I touched the ocean only once. In 2014, flying back home from England for the first time, I stopped in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to attend the wedding of two Canadian teachers who had been colleagues in England. The timing was perfect, and it also allowed me to visit an old friend who lived there. The two of us took a trip out to Peggy’s Cove, and I touched the Atlantic. Beyond that, I have barely ever been on boats. Water is not for me! So when I received a request to review Be the Sea, I was intrigued. So much of science fiction focuses on space, yet we know more about deep space than we do our deepest oceans. While this book is not a deep dive into our oceans, Clara Ward nevertheless gets you thinking about how ocean life is connected to life on the rest of this planet, including humanity. While there were parts of this book that didn’t work for me, I overall appreciate a lot of the ideas shared here.

Marine biologist Wend Taylor invites themself aboard photographer Viola Yang’s zero-emissions sailboat as she crosses the Pacific, bound for Hawai‘i. Viola’s family member and self-appointed cook, Aljon, rounds out the crew. After talking their way aboard, Wend settles in and shares stories with Viola and Aljon as the three slowly bond. When the boat arrives in Hawai‘i, rather than going their separate ways, the three of them remain connected by business and by a mystery that has something to do with their birthdays. As Wend and the others dream of flying, of being attuned to the sea life around them, Wend also reconnects with people from their past—some friendly, some not so much.

Be the Sea is set in 2039, which is scary to say only fifteen years into the future. Ward envisions a world that has taken dramatic steps towards mitigating climate change—or at least, islands Hawai‘i has; we don’t see much of the rest of the world, which is fine. Most of the characters in this story are eco-conscious and very concerned with reducing emissions, and many of their conversations and actions revolve around how to be more energy efficient, environmentally friendly, etc. Ward mixes contemporary technology and best practices (such as reducing meat consumption in favour of plant-based proteins) with logical, near-term extrapolations of technology and ideas (such as the Seward generators that make up one of the subplots). