A Preview for By Sound Alone (Does it begin with 'In a world...'? You know it does!)
[WARNING: This preview (and the book itself) contains strong language and may not be suitable for all audiences.]
Readers keep telling me this book is very "cinematic." Hardly surprising since the vast majority of my storytelling training, for better or worse, comes from a lifetime of watching movies. I choose to take this note as a compliment. And I decided to take another page from the movies and put together this short "preview" to make it easier to decide if you want to read this book or not. (800 words/~3 min read)
(NARRATOR:) In a world where the surface of the global oceans have become locked in a cold-war like stalemate of contention…
(Text from the book:) "They have wars to fight and borders to defend up there. They spend their concentrated long-term resources on their never-ending fucking conflicts with each other. So the territorial Authority motherfuckers around here generally just shoot first, check papers later."
…And all technology remains strictly mechanical…
"It's a fuckin' hassle, though, I try to avoid it, 'cept in emergencies. I have to leave the controls and come back here to the engines, switch out the diesel, and manually engage the electric motor with these levers. And the electric motor is small — it's slow, though fuckin' silent as a sunken graveyard."
…The captain of a cargo submarine and her small crew…
"Cassandra, I'm glad you made it. This is Hemi Howell, Deck Boss, First Mate, Navigator, Crew Trainer, and whatever the fuck else needs to be done. Basically he's the one who does all the actual work. I'm Captain Percy. She's my boat — the Prospect."
And I go by Shakes." He held up his hand level in front of them and they could see it tremble slightly in the air. "Ya can see why."
…is just trying to do their job and get their goods delivered…
"I've heard of this kind of thing," said Percy. "The boat runs fast and just below the surface. Basically invisible to any kind of radar, and too quiet for most sonar. Good for…small shipments?"
…But now they find themselves pursued by a sinister submarine…
"We were hit. Sub with a big ugly ram mounted on the front of it. Totally fucking insane thing for a submarine to have."
…And the purpose behind it is unclear…
"I'll tell you this Captain Percy: I hear rumors of new governing structures. Things being tried that might eventually weaken the local fiefdoms and establish new flows of global order. One such experiment is a suggestion I've heard recently that certain Authorities are now granting privateers warrants that promise a bounty on captured or sunk merchant shipping operating under the aegis of certain other Authorities — regardless of where that shipping is."
…The chase takes them from an underwater cargo depot…
A long cylindrical tube of curved and welded plate steel. It stuck a hundred meters out of the side of the seamount and was supported by hazardous and seemingly randomly-placed steel bracing beams that ran from the tube back to the seamount at an angle. There were docking slips of a wide variety of sizes placed on all four sides of the tube along the entire length of it, capable of docking all manner of sizes and orientations of cargo subs. They numbered between a dozen and two dozen, and maybe half of them had submarines docked at them already, arranged at an array of angles. They looked like leeches with their orifices sucking at a giant limb.
…To a city built on stilts over the ocean…
"So this entire place is built on stilts?" asked Cassandra."
"That's why they call it fuckin' Stilt City," said Percy."
"Again, 'they' does not include the people who actually live here," Hemi said. "But yes, almost all of it is on stilts above the delta waters, except for the old part of the city that clings to the dry land."
…To a gyre of ghost ships in the center of the ocean…
Most of the contacts Cassandra was seeing with the sonar were partially or almost entirely submerged, held aloft over the thousand-meter-deep ocean by clinging to the last desperate bubble of buoyancy yet retained from when the ships were living. Under Percy's light, the vessels were typically low, black, curved, and oily forms, riding threateningly just under the surface, awash with waves that passed over and obscured them. Alternatively, they would take the figure of a low wall in the water, still showing the distinctive outline of the pointed form of a ship hull. "Like a fucking ship graveyard," said Bastian.
…To a final encounter that will push the machines they trust with their lives to the limit of their capabilities…
That was when the mine detonated. Far too close to the Gnat for safety. The little boat shook to its timbers, and rolled over on its side as the shock wave grabbed the Gnat's small sail and yanked on it. The sound was so loud that it rang Shakes's and Hemi's ears. Whatever small cracks had opened in the seams before now split wide, and freezing black water poured in. The power blinked and went out.
…It's not just a story to be read, it's an experience to be lived.
By Sound Alone: Available January 2024, open-source and free, at bysoundalone.net