In the future, science has uncovered a shocking truth: humans evolved from merpeople. Now, thanks to radical advances in genetics and medicine, humanity has found a way to return to its origins. Beneath the waves, a new civilization is rising—one built on the dream of reclaiming the oceans and transforming the deep sea into humanity’s next frontier. But there are some things that did not go extinct.
19-year-old Dallas Dwight is one of many to become new merfolk. And while she is getting used to her new body, she has to get used to a new environment that is still new to civilization. While Dallas is trying to learn where exactly she fits into it, she also learns things about her new self. Her singing talent on land adapted into something else under the sea: Echolocation, and this proves to be more useful than she ever imagined.
Her new home is threatened by an unknown monster, something from the deep that has discovered this new and plentiful food source. Merpeople go missing, and bodies turn up in pieces. The search is on for what lurks in the deep to find it before it finds the rest of them. So much of the ocean is still a mystery, and so much of the wild side is still dominant. And still at the top of the food chain. The longer Dallas gets to know her new environment, the more she learns the first rule of survival that never aged: Hunt or be hunted.
Overall, this was a fairly solid if somewhat problematic tale. That's mostly based on one of the most intriguing yet also frustrating parts of the book, which is the gradual evolution into mer-people from normal humans. The whole idea of it coming about through a mix of genetic science involving a real part of human evolution, bringing about their kind of biological aspects to the forefront once again, and managing to reintroduce humanity back into the ocean in this manner is an immensely intriguing one. Since it does tackle a part of real evolutionary history, even with some manipulation to tie it more into mer-people instead of the genuine proto-fish that the real history provides, the exploration of the different treatments and procedures that go into preparing a person to undergo the change.
However, the fact that this goes into as much depth in the different techniques necessary to prepare her for the transition, that it feels more like that dominates the book over the more overt genre qualities, once they arrive at the undersea kingdom to begin their lives. Taking us through a step-by-step process involving the selection process to pick who gets to undergo the process, taking preparatory classes to understand what's going on, coexisting with the other participants, and the series of genetic testing that is required to go through, which gets them ready but also has the effect of holding back the monster action for this build-up. The writing here is fine, especially with the series of fun interactions that take place once we get to the creature hunting them down, and the pace is somewhat zippy, so it's more the dominating first half that takes this down a notch.
4/5
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