Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Rick Riordan + Jules Verne proves disappointing

When I read that Richard Riordan had written a book that was set in the world of Jules Verne instead of mythology, I had to read it. So I got Daughters of the Deep out of the library.

And in order to discuss it, I am going to spoil every plot twist and the ending. So, if you don’t want the book spoiled, I will say that I thought it had a good premise but fell short. 

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Hey, I’m going to talk about the ending

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Here’s the elevator summary: Anna Dakar is a freshman at school that is basically Hogwarts as a marine science center. (The resemblance is even lampshaded in the book) She ends up in the middle of a conflict to get the legendary submarine, the Nautilus. Which turns out to be real.

I felt there were three major plot twists in the book and, quite frankly, I felt each one was progressively less effective.

In the fourth chapter, after we have a school story setup of the freshman class having to go through rigorous trial, the rival school literally blows their school off the face of the Earth, leaving the freshman the only known survivors.

And, damn, that was a hook. I did not see that coming. The plot was dramatically heightened and we went from a school story to a war story. And the resemblance to Hogwarts was done.

Second plot twist: Anna turns out to be the great, great granddaughter of Captain Nemo. Which was mentioned in every review and even the introduction. I don’t know it would have been surprising anyway but giving it away in the introduction just made it falls flat.

Third: her brother who she thought died in the big attack is alive and actually behind the attack on the school. Riordan already pulled a reveal like this with Luke in the Lightning Thief and it was just too predictable. It fell flat for me.

And, in the end, the heroes decide that they will rebuild the school with the vast wealth left behind by Nemo. AFTER letting the rival school’s senior class, who were the ones who killed pretty much their school, go.

Considering that they have proven themselves to be ruthless murderers who a lot of reasons to keep on going after the heroes, this is crazy. I’m not saying the heroes needed to kill then but stranding them on a Pacific island with no radio would have made sense and fit the genre. 

I can buy Percy and Annabelle fighting their way through Hell because that makes sense in the context of that story. Letting the guys who murdered friends and family just go home, that didn’t make sense.

(I also found Captain Nemo’s mad science from the 19th century went too far into the fantastic. Cold fusion? No problem. Fully sentient and emotional AI? Much harder to buy, particularly because there’s nothing in Verne to set that up.)

All of the complaints to one side, Anna is a well developed, interesting character. The fact that she spends part of the story with PTSD due her school’s destruction really helps ground her and make her believable.

I can’t believe that this isn’t the start of a series. And I can see how some of my objections could be ironed out. So, if there’s another book, I will read it. But it will have some work to do.

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