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Response from the author about the computer-generated images Apr 10, 2007 (180 of 184 found this helpful)
Thanks to all who have made such enthusiastic comments about the book, I am very touched but I want to make a specific point about the computer-generated images : it was indeed a mistake in the first print run not to mention that they were "fake" images (there are only 5 of such out of 220 pictures) but they are absolutely mentioned as such in the credits at the end. Also, in the second printrun, the correction was thoroughly integrated so a lot of you who are now buying the book will not be concerned by this comment because the images are now identified as computer-generated.
I'm sorry about this error but it was fixed as soon as we realized it so actually only a few copies are concerned, I hope it won't stop anyone from enjoying the rest of the images made by extremely dedicated and talented researchers.
Best, Claire Nouvian
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Incredible - just incredible... May 12, 2007 (24 of 26 found this helpful)
Growing up I had tropical (fresh-water) fishtanks. When I got older, I graduated to marine (salt water) tanks. I was, and am, facinated by the creatures that live there, especially "reef" tanks that house the stranger life forms like invertebrates and corals. I eventually took up diving, mostly because it was the only way I could be "inside" my tanks.
"The Deep" is an astonishingly GORGEOUS compilation of the most incredible, other-worldly creatures that inhabit the oceans. THIS is what thrilled me, and still does, about underwater life: it is the closest you will ever get to being on an entirely different planet!
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Wonderful Book. Apr 24, 2007 (14 of 15 found this helpful)
This book is great in two ways. The visuals and the idea that you are even looking at these creatures which until recently have been hidden from the world.
There should be no complaints about this book. One, the computer generated images are probably put together by massive information collected on each one of these creatures. It's not something that was "made up" or "fake". So yea, you are seeing something computer generated but you are at least seeing a true depiction of it.
I think its a great book. I love the photography and the layout of it. I am afraid of the water for these specific reasons, because there is much that we do not know about our oceans. And this just brings us a bit closer to understanding some of the creatures that inhabit it.
Great Book.
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Mind-Boggling Voyage: Like a Trip to an Alien Star System Jun 2, 2007 (18 of 22 found this helpful)
Many people are attracted to science fiction because the writers make interesting speculations about how life can be different under conditions other than those we experience as humans. Such books often conjure up images of bug-eyed aliens with beautiful colors and amazingly symmetrical features.
Others love to see photographs of exotic wild animals, whether beautiful prey surviving amidst the carnivores in the African veldt, rare species on volcanic islands in the Galapagos, or male Emperor Penguins huddling to keep their eggs warm during the worst of the Antarctic winter. You can't help but change your life perspective by seeing those images.
If either shift in focus appeals to you, you have the treat of a lifetime ahead of you: The Deep will change your view of life forever.
Simply because we couldn't explore the depths of the ocean until very recently, people assumed that nothing was going on far beneath the surface. I can see why. I once took a harbor cruise in a submarine and we didn't have to go down very far before all color was leached out of the water and there was a desert around us. Naturally, the further away from the surface, the less light and oxygen there are. Life as we are used to it require lots of both.
But the oceans hold many surprises. The mountain ranges in the oceans are taller than the Himalayas. The canyons make the Grand Canyon look tiny by comparison. Around vents of volcanic discharge in rift zones, toxic minerals are transformed into useful food by bacteria and life flourishes based on different chemistry than we see on the surface. A dead whale can create an oasis of life deep in the ocean for decades. Methane seeps can also feed life and make it flourish. Deep sea coral are vaster than those we see in atolls. Jelly fishes and sea cucumbers flourish at incredible depths and in intense pressures. And it's not always dark. Many creatures provide their own light and can vary the intensity and color at will to look like the ocean itself -- a whole new dimension to camouflage.
Migrations of species vary also. The daily rhythm is to go up or down in depth to take advantage of food and to avoid predators. Seasonally, the vertical migration also occurs for similar reasons. Tiny creatures may swim thousands of meters up and down as a result.
The variety of life in the deep oceans is staggering: Most of the species on earth are there . . . and most have not yet been seen. There are probably 10 million species we haven't experienced yet. Can you imagine that?
