Customer Reviews

In Great Waters

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As the other reviewers have said, this book is certainly original. From one moment to the next, I never had any idea what was going to happen and honestly, I wouldn't have been shocked if all of the main characters would have been killed off by the end of the book (they weren't, but with all the twists and turns, it wasn't out of the question.)

Whitfield does an incredible job of universe building. When this book was recommended to me, I thought "mermaids ... really?" But wow, this is not some sparkly young adult novel. The stark realism of Whitfield's world is incredible, and at times painful, to behold.

I admit that when the story began, told from the perspective of the foundling half-breed, Whistle, I despised him. He was so unrepentantly, believably alien. I found him incredibly repulsive from his animal thought processes to his abhorrence for everything about "landsmen" culture to his physical description. The reader is forced into Whistle's perspective, grappling with his "cloven tail" rather than legs, his black eyes, his tough gray skin, sharpened nails and teeth. He is completely foreign in thought and description. Whistle is a bastard, a half-breed, caught between the land of the deepsmen and the landmen. He is a missing link, in so many ways.

And yet, when we switch from Whistle's perspective to Anne's, it challenges the reader even further.

Anne is an English royal and behaves as I believe most readers would expect an English royal to behave. Anne is very familiar. But she and Whistle are physically the same, both half-breeds.

This book does an incredible job of challenging the reader's preconceived beliefs. By taking our commonplace history and re-casting it through the lens of this alternate universe it points of the absurdity of so much of human culture. The theological essays on how deepsmen are created in the image of God, and how the deepsmen never Fell, it was thought provoking to say the least.

The greatest triumph of the book is how believable it makes the unbelievable.

It took me quite a while, but I did really get into the book. All of the court intrigues and politics made my head spin, but it was a damn good read. I'm not really sure I ever came to like Whistle, but I do feel like he came out of the story better than any of the other characters. The story was tense, heartbreaking, and (much to my shock) laugh out loud funny in some places.

I loved Whitfield's Benighted and was so excited to read her second book that I pre-ordered it from Amazon. Now I'm wishing I'd waited to get it from the library, or skipped it entirely.

The premise of the book is this: in an alternate-history version of medieval Europe, kings must retain the support of the "deepsmen" (merfolk), such that every country with access to the ocean is ruled by a half-blooded king. Being jealous of their power--in the form of the ability to communicate with the deepsmen, whose communication consists of dolphin-like sounds that "landsmen" (regular humans) can't produce--the royals have any non-royal half-blood child killed. But England is in trouble: the king is old, and the only heirs to the throne are a couple of teenage girls. Enter the protagonists: Henry, an unauthorized half-blooded child, and Anne, the younger of the two princesses.

A large part of my problem with this book is that I didn't buy the premise. Now, the idea of the deepsmen is fascinating. These aren't your mythical merfolk; Whitfield must have really thought about what such people would actually be like, and they're anything but romanticized. If you're looking for new ideas and something that hasn't been done before, you might find this book worth reading for this alone. But the way they're portrayed--with an intelligence level somewhere between that of a normal human and that of a dolphin, and primarily concerned with their own survival--I never bought into the idea that they were essential allies for anybody. And even supposing that they were, the idea that disabled kings (did I mention that the half-bloods can't walk, and at best hobble around with canes? It's painful to read about) could hold thrones all over Europe for hundreds of years merely because they can talk to the deepsmen is both ridiculous and unnecessary. That's what ambassadors are for.

Moving on to the story itself, though, we follow Henry as he's being secretly raised to be a king (having been conveniently discovered on the beach by someone who was willing to risk execution to keep him hidden) and Anne while she's... well, that's another problem. For the first half the book or so, Anne doesn't do much. At about 130 pages, I put the book down in disgust and left it for a month or so, but once I've bought something I hate to not finish it. It does get better in the second half, and one thing I can say for it is that both the plot and characters are original; since it's not something I've seen before, I didn't know how it was going to turn out, and that's always nice. It turned out to be a quick read, but with nothing memorable except the idea of the deepsmen; the prose and the character development are competent, but things become far easier for the protagonists than they should be, and opportunities for action and excitement are continuously evaded. The dealing with the two major antagonists toward the end was unrealistic and silly.

Finally, it's rather difficult to sympathize with the protagonists: we're supposed to support Henry in his quest for the kingship (because any king is better than a Frenchman, apparently.... I suppose that makes sense if you're English?), when he wants it only to avoid execution for his bloodline. He clearly has no aptitude for the position, even flat-out stating that doesn't care for or know anything about the people of England. Huh.

This isn't necessarily a terrible book. There are some good parts--the feral-child part of Henry's story, Anne's growth and learning how to take responsibility, and most of all the originality. Thematics are certainly present and may redeem the book in the eyes of more "literary" readers than I. Still, due to plotting and believability issues, I can't recommend it.

An astounding book, highly recommended. Takes what seems light the most silly, bending-suspension-of-disbelief premise--mermaids as the central factor in the transformation of European society--and weaves an intense and satisfying story from it.

Whitfield is perhaps one of the ultimate subverters of the Masquerade, and whole theme of hidden fantasy within the present world. Her scenario takes just the opposite assumption--posit the existence of a fantasy element, even one as detached and minor as mermaids and it eventually transforms everything. In her novel contact with "deepsmen" and humans around the Renaissance lead to one Venitian family brining them openly into full on political and military conflict, leading to widespread rise and fall of different dynasties across Europe.

