Mariner’s Wake By Adam Marsh

 Mariner’s Wake

By Adam Marsh 

A quick note for full disclosure, Brick Cave Media donates to my patron.  That said I paid full price for this book and the following review is made my honest thoughts and opinions of the story.  Also note that we are switching to a new editor, Mr. Joshua Simpson, who long-time readers will remember as the author of the Warp World series with Kristene Perron. His text is in light blue. Now on to the review!

Adam Marsh is an American Army veteran and Software engineer. He graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in Computer Science and a Certificate in novel writing, which makes him yet another author from this Sun Blasted Desert to show up in this review series. I’m pretty sure it’s not the water that results in so many Arizonians taking up writing. I can only consider it may be the result of too much sun. Mariner’s Wake, the novel we're reviewing today, is his third novel. It’s unconnected to the other two, titled The Changed and Survived, both books take place in a world ravaged by disease where some of those who survive gain strange abilities. Mariner’s Wake takes a world that has not suffered such a plague but has gone through other changes, most of them bad. 

So to set the stage, Mariners Wake takes place shortly before the beginning of the 22nd century. The United States is a One-party, Dystopian Cyberpunk state. A nation mired in the corruption you commonly see in states where only a single party exists. This party covers that through controlling news media as well as the government. This is aided and abetted by the fact that the party in question has a very business-friendly bent, to the point of declaring entire cities like San Diego Free Trade Zones.

 In these Free Trade Zones there appears to be no law enforcement (Interesting. In a place where trade takes place you want a secure environment. Manufacturing is where lawlessness tends to serve monied interests best, as long as Ned Ludd’s kept out of the factory. {The book shows these FTZs as marginal successes or outright failures at best, the main one we see is a smuggler's den with no major corporation or international trade.  San Diego is mentioned as an FTZ and the situation is so bad there that most major trade has moved to Portland and Seattle} Oh, unintended consequences incorporated into a plotline, I like it.) and no government, which has gone about as well as you might think.  On top of that, this government is also incredibly militant and imperialist and deeply allied with the resurgent Russian Federation.  In fact, several characters flat-out state that the US is part of the Russian Federation, although I admit I find that a little confusing. (Ah, the classic future fic overestimation of Russia, a time-honored tradition. I’d have expected the Chinese to start taking Russia’s place in these storylines by now, but Russia is a more culturally familiar nation, and featuring China could also entail future difficulties with movie deals. {Yeah but I don’t see even a right-wing single-party America allying with the PRC} Paging Mr. Jerry Pournelle.) The United States in this book honestly reminds me of the American Empire of Ghost in the Shell although stronger and in bed with Russia instead of opposed to it. That said there are still elections but for the most part they’re a sham and heavily rigged even when they don’t need to be, much like modern-day Russia. 

All of this seems to be the result of a civil war that was fought in the mid-21st century and frankly, it looks like the bad guys won. So you might be wondering what happened to the people who objected to this? Well, it seems that some of them at least fled into the Pacific Ocean and founded the home culture of our protagonist, the Mariners. 

The Mariners are a group of people who have rejected the corrupt and materialist culture of much of the world and embraced a community-centered idea focused on living sustainably and working to restore and repair the ecological damage to the Pacific. Since then there have been several armed conflicts between the Mariners and the United States increasing the bad blood on both sides. This isn’t helped by the fact that most of the contact between the two cultures is often from poachers, illegal waste dumpers, and corrupt navy captains infringing on their space. In some ways, the Mariners seem like an example of a genre I looked at a few years ago called Solarpunk. (Aquapunk?) With their values and way of life, they contrast very starkly compared to the Corporate mercenaries and corrupt government and military officials they’re up against. 

So it’s no surprise that Kara Nkosi has nothing but distrust and disdain for the United States. This is a problem because when the Mariners are approached by a US Congressman and US Naval Captain asking for help. They tell the Mariners that a US naval base full of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons included, has been rediscovered by criminal elements and they need help securing the nuclear bombs in question before they end up in the wrong hands. She has to figure out how much she can trust them and what has been left out of what she has been told.

Especially since this mission inflames internal tensions among the Mariners, many of whom are understandably resentful of past treatment and conflicts.  They're also concerned that outsiders are increasingly encroaching on their territory. Often people commit mass fishing, destroying the stocks that the Mariners have worked generations to rebuild, or dumping waste in seas that the Mariners have painstakingly cleaned. Even those trade vessels just passing through destroy large amounts of Mariner infrastructure like their floating farms or fish hatcheries. As I’m sure you can imagine there are members of Mariner who are feeling that a more proactive and muscular policy is called for and they’re thinking backing that up with a couple of nuclear weapons may be just the ticket. On the flip side, the Mariners have no international recognition but they do have a broad amount of support and sympathy, and going full nuclear pirate would lose them that and may see them surrounded and choked to death. (Getting the nukes generally puts you in a safe spot internationally. It’s the process of trying to get them that makes everyone break out the boots.{developing nukes might put you in a safe spot but stealing them?}Possession is deterrence, I’d argue.) 

