Book Review: A Darkling Sea

A Darkling SeaA Darkling Sea by James Cambias

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book began with a great hook – an office bet on who can find the most interesting and unique ways to kill media darling, showman, and all around jerk to be around, Henri Kerlerec. Nobody foresaw the agency of his death (less than a dozen pages into the book) at the claws of the native Ilmatar, who naively dissect him thinking him an unintelligent animal.

And then the book trips over itself for a while. Cambias becomes lost in setting the stage, something he could have forgone without any loss to the story. Not helping the story is that our other space faring species, the Sholan, read more like a foreign culture than a foreign species. While there are some physiological differences noted, they feel like TV aliens with pointed ears and green blood – different, but only in culture. Otherwise they are just humans with rubber suits, bent on protecting us from repeating their own mistakes.

What really saves this book – from the portraying an alien species perspective – are the natives of the ocean depths themselves, the Ilmataran. It’s not a fair analogy, but reading their POV is like being in the head of a sonar wielding lobster. I was reminded of Vinge’s Spiders from A Deepness in the Sky, especially with the ease with which Cambias relates the world of a blind, ocean vent dwelling creature. Cambias really shines when dealing with the Ilmataran, and you get a sense of the potential here. As a first novel, it was good, and I look forward to seeing what else Cambias writes in the future.

The ARC of this novel was provided for review by Tor.

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