Into the Drowning Deep (Rolling in the Deep, #1)

by Mira Grant

Where did his youth go? That strong, straight-backed boy he saw in old pictures of himself, where was he? Gone to sea, like all the bright-eyed boys, and like all the bright-eyed boys, he was never coming home. Men might return, but the boys? Oh, they never did.

The human race had always created dreamers whose seemingly frivolous dreams forced the creation of infrastructures and innovations that benefited everyone around them.