Customer Reviews

Dark Life: Book 1

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Kat Falls has a solid base hit with her first YA SF novel. I really like her character, Ty, because he's the kind of kid I expect to be doing all the exciting things he does in this novel. He's old enough to be salty (yeah, I know, the ocean, pun intended) and still young enough to believe he's invincible. This is the kind of hero that Robert A. Heinlein made so popular in his juvenile science fiction novels. I grew up on those, so I'll probably always have a soft spot for that kind of hero.

Ty's viewpoint in this novel is important for several reasons. Chief among those is the fact that his first person narrative drags readers into the story immediately. I loved the opening because we got into action at once in the middle of a world that we gradually got introduced to. But that first person viewpoint is tremendously important to the plot because Ty tells us a lot, but he doesn't tell us everything. At least, he doesn't tell us everything all at once.

I also fell in love with the world. I have to point out that the author plays fast and loose with some of the decompression issues in the real world (especially in the exciting climax), but that was easy to swallow because she was hurtling along at breakneck speed. Several times after reading passages, I just closed my eyes and fully realized the world that came to life on those pages. I think the image of those jellyfish houses is one that will stay with me forever. The imagery was just so strong and perfect that I was swimming in those waters at Ty's side. For someone who enjoys day-tripping into other worlds, it just doesn't get any better.

After I finished reading the book, I gave it to my 12 year old and he read it in two days. Not only did he enjoy it, but we had long, serious talks about what life underwater would be like. As it turns out, he was just as captivated by the idea as I was.

But he also had some of the same concerns that I did. The writing, and I know this was intentional, is delivered with a strong western flavor--as in frontier cowboy. Some of the homestead talk and life as pioneers immediately lends itself to that, but often it tended to overshadow the fact that this is a science fiction novel.

The plot seems to be straight out of a Western novel to a degree as well. The frontier town is menaced by outlaws that raid at will and take what they want.

Kat Falls also has several neat mysteries wrapped up in her tale. The origin of the Seablite pirates as well as the mystery of Akai the pioneer boy with strange "gifts " keeps the pages turning up as well as the action. The title Dark Life plays on several levels and is clever.

Whenever your pleasure--adventure, budding teen romance, mystery, or science fiction--you'll find something to fall in love with in this book. I just hope Kat Falls decides to return to this interesting world soon. I can't wait to dive in again.

Due to global warming causing the land to flood and the eastern seaboard to sink into the ocean, there's not enough land for people to live on and barely enough to grow food. In an attempt to solve the food and energy shortages, the Commonwealth government allowed settlers to move under the ocean, to own their own land, as long as they harvested kelp and fish and maintained the energy resources for those who live topside. Engineers and scientist jumped on the chance to create underwater homesteads and develop farming practices that would help feed people. Many of these scientists also became some of the first underwater settlers of the Benthic Territory. The promise of having your own home and a hundred acres after two years of working the land draws many more people looking to make a new life. Despite the fact that many of the settlers are some of the best minds in their fields and provide them with food, Topsiders believe it unnatural not to live on land. They call the Benthic Territory settlers "Dark Life" a reference to bacteria that the settlers find insulting. Then throw in the fact that lack of sun exposure makes them very pale and eating lots of bioluminescent fish give them a slight glow, and the settlers seem even less than a part of Commonwealth society.

Ty was the first child born under the sea, and of the 22 children in the territory, he's the only teenager. His discovery of Gemma (a teenage topsider) gives him the first opportunity to socialize with someone his own age. Gemma is looking for her brother who is living in the territory, but nobody seems to know him. Gemma is amazed by life under the ocean, all of the space available, and the fact that settlers actually know who each other are. She's also quite intrigued by the stories of Dark Gifts. According to some doctors, a child born in the territory had his brain altered by the constant pressure and he developed sonar (like a dolphin). Ty is very uncomfortable with Gemma's constant questions about Dark Gifts, mostly because it's used as an excuse by Topsiders to ostracize settlers' children.

