nondisclosure agreements are signed, skeptical scientists are brought in along with their interns and also some women who will operate as insurance in case they don't actually find any mermaids.

with this particular program the plan was to go way out into waters so remote as to be effectively uncharted to capture footage of real live mermaids. The action is made up of found footage from cameras aboard the atargatis a cruise ship commissioned by the imagine network, a channel known for its cheesy SF/monster movies and its 'hyper-reality programming ' dramatized-but-intended-to-be-believed documentaries about cryptozoological beasties. Like everything else she's done, this uses a framing device to break up the pieces of the story, in this case, a television voice-over that warns of the graphic nature of the material it is about to air, and gives some context around the events recorded. This is just a little novella, but it's the perfect punchy length for this story. mira grant shows her work, and it makes for a much richer story. she carries science around in her pockets and distributes it like candy throughout her supernatural horror stories and you can't help but nod along and say 'yep - seems logical to me!' maybe it's different if you are yourself a scientist, but at the very least, she seems to have done some research which is more than i can say for a lot of less-credible books that skimp on the details and hope the reader doesn't notice. i don't know how well this one stacks up against any of those, but i do know that mira grant's strength has always been with her plausibility. i didn't read any of those, but i knew they existed, and i liked the idea of these predatory mermaids lurking beneath the waves to feast on unsuspecting sailors. and i know that some of these depicted mermaids as really fierce and badass instead of the traditional pretty ladies in shell bikini tops.

Oh, mira grant - is there nothing you can't do? i know there was a time, after the glut of post- Twilight vampire knock-off books ran their course through the publishing world, that mermaids seemed to be trying to elbow in to become the new trend. If this was a hoax, it was one of the largest in living memory.

Mira grant rolling in the deep series