The beauty and the eeriness of these creatures are almost beyond description. Some look like a science fiction illustrator's view of Martians. Others look like prehistoric creatures . . . and indeed some of the species are hundreds of millions of years old.
There's also a human lesson here: Like in most of the earth, the natural beauty is being plundered for gain. While deep sea trawling only captures 0.2 percent of the world's catch, it is destroying areas bigger than Europe as habitats for exotic life forms. Because these areas are outside the boundaries of any country, they are harvested in unlimited ways.
You'll gaze in wonder at these photographs and have your mind expanded wonderfully by the excellent essays in the book.
Unlike many books that capture images of animals, many of these photographs are larger than life . . . allowing you to enhance your observations over what you could experience in the wild. If you are like me, you'll wonder why the author put in four computer-generated images that obviously look phony. The real thing is unbelievably amazing without any tricks.
Deepen your sense of wonder at God's amazing creation with The Deep.
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Spectacular Pictures from an Unseen Realm Aug 13, 2007 (12 of 14 found this helpful)
We say "Out of sight, out of mind" and to our cost we believe it and live it. The creatures of the deep sea could have been nothing but out of sight for centuries; even when we had started to think about the life deep in the oceans, the scientific dictum in the nineteenth century was that in the depths there was no light, no oxygen, and no foodstuffs, so there was no life. Deep-sea trawling seemed to bring up tentative evidence that maybe there were some creatures that eked out a living down there, but it was not until the twentieth century that bathyspheres and other submersibles got an idea of just how lively the depths were. They are still out of sight for most of us, but a gorgeous picture book can cure that: _The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss_ (University of Chicago Press) by Claire Nouvian has astonishing portraits of alien creatures that would seem to spring from the minds of Hollywood special effects animators. (One of them pictured here is indeed supposed to be the inspiration for the monster in _Alien_.) We are familiar in our own terrestrial realm of how evolution has crammed plant and animal life into every available niche; it has happened as well in the seas, and it has happened all the way down.
Nouvian is a journalist and film director, and for this volume has gotten short explanatory chapters from biologists who are experts in, say, hydrothermal vents or the polar depths. These stand as good explanations for the photographs, which in this big, glossy book are the real show. There are nightmare creatures here, like the black-devil anglerfish, with needle-like teeth in a gaping, frowning mouth and flabby and wrinkled skin, with a little lighted antenna above her head. The anglerfish has an extraordinary means of reproduction; the female is much larger than the male, and when he finds her, he attaches to her and becomes smaller still, gradually dissolving his tissues into hers and becoming her internal repository for sperm. Vampyroteuthis infernalis_, literally "the vampire squid from hell", has several photographs here, and rightly so. The blood-red skin of this creature and its strange appearance like an umbrella with teeth (they are actually fleshy fingers) along its ribs made it appear infernal to the first observers, but it is as harmless and shy as any other octopus. Some creatures on the other hand are cute as can be. A little "Dumbo octopus" looks like a friendly creature from a PacMan game, yellow with little flaps instead of tentacles, fins that look like ears, and a siphon that looks like an extruded tongue. "They are often observed resting on the bottom," says the text accompanying the picture, "with their mantle spread around them. What are they doing there, sitting so quietly in the dark? Nobody knows." The yeti crab, discovered in 2005, caused a media sensation; it is ghost white and has hairy legs and claws, and inspired a stuffed animal in its image in Japan one week after its discovery was announced. Many of the jellyfish here look like flying saucers descending. The appearance of the Pigbutt worm needs no more description than its name. There is a siphonophore which is like a long columnar jellyfish in a spiral, but the thousands of tentacles are not only toxic to prey, but bioluminescent, so that its photo looks like a firework. The ping-pong tree sponge looks like a sixties lighting fixture, each branch radiating from a central core and ending in a perfect sphere. They are all strange, and the word to describe them might be otherworldly, but they only look that way. They are as much part of our living world as we are, and especially as new discoveries we must value them. There are threats from pollution, global warming, and deepwater trawling, and if we are not careful, the creatures we are seeing for the first time won't be there to see at all. This beautiful book with one surprising picture after another gives colorful tour of an essent