While helping Gemma find her brother, the problems with the local Seablite Gang grow. Instead of sticking to raiding government supply ships, they've started attacking homesteads, cutting off power causing the homes to sink and valuable livestock to be lost. The local ranger hates being stationed in the territory and all the people that live there, and never leaves the docking ring above the ocean. The Commonwealth decides that the settlers must bring in the outlaws, dead or alive. If they don't, the government will cut all supplies to the territory: no liquagen, no medical, farm, or mechanical supplies. The settlers are desperate to save their homes, Ty is hates the idea of living topside and doesn't want to lose his chance to homestead, and Gemma's search starts to reveal some terrible secrets the government wants hidden.

There was a lot of world building and explanations required to describe the life of an underwater homesteader, and Falls' wove this seamlessly into her story. The book had a nice pace, no clunky explanations, and some great characters. Ty is such a sweet character. He's the only boy his age and doesn't realize that Topsiders stare at him because he's apparently very handsome, he thinks it's just one more example of them not liking homesteaders. Gemma confuses him, a brash girl who's life has been a polar opposite of Ty's, she's the only girl his age and very pretty. Ty has the emotions that he can't even identify because they're so new, but he handles them, and the dangers they face because of the outlaws, with a level head, bravery, and a bit of grace. Underwater life, from how the homes are built, to how the livestock of fish are cared for are wonderfully explained in an easy to follow manner. What really stuck out was the fact that Ty would use underwater references to describe a smile, butterflies in his stomach, or the color of someone's eyes. At first a stomach full f comb jellyfish or seaweed green eyes doesn't sound very attractive, but they are representative of his life underwater and add a neat element to the story. I also really liked one of the younger boys, Hewitt. He hated living underwater and had this idealized version of life topside, he was a nice contrast to Gemma who had been equally ignorant of life underwater.

Suffice it to say that there's action, mysteries, daring does, villains, strange abilities, crooked politicians, secret prisons, and budding relationship - this book pretty much had it all.

Plot Summary: It's finally happened, just like the doomsday guys have predicted - great chunks of land have slid into the ocean. The topsiders are crammed into skyscrapers, while a brave few live under the sea and grow the food that keeps humankind alive. Ty is a teenage boy who was born and raised on the sea floor, and he's developed some unique abilities, which he keeps secret at all costs. While exploring a deserted submarine, he finds a girl named Gemma who ran away from the topside to find her brother.

This is an action-packed story with a nifty premise at its core, and although Dark Life did not go deep enough to really satisfy me, I could see it succeeding with tween readers. I've been waiting to read a post-apocalyptic science fiction story where most of the Earth is under water, because I've always found the oceans to be more mysterious than outer space. Kat Falls followed through with surprising sea creatures, vivid descriptions, and believable technologies to make undersea life feasible, and those parts made it a fun read. I can see why this book has been optioned for a movie.

Ty is a sweet, likable hero, and at 15-years-old he's still young enough to be innocent, but old enough to take an interest in Gemma. It's not hard to understand why he's so willing to help her, given how rare teenagers and females are under the sea. Gemma, on the other hand, was not so easy to like. Her stubborn side wasn't endearing to me, and I struggled to stay interested in her fate.

This young adult novel skews toward the young side of the spectrum, and I could see this being a big hit with the boy crowd. The hero has cool powers, he's constantly getting into trouble, and he helps save the day.

Dark Life, a new teen sci-fi novel, knocked my socks off !! Kat Falls has shown marvelous talent in writing a truly creative and inventive post-apocalypse style story where in the future, global warming has caused such intense ground flooding that the world has lost over 20% of it's land. This natural crisis has brought on overpopulation. People on Earth now live in hundred story apartment complexes jammed packed with many families living per room. It is a privilege, one highly paid for, to rent just a couple of feet of private space. This overcrowding pushed scientists to come up with a housing solution that pushed the envelope of experimentation, as they learned to claim acres of unspoiled land, far beneath the sea. Grand and vast ocean colonization is developed into a marine environment called the Benthic Territory. People up on land are called Topsiders, the brave sea dwelling residents below are named the Dark Life, for they never see the sun.

