Imagine a world where, hundreds of years ago, a huge accident happened that resulted in the flooding of the planet. There are a few islands, but mostly artificial reefs, built by survivors of the flood, while cities are under the ocean, scavenged over the centuries by divers.
This is the world of Astrid Scholte’s novel The Vanishing Deep.
There is one thing more: in this world, for a lot of money you can get back your drowned family member, whose body is in a tank, for twenty four hours. It’s not as good as having them revived permanently, but enough to get some closure and say goodbye. Of course, the revived person is not told that they have died, or that they will soon drop dead. So you can’t remove them from the Palindromena island research facility, or even from the room in which you meet them.
Things go wrong when young diver Tempest raises enough money from her scavenging to revive her drowned sister Elysea. Elysea persuades her to break her out of the facility and the two of them are on the run from two facility employees, who really, really need to get Elysea back, for reasons you find out later in the novel. The girls are also desperate, for different reasons. And the hours are passing...
This novel takes place over twenty-four hours, each chapter titled by the time, and is seen from two viewpoints, those of Tempest and Lor, one of the two employees, who has his own problems connected with a death and a revival.
I have to say, it works very well. Within the space of twenty-four hours, we learn a lot about the culture developed on a water planet without having to stop for exposition. And it’s a race against time, exciting and fast. Plus... there is a twist, as there was in Astrid Scholte’s other novel, Four Dead Queens. I’m wondering if twists are going to be something to expect in a Scholte novel...
Whatever, it’s an exciting, entertaining YA novel that deserves to do well.
Recommended for older teens, up to adult. You can buy it in the usual online places, such as Booktopia and Book Depository, and should be able to get it in your local bookshops when those re-open! (I believe Dymock’s in Melbourne is about to re-open.) It’s also available as an ebook.
12 comments:
It does sound fast-paced and interesting! I love a book/movie/TV show with an unexpected twist.
Definitely fast-paced!
Will show this review to the Barbarians. Not sure if they will like the concept or not - it does sound intriguing. Trouble is, so many YA books have female protags. Definitely a skew against make YA leads. Wonder if more boys would read if there were more books for them?
Like the sound of this. I love twists too. And it sounds very original.
Hi Anita! I have had plenty of boys in my book club at school over the years. I can recall a time when the good readers among the boys read adult books, but girls read everything that interested them, including books with male protagonists. Really, YA hasn’t been a thing for all that long, female-based YA even less than that.
And in English faculty meetings we had people saying that we shouldn’t set this text or that because the boys wouldn’t like a book with a female protagonist. Yet who - in my library, anyway - was reading and loving Pullman’s His Dark Materials and Gary Nix’s Old Kingdom books, with STRONG girls as main characters? The boys!
Hi Jane! I hope you can find a copy, and enjoy!
Mine do read female protags, but they get tired of it (both Pullman and Nix have been read). Heckle reads adult books and has done for a bit, but he also reads YA. Jeckle looks for strong male leads in books, though, and that is a harder fit.
Let me think about this. I might rummage among my YA books and write a post about it. Do they prefer fantasy/SF or are they okay with contemporary in their YA? Bear in mind that the contemporary YA books with male protags are often by gay authors with gay MCs. If that’s okay with them, I can think of a few,
They both like fantasy. Jeckle likes mystery and funny. Don't think they've read gay MCs, so not sure if they'd enjoy it or not.
Okay, that gives me something to go on. Clearly genre fans.
The premise of this one sounds interesting. It almost sounds like some of the older scientists fiction works of the 1960s or1970s. I can imagine a Philip K. Dick Novel based on a similar idea. Such books also often had interesting twists.
Hi Brian! I guess it does sound a bit like the plot of a PKD book, but the actual novel isn’t, really. Still, it’s well worth a read!
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