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tannat

Tannat

Not so much a blog; just lots of books

Currently reading

The Grace Year
Kim Liggett
The New Voices of Science Fiction
Jamie Wahls, Sarah Pinkser, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Rebecca Roanhorse, S. Qiouyi Lu, Darcie Little Badger, Kelly Robson, Nino Cipri, Amal El-Mohtar, Sam J. Miller, E. Lily Yu, Alice Sola Kim, Suzanne Palmer, Alexander Weinstein, Rich Larson
Progress: 13%
Engineering Animals: How Life Works
Alan Mcfadzean, Mark Denny
Progress: 125/314pages
The Rise of Yeast: How the Sugar Fungus Shaped Civilization
Nicholas P. Money
Conservation of Shadows
Yoon Ha Lee
Progress: 22%
Le premier jour
Marc Levy
Progress: 180/496pages
Moby-Dick: or, The Whale (Penguin Classics)
Herman Melville
Manifold: Time
Stephen Baxter, Chris Schluep
Progress: 99/480pages
The Long War
Stephen Baxter, Terry Pratchett
Progress: 68/501pages

Deepwater Black: The Complete Story by Ken Catran

Deepwater Black: The Complete Adventure (H SF) - Ken Catran

Series: Deepwater Black #1-3

 

I read the omnibus edition that had all three novels.

 

Deepwater Black, Part One: Robbie (originally published as Deepwater Black)

 

This is why I usually avoid science fiction novels for younger readers: the physics is a mess. If you gloss over the weird Colour-space stuff with creatures like trites, amebs and nebulae that don’t sound like any nebulae I’ve ever heard of, I’d say it’s not a bad book.

 

So why did I want to read this? I remember watching the Deepwater Black TV show on YTV when I was younger, and I had always intended to look up the book it was based on. Unfortunately, when I finally thought to do it a little while ago, it turned out to be out of print. But then I stumbled across some used copies and although I’m usually leery of buying used books online since I never know what condition they’ll be in, I figured what they hey; this was the only way I was going to get to read this.

 

So this book opens with Robbie – or Reb – dreaming he’s on Earth when really he’s in space on a ship he and the other kids call Deepwater. When he wakes up, he doesn’t remember being Reb although he keeps getting these flashes where he’ll answer with information Reb knows but doesn’t know he knows, type thing. So the reader learns about their situation as Robbie learns it and we’re introduced to the other characters: Yoona (the leader/captain), Gret, Lis, Bren, and Zak. Everyone’s pretty colourful – light green, blue, yellow etc – for younger reader science fiction book science reasons. Of course, we soon discover that the kids themselves (they’re supposed to be about fourteen) don’t know much about their situation, so the book becomes about learning more about themselves and running around their spaceship.

 

Deepwater Black, Part Two: Denie (originally published as Deepwater Landing)

 

Although the first Deepwater book wraps up its story arc, it also presents a new challenge at the end. This time we get to find out what’s in one of the closed caskets and we find an alien planet with life. And then it seems like there’s something else on the ship, something out to get them…

 

I have to say that the motivations of some of the antagonists in this installment didn’t make all that much sense to me. My only theory is that too much cloning drives people loopy.

 

Deepwater Angels, Part Three: Connal (originally published as Deepwater Angels)

 

This is the story of Deepwater’s final mission to restore human life to Earth. They’ve crashed-landed on Earth and some of the reborn species don’t appear to be friendly. The solution to the mystery behind NUN was weird as a reveal and there’s some more weird pseudo-science stuff. Don’t get me started about the terraforming efforts on Mars lasting hundreds of thousands if not a million years. Or would it take that long for the atmosphere to bleed away? Anyway, it’s a cute wrap-up to the trilogy even if it doesn’t always make sense.

 

 *

 

I read this for square #34 “Read a book tagged middle grade or YA” for the booklikes-opoly game. I think it fits perfectly since it seems like something I would have read a the middle grade level, and probably would have enjoyed it more since I wouldn’t have been distracted by all of the quasi-science stuff. I’m glad that I’ve finally assuaged my curiosity about the series though. Since the book has 501 pages, that’s another $5 for my bank, bringing my total to $35.