People of the Dark Life community, live in glorious soft flowing homes shaped like enormous bell shaped jelly fish that glow and undulate with the water's tides. They swim in thin skin-like dive suits that have propulsion fins and are made of self sealing materials to repel water. They use Liquigen packs, liquid oxygen, to breathe underwater, and have modeled their homes to be totally self sufficient using the ocean's bounty for food, water, and energy. They farm their land for crops to eat and to sell topside, their harvest pays their taxes, and families thrive well in this dynamic underwater colony filled with an array of vegetation and animals to keep them alive. They travel using mini subs and propelled jet ski's called mantaboards to whiz around the ocean floor as if they were rocketing from one intergalactic space station to another. They have eerie alien skin that they call the "shine", a biological effect due to consuming bioluminous fish that allows them to appear to glow in the dark.

The story opens with teenager Ty diving an underwater canyon looking for ancient artifacts from the time when Earth sunk into the ocean. Ty has found many archaeological treasures to hoard in his room as a museum to earth's history. He meets a beautiful young girl named Gemma, a golden haired Topsider who is searching for her lost brother who has sent her money to escape the governmental "commonwealth" that is holding her as a parentless ward of the state. She seeks emancipation from her prison, finding her brother is her only hope for freedom.

Dark Life is an action packed adventure involving Gemma's search for her brother with Ty's help, and their combined efforts to locate a rebel group of ex-prison convicts who have been stealing cargos of crops and sabotaging family housing. They act in retribution for a mysterious scientific experiment they incurred during their "rehabilitation" and attempts of reform. Many surprises and sci-fi elements blend with the action as the people of the Dark Life go on the hunt to track the rebels down, using some pretty amazing paranormal abilities that their bodies have developed while living beneath the waves as human beings that cohabitate with the creatures of the deep. Reading this superb debut was like visually experiencing a live aquarium full of exotic fish, clicking dolphins and singing whales, while at the same time becoming 100% mesmerized by the ingenuity Kat Falls offers us in this story. Two thumbs up, five stars, sensational debut! This gets a Way Cool !!

Life has become grim in the futuristic world of debut author Kat Falls' novel, DARK LIFE. Climatic and tectonic shifts have caused sea levels to rise and continents to fall, leaving humans fighting for precious space in "stacked cities" of the skies, or submerging themselves in "dark life" on the ocean floor.

Ty Townsend is one of those people.

As part of the first generation born and raised farming his family's underwater plot , he dreams of reaching his eighteenth birthday in order to claim and farm his own hundred acres. Trouble is afoot, though, as the Benthic Territory and their supply ships are being raided and the settlers terrorized by a ruthless group of bandits.

In response, the topside government, the Commonwealth of States, issues a "request" to the territory's inhabitants: help us capture the Seablite Gang and their mysterious leader, Shade. Just in case the threat posed by the bandits isn't enough, the Commonwealth provides three incentives: a halt on all supply shipments, reassignment of the territory's doctor, and no new homesteads until the gang is apprehended.

Ty is determined to ensure the realization of his dream, but his love for exploring vast underwater canyons has also thrown him another complication in the form of teenage Topsider runaway, Gemma. While searching the outpost for her missing brother, the Seablite Gang's attacks intensify and hit closer to home than either Ty or Gemma ever could have imagined. It's not long before they realize their best chance for survival and success resides in each other.

Despite a slow start, the characters soon plunge right into action. Ms. Falls has created an eerie, haunting world filled with mysterious creatures, nefarious villains, and two genuine protagonists, who are well-supported by a passel of quirky, intriguing secondary characters. Without a doubt, DARK FALLS will satisfy anyone with a dystopian future craving.

Reviewed by: Cat

Reason for Reading: I've read a couple of other books about permanent settlements on the sea floor and find the concept quite interesting.

