Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - Fathomfolk

This is a promising debut - deeply character-driven, with multiple rotating POVs and an intricately-built pan-Asian/post-apocalyptic/semi-drowned world. I loved how many sea creatures exist among the Fathomfolk - kelpies, sea dragons, sirens, mermaids, and more - and how Chan is blending mythological inspiration and fairy tales (East Asian dragon lore meets The Little Mermaid makes for a great premise).
I'm still grappling with a few of our characters, though, and their roles as the series progresses. Mira, in particular, half-folk and a border agent for the city, attempting to affect change from within, has me unsure of Chan's intention for the story and thoughts on resistance to violent systems. I'm interested to see where the series goes from here, as I really enjoyed the expansion of the world at the end, the potential directions the sequel can take, and the many possibilities that lie ahead for all of our characters. I am grateful to have multiple POVs, and probably enjoyed our sea witch's story the most. These are all flawed characters, grappling with their own insecurities and ambition as they question their loyalties to each other, and fantasy readers who particularly enjoy character work will appreciate this series start.
Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit for an advanced reader's copy!

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errie's review against another edition

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3.0

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devynreadsnovels's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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nickel_books's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

East Asian mythology + racism + classism + climate crisis + political intrigue all in one marvelous debut. A cast of characters caught between status quo and revolution, Chan creates an exciting world centered in Tiankawi - a semi-flooded city. Fathomfolk forces us to grapple with our role in many social issues most prominent being xenophobia and refugee resettlement.

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sarrie's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

TL;DR: Full of promising themes and a beautiful world, however cold and distant characters truly killed the story.

My very short pitch for Fathomfolk would be Babel, but make it wet and a touch whimsical? This follows three primary points of view as political tensions come to a head between the Fathomfolk and the humans. We see this entirely through the Fathomfolk lens, as different levels of political alignment fight to either tip the scales into war or find a compromise.

Our three leads are Mira, Nami, and Cordelia. Mira is the first of her kind, a half siren police officer who is dating the Fathomfolk ambassador to the humans. Nami is the sister of that ambassador, and also young and beyond impetuous. Cordelia is probably the most interesting, attempting to play all sides for her own gain. She fills many roles and I’m not going to talk on her much, as much of her story is spoilery. The thing about these characters is that we are so disconnected from all of them there is little to no emotional impact when things happen within the story. We aren’t shown much, traumatic moments are either shown in stark detail or we’re teased an event that never happened. Because of this it’s either very jarring (no emotional stakes till suddenly there are dead bodies on a ship), or very lackluster (oh no, I saw that coming a mile away). Besides that I had huge problems with Nami who is nothing but a young teenage girl stereotype and is written to be too stupid to live. She is a plot device to show us the more pasion driven side of things and it was, just not great. Mira starts interesting but quickly becomes cold and uninteresting.

This should be a fast paced and tension filled story. And it is at times. I loved where Eliza Chan was trying to go with this, some of the conversations she started to make. However the style of writing, which kept us farther than arms length and at times couldn’t decide if it wanted to be whimsical or serious, really stopped it from speaking it’s truths.

Give it a shot if you’re SUPER interested in the world and setting, otherwise it might be a skip.

3 out of 5

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macaronoui's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.25

Book is set in Tiankawi, a half submerged city where fathomfolk and any non humans are treated atrociously. The humans have built sky scrapers and fancy safe buildings, while a lot of the fathomfolk live in shanties.

In this dystopian story, there are a lot of parallels with colonialism and imperialism. The story does get very bleak with many parallels to historical events.

It is interesting to see the difference in approaches to trying mend their situations (following rules / force).

That said, the worldbuilding is really good. It’s easy to imagine what the different parts of the city look like. The attention to detail is much appreciated.

Even though we have this magical world with sirens and dragons, it still seems structured like a very patriarchal and heteronormative society which is a bit of a bummer.

It would have been very helpful to have either detailed descriptions and or illustrations of all the different fathomfolk (kelpie, kappa, sirens, rusalka, merrow-maid etc).

Between Cordelia, Nami, Kai, Mira, Trish and the drawbacks, there are simply too many characters and points of view. A bunch of repeated between the different characters and the pacing is really slow at times. I think the book would have been better with less characters.

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luverbyrd's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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