by
Size: 6.00 x 9.00 in
Pages: 484
In November 2039, marine scientist Wend Taylor heaves themself aboard a zero-emissions boat skippered by elusive nature photographer Viola Yang. Guided by instinct, ocean dreams, and a shared birthday in 1972, they barter stories for passage across the Pacific. Aljon, Viola’s younger cousin, keeps a watchful eye and an innovative galley. Story by story, the trio rethink secrets, flying dreams, and how they experience their own minds.
When they reach Hawaiʻi and prepare to part ways, opportunity and mystery pull them closer together. Both scientific and personal discoveries take shape as they join with ex-lovers, lost friends, and found family. Wend must navigate an ever-shifting future, complicated by bioengineered microbes and a plot to silence scientists, entangled with inexplicable dreams and a calling to Be the Sea.
Publisher: Atthis Arts
Editors:
Cover Artists:
Genres:
Tropes: Astral Projection, Band of Misfits, Found Family, Humanity is Dangerous, Humanity is Good, Superpowers
Word Count: 180000
Setting: Hawai'i and Pacific Ocean
Languages Available: English
Tropes: Astral Projection, Band of Misfits, Found Family, Humanity is Dangerous, Humanity is Good, Superpowers
Word Count: 180000
Setting: Hawai'i and Pacific Ocean
Languages Available: English
Clara Ward’s Be the Sea (Atthis Arts, 2024) is an amazing sci-fi novel filled with found family, lost friends found again, stories, and dreams. Set in a world where climate change has occurred but been mitigated in places, it has a fairly cozy storyline and an eclectic cast of queer and disabled characters.
Wend, a marine scientist, barters their way onto a boat with Viola (a photographer and the boat’s owner) and her nephew Aljon (who cooks and helps out with the boat) on their way to Hawai’i. Wend is there to test a theory about dreams and birthdays, and they tells stories to Viola and Aljon to attempt to get their point across. When the group arrives in Hawai’i, they find that several events on their voyage have turned into much more than they seemed. As they reconnect with lost friends and found family, Wend and the others navigate what those events mean for their respective and joint futures.
The general storyline of Be the Sea is fairly cozy, though the repercussions of some events could be seen as having a greater impact on the world in which the characters live. However, those repercussions are not particularly prominent within the story, placing this on the cozier side of sci-fi. There are, however, a number of content warnings for the book (listed here), which are worth noting before you commit to this book.
If you enjoy optimistic stories that take into account the realities of our world but present innovative solutions, you’ll enjoy Be the Sea. Of note is that the author intends to donate 100% of their royalties to conservation efforts for the ocean, which is a wonderful way of helping those solutions become our new reality! Be the Sea comes out March 5, 2024, but you can pre-order it now!
The publisher provided me with an advance copy of this novel for review consideration.