It is the future and an experimental colony on the sea bottom is flourishing. Ty was the first child born sub-sea and it's the only life he knows. When Gemma comes from Topside looking for her brother she joins him in a journey to safe the colony from a force that seems to be out to get the pioneers. A band of Outlaws are attacking pioneer homes, killing their livestock, invading their homes and deflating them, plus Ty and Gemma have evidence they might have killed someone. Things are taken to such a point that Ty and other sub-sea children must reveal a dark secret they have been keeping.

This was a fun read. I read the book in a day and carried it with me everywhere. The descriptions of underwater life sound plausible to this layman. The way the community is set up is very intriguing and makes one want to visit such a place. I've always thought that underwater living would make a much more sensible next step than colonization of another planet. Ty has a whole family who play a part in the book's plot but Gemma is the one who brings the popular orphan theme into play. I found Ty to be a bit of a whiner, disrespectful to his parents and authority so I never particularly liked him but, nevertheless, the book did have an easy to read, pleasant narrative with a sense of humour. The plot becomes quite involved as we have Ty and Gemma searching for the Outlaws, the Outlaws running amok with the pioneers and the government eventually gets involved leaving the colonists in a worse situation than before. Be prepared as the secrets are revealed make this a compelling read.

Strong first novel from a new YA Sci Fi author. Author does an excellent job at creating visual imagery of a underwater world of fabulous creatures, daily challenges and struggles and technology we only now dream of. I especially liked the "Liguigen" which allows humans to breathe below the water! One of the comics of my youth featured gum you could chew and then breathe underwater. The novel is full of little twists and turns, the outcome of which in several cases I did not correctly anticipate and that is always a thrill in a novel, Sci Fi or not. I also enjoyed the vivid descriptions of the homesteads and the way in which the humans could "farm" animals, sea animals and seaweed in quantity to sustain entire populations "topside".

My only issue is that the author could have put more effort into developing the personalities of Ty and Gemma up front so that as a reader, you were more invested in them as people before all the action started. But it wasn't fatal and by the 3rd or 4th chapter you felt more sympathetic to them and to the challenges they were facing.

Author has a real gift at describing and creating an entire world - I look forward to an follow on novel to the world of the Dark Life.

Rising sea levels mean shrinking surface area on earth. Starting with the idea of catastrophic flooding on the planet and the resulting overcrowding on the land that remains, debut author Kat Falls has penned a romping adventure set in an undersea colony. While melting glaciers and polar caps are real, the Benthic Territory where young Ty, his family, and the other undersea pioneers live is firmly in the realm of speculative or science fiction. Blending possibility and fantasy, not to mention a few traditional literary genres, DARK LIFE is compelling, fun and thought-provoking.

Sixteen-year-old Ty was the first child born and raised undersea; his family are homesteaders raising fish and helping to build and maintain the first undersea village. Their world is beautiful and their life challenging. They are surrounded by the calm deep sea waters, exotic and fascinating marine life, and live in a house that looks like a giant jellyfish. Ty spends his days helping his parents, exploring the ocean floor, collecting ancient human artifacts, and dreaming of the day he can lay claim to his own piece of ocean floor. But the subsea idyll is disturbed by a band of outlaws, led by the mysterious Shade, who have begun raiding homesteads. The pioneers are also threatened by the negligent Topside government, the Commonwealth, and it seems their way of life is threatened with destruction.

When Gemma, a girl from the Topside, shows up at a bloody crime scene Ty discovers, he is drawn in to her search for her missing brother, and their quest brings them face to face with the outlaws known as the Seablite gang. But the line between right and wrong, good and bad, is not clearly drawn, and Ty and Gemma soon realize that they can't trust those who say they are there to help them and that they shouldn't be so quick to judge the enemy. The tension builds as the pair exposes the truth about the Seablite gang, Gemma's brother, and many of the figures who live in the Benthic Territory. Tension also surrounds the idea of Dark Gifts. Do the children being raised undersea have special gifts or talents, or are they being horribly mutated by the water pressure? Ty claims that Dark Gifts are a myth, but is he telling the truth or protecting a deep secret?

