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Thalassa: The World Beneath the Waves

(The Tethys Trilogy #1)

M. Jonathan Jones (Goodreads Author)

4.63 · Rating details · 19 ratings · 11 reviews

Moanna Morgan had never seen the sky. No-one from the Tethys Colonies had, not for a thousand years. Not since the Old Earth died and the world of Thalassa was born, a new world beneath the waves…

Submarines sank all the time out in aqua incognita, beyond the Federation Frontier, and Moanna’s brother had been dead for nearly a year. But was the wreck that was found really h ...more

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Paperback, 1, 364 pages

Published March 13th 2016 by Brandyke Books

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4.63 ·

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· 19 ratings · 11 reviews

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Jun 18, 2018 Faith Jones rated it it was amazing

This is the best underwater adventure I can ever remember reading. I preferred this author’s other two books (Race the Red Horizon and The Outlaws of Kratzenfells), those being on totally different subjects – and yet he’s entered a rare club because all three got my top rating. This is an unusually consistent independent writer with diverse interests. How long will he remain indie?

I’m strangely drawn to ideas like underwater living and sea-steading, including the engineering problems that need t This is the best underwater adventure I can ever remember reading. I preferred this author’s other two books (Race the Red Horizon and The Outlaws of Kratzenfells), those being on totally different subjects – and yet he’s entered a rare club because all three got my top rating. This is an unusually consistent independent writer with diverse interests. How long will he remain indie?

I’m strangely drawn to ideas like underwater living and sea-steading, including the engineering problems that need to be solved. I think that to solve population growth (demands on land), food sustainability, sea-level rise and inconsistent air temperature, making better use of the sea for habitation is incrementally becoming optimal and comparatively more affordable. This book is therefore a prediction of what I already guess we need to consider later in this crowded little century. My proposal would be to fill a large bay (e.g. Poole Harbour) with thousands of units of floating accommodation, half under the water and half above, tethered to the bay but rising with the tide. These would be open to the air above the surface, removing several of the design obstacles. However that venting can’t be done in this book because the air is toxic. There’s also been serious climate change, war and plague, so these people need to go down, down and stay there for centuries. It’s amazing what can be achieved to survive when there’s no alternative.

The engineering issues of underwater housing are extensive, e.g. condensation (from breathing and evaporation) running down the walls and turning everything to mould; people struggling with the effects of the artificially high air-pressure needed inside to counter the water pressure outside (large battleships pressurise hold air and crew members have gone strange from it); being un-tethered and washed away by currents, tsunamis and storms; efficient oxygen reclamation and air scrubbing; large scale de-salination; lack of vitamins from sunlight and plants; thickening of the bones; fuel; heating; then, not quite finally, the psychological impact of living in a confined space with the same people for a long time (NASA trained astronauts for space travel and filtered out the psychologically dubious candidates by abandoning them in an underwater laboratory for months at a time).

The heroine of this story is a teenager called Moanna, so we have to disregard Disney’s use of the same name (a Pacific Ocean folklore sea spirit). She’s growing up in a petty kingdom where the pioneer population harvest seaweed, mine for minerals and occasionally explore. Sadly, in an echo of our own experience of globalisation and political integration into pretend-altruistic transnational tyrannies, a large rival empire is steadily amassing territory and assimilating all free people into its gaping maw. It helps them to begin with, steady, steady, catchee monkey. It integrates them into its processes and economy, replaces elected local leaders with its people, invents a crisis so it can apply control, removes all vestiges of self-determination and by these means the empire moves on to tower over the next free colony like a malevolent wave. “Can we provide assistance? Better together, surely?” Petty rivalries seem distant worries when a coup like that is underway, so some colonies prefer not to announce their existence at all.

Apart from being well told and having a good plot, there are many colourful and attractive elements to this book, from the housing complexes, the way social interaction is still possible, the frontier mentality, the lost ship on a secret mission mystery, piracy, Manta craft (personal submarines) and the Thunderball-style battle the many designs of underwater vessel get caught up in. Moanna isn’t a super-hero with magical powers, so the realism is pitched about right, but she is a dynamic figure with personal resources of courage that put the rest of us to shame. She doesn’t give up or run away and even though the book would be worthy enough without her, this character is a bit of a star in a fictional world underwater that I, for one, want to help build and be part of. I just need the climate to go horribly wrong as that’s the best way to get everyone moving. It looks like that transition will happen anyway, so don’t blame those who don’t want to hang around. Yes, okay, it’s because I can’t afford a flat on land and am seriously considering moving into an old converted ambulance. What would you choose if you were caught between a rock and a wet place? There I go again, spoiling the review… but I did like the book. ...more

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Apr 11, 2016 Jason Pym rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: YA novel, with (oblique) ref to drugs and sex, I would say suitable for 13 to 14 year olds and up.

Shelves: science-fiction, young-adult

Thalassa is a YA science fiction thriller that combines mystery, action and drama into an absolutely gripping read. Lost cities, a pirate queen, chases, espionage, and double cross – what more could you want?

As a sci-fi geek I love the universe Jones has created. Humanity has lived in cities under the sea for a millennium, and underwater living has shaped every aspect of our lives. This means lots of cool submarine designs (I would kill for a battle MANTA with anti-shark spines), and coralcrete Thalassa is a YA science fiction thriller that combines mystery, action and drama into an absolutely gripping read. Lost cities, a pirate queen, chases, espionage, and double cross – what more could you want?

