How long does it take to read The Descent?
The Descent by Jeff Long takes about 8 hours 15 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 8 hours 15 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1999. 450 pages, about 123,750 words.
17 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 13 hours 45 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 8 hours 15 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours 9 minutes |
The page count is the median across 10 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
In a cave in the Himalayas, a guide discovers a self-mutilated body with a warning: Satan exists. In the Kalahari Desert, a nun unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old. In Bosnia, something has been feeding upon the dead in a mass grave. So begins mankind’s most shocking realization: the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth populated by another race of beings. With all of Hell's precious resources and territories to be won, a global race ensues. Nations, armies, religions, and industries rush to colonize and exploit the subterranean frontier. A scientific expedition is launched westward to explore beneath the Pacific Ocean floor, both to catalog the riches there and to learn how life could develop in the sunless abyss. But in the dark underground, as humanity falls away from them, the scientists and mercenaries find themselves prey not only to the savage creatures, but also to their own treachery, mutiny, and greed. One thing is certain: Miles inside the earth, evil is very much alive
Subjects: Devil, Scientific expeditions, Linguists, Voyages to the otherworld, Fiction, Fiction, thrillers, general