This story is built on some really interesting world-building that manages to feel real and lived in. What’s interesting is we’re never given an objective retelling of the events, instead, we get dribs and drabs of the world through character conversations and actions and giving us really good characters to have those conversations with.  A good example is the US Congressman, Representative Drummond, who is rather ignorant about Mariner's beliefs, history, and traditions but willing to learn. The relationship between him and Kara is a realistic one, as Kara moves from flat distrust to slow consideration to guarded trust as a result of Drummond’s actions and attitudes. Which mirrors my own reaction to him because my first thought was, who the hell sends a Congressman on a secret mission? (Throwing back to the days of Leo Ryan there.) I’m still not entirely sure Drummond is telling us the whole truth about himself. He does however give us a look at American culture and politics in this story with an unflinching view of the corruption and other flaws therein. 

Another great character was the cyber-enhanced Tren, a hapless computer programmer and once-happy corporate drone who was thrown out of the corporate world for reasons unknown. Although if I had to guess it may be due to him innocently poking around somewhere he shouldn’t have been. Tren is clearly what I believe is referred to as neurodivergent these days. He can’t read social cues worth a damn, easily gets locked into something and over focuses on it and cannot stop going on about it. In his defense, however, he clearly wants to be helpful and is just looking to make an honest living.

 Honestly, I like Tren, he’s a giant nerd who loves poking into things and solving puzzles and I can’t help but feel bad for the guy. I mean this poor sap’s first attempt to find work outside the corporate world basically ends with him being enslaved and kidnapped by a low-level crime boss going for a score way too big for him. 

This crime boss is also an incredibly colorful character, named Big Madrid, I really did enjoy hating his guts. Big Madrid is a guy almost good enough for the big leagues, he’s smart, quick on his feet, and just weird enough to be memorable without being annoying. He’s decided this is his big score and by God, he’s going to get his piece of pie and the sheer gall he displays in pursuit of it is honestly kind of amazing. Big Madrid is outgunned by basically everyone else going after these bombs but you wouldn’t know it from how he acts and damn if you don’t almost come to a sneaking tiny amount of respect for the slimy, brutal, slaving bastard. I still wouldn’t weep at his funeral but he did not commit the cardinal sin of any villain, that of being boring. (Three cheers for quality villains! This is a subject I’m given to lengthy rants on.) To be honest, given how big the payday in front of him was, I can’t honestly blame him for his single-minded pursuit of it. 

Kara does more than hold her own against this colorful array of characters and it helps that she has her own colorful past and abilities. She wasn’t born a Mariner but then most of them weren’t, becoming Mariners by adoption or joining up as adults.  In Kara’s case, she was taken in as a small child, and that saved her life. Because of that, despite being born on American soil, Kara is a Mariner's heart and soul and in a lot of ways serves as the main representative of the culture. That said she isn’t perfect, she is prone to anger and honestly doesn’t always deal with stress well. 

This is displayed in her clashes with the religious/philosophical leader of the crew, as the Mariners have created a syncretic belief system merging elements of the major Abrahamic faiths, Buddhism, and various other religions and philosophies, they call the Core. Honestly going into the Core would take up space that we don’t really have time for but it was another interesting element in the world.

 Kara having to deal with her own temper and hot-headedness gave us an interesting internal conflict but Mr. Marsh doesn’t drag this out or over-dramatize it. He shows it more as Kara matures and grows into a position of leadership. Also while she does have conflicts with other Mariners, she manages to do so in a mostly adult manner and you are left with the feeling that this is a community of people who honestly care about each other. 

A story and a world like this could have easily gone into grim dark cyberpunk territory, where nothing good lasts and no one is allowed to do anything that will make the world better. Mr. Marsh also doesn’t go too far the other way where the forces of corruption and greed only exist to be flattened by the power of friendship and good vibes. So what we get is a realistic but hopeful story with intrigue, colorful characters, and a good amount and variety of action whether it’s the characters fighting against ocean storms, gene-sliced super mercs, or their own dark impulses. It can be a difficult path to tread but in all truthfulness, Mr. Marsh treads it well and entertainingly. 

A big point for me was how none of the characters were ever rendered flat, although the Navy Captain Faulkner came close but it was balanced out by the naval officer Grant in a lot of ways. Even the corporate executive Mr. Nakamura hit a good note of being a believable character. He’s completely evil and soulless but in a realistic way, which honestly makes him scarier. This may seem odd to some of you who have read the book but I’m going to say trust me the fact that Mr. Nakamura can behave the way he does to people, even while planning dark deeds is scary. 

The action is also well written and Mr. Marsh avoids falling into the trap of having all action set pieces be gun battles or kung fu duels to the death which can also plague the genre. It’s also interesting that our main character has no cyber or genetic enhancements especially since enhanced to the gills super-spy/operative is often the main character of choice for these settings so I appreciated it a great deal. 

There’s little I disliked, beyond wishing we could have gotten a few more details about the world. I also think that a resurgent Russian Federation making a client state out of the US is becoming less believable but I’m willing to put that to the side. Mostly because the book was released in 2021 and likely written in 2020 when that would have been a lot more believable. That said I can understand if some readers don’t share that opinion, we’ll just kinda have to wait for modern events to shake out.  Although to be blunt with everyone, Glory to Ukraine. 

 Mariner’s Wake gives us a combination of an intriguing world with strong, multi-dimensional characters placed in dangerous and interesting environments and situations. There’s also the novelty of having a book in a mostly cyberpunk world showing strong ecological themes beyond “everything is ruined due to human greed” and a focus on characters who are from strong counter-cultural communities that aren’t buying into the profit first and last ethos.    I’m giving Mariner’s Wake by Adam Marsh an A and I really recommend you give it a look. 

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