As a sci-fi geek I love the universe Jones has created. Humanity has lived in cities under the sea for a millennium, and underwater living has shaped every aspect of our lives. This means lots of cool submarine designs (I would kill for a battle MANTA with anti-shark spines), and coralcrete colony cities with sub’urbs (ha :). There’s cool old school tech as well, like freeze flares, teletalks, phosphor communication and tubes of bioluminescent algae for lighting.

For adult readers, it has an old school feel, and Jones has said that he drew on 60s and 70s television shows like Stingray and The Man from Atlantis. But have no fear, there are none of the plodding plots of those old shows, as much as I love them. Instead the story is old school in the sense that it doesn’t try to be either too clever or “edgy”, which is a trap a lot of YA fiction seems to fall into. Instead we’re given a good, solid and satisfying narrative.

The protagonist Moanna is very engaging, a young girl who has to spend a lot of time on her own, she avoids the stereotype of either Mary Sue super girl or damsel in distress. As events test her mettle, we see her shift over the course of the novel, and she proves herself to be brave, smart, sceptical, confident but also (quite understandably at times) scared, bursting into tears and making poor choices. This makes her such a human and sympathetic character that you are very quickly on her side, which means that as the tension is ratchetted up you really can’t put the book down.

It is a little tricky to talk about the other characters without spoiling the story. We have criminal overlord Khan who controls the Militia, and upstanding Federation man Sherman Anderson, all swaggering archetypes set to play out their roles in paint-by-numbers space opera. Yet just like the faked submarine accident that opens the story, nothing is what it seems, the reader is endlessly wrong-footed in an extremely enjoyable way.
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Feb 15, 2017 Robert Zwilling rated it it was amazing

A modern day Treasure Island tale. Lots of plot twists leave the reader guessing how the story will end. A lot of effort went into describing the underwater world.

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Mar 22, 2018 Terri rated it it was amazing

It took me a few chapters to really get grounded into this book but the author did a really good job of sucking me into the story. The book is well written and the protagonist is relatable. The action and twists in the story kept me entertained. I'm not sure if I would have found or bought this book had it not been for the giveaway but I am glad I read it and will definitely be getting the next book in the series. I really loved the book and would recommend it.

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Apr 03, 2018 Tabitha rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads

I won a Kindle copy of this book through a giveaway on Goodreads.
This is a great action story with lots of twists, turns, and mystery. There were some details that I couldn't exactly wrap my head around (the mention of chocolates when they live under the ocean), but for the most part the fiction part of the science fiction seemed reasonable. The story leaves off at a point you can be content to stop the trilogy, but there's enough of a reason to read the rest I want to see what happens.

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Apr 11, 2018 Steve Bender rated it it was amazing

I won this ebook in a Goodreads Giveaway. A nice start to this trilogy. It has lots of action and an interesting take on the rising of the seas and drowning of the earth. Probably a young adult book. Looking forward to the second book n the series.

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Apr 23, 2018 Stacey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I really enjoyed Thalassa, I didn't put it down and read through the night! Very enjoyable!

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Mar 19, 2018 Mary rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book kept my interest from the first page to the last

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Apr 01, 2018 Tena rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2-goodread_wins

I won a kindle version #GoodreadsGiveaway

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Apr 13, 2017 Sue rated it really liked it

Super tale of an underwater colony, set about a thousand years in the future. Environmental disasters (melting polar ice caps, plague and war) destroyed the world as we know it and caused the polar ice caps to melt and flood most of the Earth's land mass, and make the atmosphere toxic. A small percentage of the human population moved into self-sustaining undersea colonies which developed and expanded over the thousand years to form new societies.

Fifteen year old Moanna lives on the outskirts of ...more

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Mar 23, 2018 Lavender marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: giveaways, kindle, own

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I won this book via Goodreads Giveaways.

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Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Apocalypse Whenever: Rated 4.5/4.67 Underwater sci-fi FREE on Kindle	2	16	Apr 23, 2017 04:09AM
Sci-Fi, fantasy a...: Rated 4.5/4.67underwater sci-fi FREE on Kindle	1	4	Apr 22, 2017 02:42AM
Sci-Fi, fantasy a...: LAST DAY! Free on Kindle. Underwater sci-fi.	1	3	Feb 10, 2017 01:15PM
Apocalypse Whenever: LAST DAY - Thalassa underwater sci-fi on Kindle!	1	7	Feb 10, 2017 01:13PM
Apocalypse Whenever: Nobody from the Tethys Colonies had seen the sky, not for a thousand years...	1	9	Feb 06, 2017 02:41AM
Sci-Fi, fantasy a...: Nobody from the Tethys Colonies had seen the sky, not for a thousand years...	1	5	Feb 06, 2017 02:39AM
Addicted to YA: Secrets of the sequel	1	29	Nov 06, 2016 11:08PM

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About M. Jonathan Jones

M. Jonathan Jones

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M. Jonathan Jones spends his time commuting between this world and many others inside his head. When not being chased across the dead red deserts by sentient machines, discovering hidden threats in the Deeps, or hunting frost giants across the Nine Realms, he enjoys avoiding other people. In this reality, he lives in England with his family. (profile pic is not actually me, but Mr Raccoon from "Th ...more