For all its sci-fi trappings and fantastic settings, DARK LIFE is, at heart, a western. Were it not under water, the Benthic Territory could be the American Prairie during expansion or the old Wild West. Ty's parents are hard-working pioneers with an optimistic view of the future, but they must reckon with the Seablite gang, and the bumbling Ranger Tupper, the local law man. In trying to find Gemma's brother, she and Ty brave the local saloon, a macho watering hole for traders and bandits. Ty must also deal with Doc Kunze, the mysterious doctor who may know more than he lets on about the origins of the gang and the activities of the Topside. The marriage of genres here works well and is very interesting. Falls's characters are sometimes less developed than they could be, but as a whole DARK LIFE is successful.

Adventure, good guys versus bad guys, government conspiracies, new religious sects, ecological disasters, incredible nature, violence, a touch of romance, family drama, amazing science and engineering, the myth and realities of dark gifts all set in a post-apocalyptic future: DARK LIFE has a bit of everything, but never feels crowded or overworked. It is an exciting tale of survival that is sure to engage young readers.

This is obviously Firefly UNDERWATER, like some sort of deranged cross between SeaQuest DSV crossed with Little House on the Prairie. (Or maybe that one Disney Channel show with the whales? Whatever, I clearly watch too much old TV or something, and it's all beside the point.)

The sea levels have risen, the ozone layer is gone, and some enterprising people have decided to just set up shop underwater. Some of them are good, solid, homesteading types. Others are rough, tough, miners - same old, same old. Oh, and there's underwater raiders, a Topside girl looking for her brother, possible secret powers among the kids, and plot twists! And without help from the government, EVERYBODY WILL DIE. (No, seriously - they can't even go outside without government help. NO. SERIOUSLY. They live underwater, don't forget!)

On the plus side, the book was fairly exciting and easy to get through... especially at the end. It's like for the last two thirds of the book the author decided she'd spent too much time on world-building (and it's an exciting and fascinating world, no complaints here!) and decided to throw all her loose plot threads together in one massive explosion of STORY!!! So, yeah, the pacing could've been better. Just a bit.

Unfortunately, that last third of the book, where everything gets resolved at triplespeed? Yeah... about that. There were a lot of shocks and surprises, but if you're in your double digits and/or have ever read a book or watched a TV show or movie, you won't be shocked OR surprised. Most of them I saw a mile away.

I'll give this author her credit, she didn't over-hint. She just didn't pick very surprising plot twists.

However, for a first-time author (I think?), that's fine. It's not that big a deal, and I liked the story enough to overlook how obvious a lot of it was.

Dark Life was an awesome read, at times certain things were glossed over, and the characters were young, but this is for young adults and I think Kat Falls did an excellent job at drawing readers in and showing them her Dark World.

Ty was the first subsea born, and the constant water pressure, along with living under water has given him some 'gifts'. Unfortunately the only time he told his parents about his gift, they hauled him topside and nearly lost custody of him. As his sister and other children develop these gifts they look to Ty for guidance and keeping them a secret. Due to unforeseen circumstances Ty meets a topsider girl named Gemma in an abandoned sub covered with blood and currently being hauled by the SeaBlite outlaws. The two become friends, more like cohorts, and Ty finds himself promising to help her find her brother.

The story is set both on a topside trade port and deep under the water. Falls brings to life these 'farms' beautifully and also does the teens who are reading this, the justice of explaining why everything would work underwater. While I'm not sure how humans can survive that deep (with the water pressure) she explains that liquigen is a substance that you breathe into your lungs before you dive so you won't have any air in your lungs to be crushed. We get the picture that this is set far in the future where certain advancements are made. I didn't find the Outlaws silly or cartoon like at all, in fact I would have been surprised if there weren't any considering the homesteads at the bottom of the sea are perfect targets. I was ambiguous about the end, I loved most of it, hated parts, but I really hope she comes out with a sequel or another book staring Zoe, I would love to read more about her world and how revealing these 'gifts' to the adults impacted the community.

All in all I think teens really would love this, it's exciting, the main character is a typical guy (who can use echos) and I loved the interactions between Gemma and Ty.