Monday, August 27, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys




Deep Roots is the sequel to last year's Winter Tide, a book by Ruthanna Emrys that I liked a lot (Review Here).  Lovecraft adaptations are not usually my thing, as I've never read any of the source material or had any interest in doing so - although knowing about the racism inherent in those stories is probably a large part of that lack of interest (my lack of interest in horror is the other part).  Still, Winter Tide was a member of an increasingly more common genre - the Lovecraft subversion - and flipped around Lovecraft's ideas to address issues of racism and persecution and their effects on families and the result was a really interesting and effective story.

Deep Roots continues with these themes - following Aphra Marsh and her brother Caleb - the last survivors on land of the Deep Ones of Innsmouth after the US Government rounded them up into camps - and their friends (gathered in Winter Tide) as they arrive in New York City and search for extensions of their family.  Naturally what they find is far more than they bargained for, and they wind up facing other Lovecraftian creatures from outside our world who threaten Aphra's connection to her family.  The result is a book that's at least as strong as Winter Tide, and is definitely recommended.

Note:  While Deep Roots is a stand-alone sequel, it's still a sequel and you will undoubtedly be a little lost if you start the series with this book instead of Winter Tide.  I definitely recommend picking up Winter Tide first.

More after the Jump:

-----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
In 1928, the United States government attacked the people of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, and removed the surviving occupants into internment camps.  The people of Innsmouth were the subspecies of humanity referred to as the Deep Ones, who would eventually metamorphose into underwater forms.  But only two land-dwelling Deep Ones survived the internment camps (which were repurposed to eventually house Japanese-Americans), Aphra Marsh and her brother Caleb, who were released after World War 2.

In 1948, Aphra and Caleb returned to Innsmouth at the behest of the FBI to research the possibility of Russian spies learning the forbidden art of Body Swapping.  In the process, they found a diverse group of other individuals interested in their arts (magic) and their people and formed bonds between them all, a "confluence."  They also had to deal with the reckless actions of a group of magic-using FBI agents who played with forces they did not understand.

A year later, Aphra, Caleb, the Confluence and friendly FBI Agent Ron Spector head to New York City to try and find other people who are "Mist-Blooded" - who have at least one Deep One ancestor and might be able to return to the water.  But their search for lost members of their family leads them to discover that the dangerous Outer Ones have come to Manhattan and have their own conflicting agendas toward all of the denizens of the Earth.  In order to protect their newfound family, Spector is forced to call in the same dangerous Rogue FBI Group for help....to their dismay.  But the Outer Ones may be more threatening than Aphra could ever have imagined....not just to the world, but to the very bonds she has formed between her confluence and the Water itself....
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Deep Roots is told mainly from the perspective of Aphra Marsh, but unlike the prior volume, it also contains snippets, journal style (with date and time headers), of narration from many if not most of the minor characters (Caleb, Trumbull, Audrey, DeeDee, Spector, among others).  These snippets are insightful glimpses into not only each of these characters' backgrounds, but into what they actually think about what is going on around them.  Weirdly, the format of these snippets - the journal style I mentioned - led me to believe that they were a hint that something weirder was going on in the plot, but it appears that they were just what they seemed to be, quick asides to show us the rest of the cast.  If you're not expecting more from them like I mistakenly was, they are quite a good addition to the cast.

And the cast is still excellent, a group of individuals from disadvantaged minorities (the confluence features a two white women who are gay, a gay man, a black woman, two Deep Ones, and a Japanese woman (kind of), while the team's presumptive allies include a Jewish Gay FBI agent.  And that's not the only way they break the molds of the majority expectations of the time), who all fit together into a kind of weird family.

And that's really what this book is about - family and bonds.  Sure, the crew is dealing with a Lovecraftian threat that possibly could accelerate humanity's self-destruction, but for much of the book what is treated as the bigger threat is how these beings can affect and break away the bonds and ties between individuals.  When the threat to the world is imminent, the characters still take measures first and foremost to ensure that their bonds cannot be weakened further than they already are by the threat, even if it slows down their chances of stopping the threat to the human race.

As for the Lovecraftian enemies - again, I'm coming at this from a background that has no knowledge of the source material, but they make suitably creepy antagonists (and one other type of Lovecraftian creature shows up as well - no spoilers - and is incredibly creepy in her appearance throughout).  In addition to posing a threat to the teams' bonds, they also present an alternate threat to communities disaffected by life, particularly those of minorities, in that they convince/beguile members of those communities into leaving them in search of otherworldly travel by their minds, but not their bodies (you can guess the allegories I would think).  The development near the end that guides the end of the conflict is kind of disappointing in that it prevents the main characters from having to make their biggest case against this type of horror (instead they're diverted to a different version of the threat), but only just barely.

Definitely recommended and I look forward to the next book in the series.


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