagine, things didn't go as planned and of course a deadly storm is headed right for the ship. There were a few things that went right for the crew in spite of the storm, but I didn't come away feeling really concerned about the main characters. As a 'zoo person", I was more concerned for the octopus:) This is where the previous humor set the story slightly off course. I really don't think that by the time the storm arrived and the octopus with it, that jokes would have been what was being exchanged among the men while they were supposed to be confronting horror and running in terror. What was an unusual experience for me, and what gave the story that extra boost, was seeing some of the events through the creature's perspective. That was brilliant and original on the author's part and was extremely well done. This book is certainly a read that is well worth the reader's time. ( )