Booklog 4/2020: Frances Hardinge: Deeplight

The gods, powerful, terrible, and dangerous undersea beings, disappeared from the islands of Myriad thirty years ago in a great Cataclysm, but remnants of godstuff are worth a fortune to anyone lucky enough or brave enough to dredge them up from the terrifying undersea. Hark and Jelt are a couple of teen survivors, running scams or stealing to live. When Jelt joins up with a ruthless smuggler gang he draws Hark into a scheme which is doomed to failure. Jelt gets away, but Hark is caught and sold, actually landing on his feet with a professor-type-woman who is willing to teach him so he can be more useful to her. It's much better than ending up in the galleys or the mines. He also does drudge work at an isolated home for priests who, bereft of their gods, need looking after. After three months to get used to his bonded status and his new life Jelt finds him and cajoles him into a dangerous attempt to use a stolen bathysphere to hunt for godstuff. What they find is a game-changer. This particular relic leads Jelt, and therefore Hark (still a follower) into a terrible danger neither could have imagined. 

This is published as a children's book, but it delves deep into the nature of friendship. Hark and Jelt are friends, but it's an uneven friendship. As long as Hark does what Jelt wants they are buddies, but Jelt is effectively gaslighting Hark. This deliberate manipulation made me very uncomfortable in the first part of the book, and then it developed into one of the main themes of the story. Loyalty runs deep, but Hark must think for himself. Even though he still considers Jelt a friend he has to make some hard decisions. The worldbuilding is excellent, the writing tight and effective. However, this is not an easy or comfortable read for an adult, so I don't know how children will react to it. I would have classed it as YA (at least) in my library days.

 

 

 

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