It is then a fantasy novel without magic, but with the presence of non-humans leading to a full-fledged alternate history that alters a lot of patterns for intrigue, culture and daily life. In Great Waters isn't about how that change is established. This element is given as backstory, instead it focuses on a specific regional situation several hundred years later where the change has already been made and everyone accepts the uses of human royalty linking politically to deepsmen and the level of intrigue for both species is deeply intertwined. It's refershing to see a strange fantasy situation taken for granted, as part of the enviornment that people have to work within. Characters in the novel find the arrangement inconvenient at points, but it's an accepted part of the sider environment with a lot of practical force behind it. The danger isn't that spurring an alliance with deepsmen will cause, for instance, England to get wiped out by them--even for an island country the water environment doesn't pose that kind of existential threat, there's simply no incentive for the deepsmen en masse to go up on land. Rather, the danger is that France with an alliance of humans and deepsmen will gain a compelling advance in navy and commerce, and that this development will lead to the decline of England's political position. In a way the book works precisely in deflating expectations of wonder and awe, by having characters accept their world largely as it is, as the unpredictable but rational situation they are accustomed to. By refraining from the moments of horror or amazement at the setup of the co-existing environments (although there is a lot of surprise when water and land societies co-mingle directly) it brings a greater sense of credibility to the setting, while also emphasizing awe in the reader for the lengths of worldbuilding.

In another strength the deepsmen are entwined with humanity but they haven't become human, and in the story told half from the point of view of one we see a very different frame of reference. It's not intrinsically better than humanity or worse--it's a psychology framed by a different environment that has a different take on basic things like family, sex and competition. One way this contrast comes up is religion--the deepsmen character, when required for social position to profess at least a nominal acceptance of God and the church refuses flat out, considering the whole concept absurd. Whitfield doesn't do the obvious with that setup, and refrains from either endorsing a theist or atheist viewpoint. Instead that framing is used to explore how separate the two viewpoints are in this case, how different the non-belief is from the human types of rejection of religion that generally occur. Highly different and yet symbiotic, such is the situation between the two species and it makes for a very stron gpremise.

The tone of the story is unsentimental and at points rather cold, and it refuses to implement the type of romantic atmosphere one would expect from the drawn out relationship at the core of the book's structure. It's not a depressing or particularly pessimistic book though, and feels more like a realistic exploration of the strange point of departure, with a range of accompanying human virtues, vices, betrayals and loyalties. Excellent writing, very engaging narrative, and some very creative ideas at work. However the point I found it most effective was in characterization, making an overall atmosphere, and showing a protagonist that doesn't share common human assumptions in a number of ways. There's a pleasing ambiguity across most of the book, it being quite unclear what will happen next or how the larger issues of the setting will play themselves out.

I'd say this book is up there with the very best of 2009, and it made it onto my Hugo nomination list for the year. Didn't get on, though, more's the pity. This point was one in my reading where I was reading a lot of recommendations for unfamiliar authors in fantasy and science fiction, and as the last half-dozen posts shows a number of these had modest or significant failure. It was good to hit a stark, flat out excellent book, one that shows speculative fiction can blow the lid off our assumptions and normal patterns and deliver a story extremely unique and strange, but at the same time fully coherent and 'realistic'.

Better than: Legacy by Greg Bear

Worse than: The Scar by China Mieville.

I gave this one star because I could not read it! I loved Benighted and couldn't wait for Kit Whitfield's next book. What a disappointment, implausible story and incredibly boring. I had to put it down, it was a huge waste of my time :(

This was the first book I've read in a while...always having a fascination with mermaids I decided to pick it up and see what it was about. I do agree with the other review on here...the story was original, not knowing what to expect in the plot...and the deepsmen are not in any way glamorized. But I found it difficult to enjoy the book when I couldn't relate to the protagonists in any way. Instead of being heroic in my eyes, they were two pathetic disfunctional messes. No one worth admiring. I did like Whitfield's writing style, however, and I will be reading her other book Benighted next.

In an alternate-reality Europe, the royal houses have interbred with the water-dwelling deepsmen in order to keep their shores protected. All others peoples are forbidden to have congress with the deepsmen because any half-bred child could be a contender for the throne--so they are ruthlessly put to death when found.

Whistle is such a "bastard"--a half-landsmen child who is thrust up on the shores of England by his deepsman mother. Fortunately he is found by men who keep knowledge of him quiet. He is called Henry, a royal name, and secretly groomed for the throne. England's throne is possibly up for the taking, if the conspirators can keep their secret. King Edward is old and dying. His son William died in a battle, leaving only two girls. Edward's other son is weak of mind.

The human Royals are marked by their deepsmen blood. They have legs that are more like bifurcated tails, better for swimming than for walking on land, and other weaknesses. They also have greater strength than humans. It's an odd concept, but when one thinks of how interbreeding caused problems in historical royal houses, perhaps having royals who can swim and talk and maintain treaties with mer-folk and who often need crutches to walk doesn't seem quite so odd. Whistle/Henry is a bit too alien to be entirely sympathetic. The other major character, Princess Anne, is somewhat of a cipher, too. Still, one does hope they will succeed in the second half of the book, and the first half was interesting for the attempts to turn Whistle from a feral creature into someone who could possibly be accepted as a king.