Koji Suzuki is an internationally recognised and lauded horror writer, often described as the Stephen King of Japan. And like King, Suzuki's works have been adapted to both television and film around the world almost as soon as the ink dries on each new manuscript. Both Ring and Dark Water received the Hollywood treatment - the former's success eliciting a sequel - and Dream Cruise - another short story from Dark Water - was adapted as one of the episodes of Showtime's Masters of Horror series in 2007.
A massive shifting of the San Andreas fault and subsequent tumbling of California into the Pacific sets the tone of this thriller right from the get go. It isn't long before the reader learns that this catastrophe is a mere blip on the cataclysmic scale as the reasons for its occurence come to light: something is adversely affecting the molecular stability of matter at the quantum level!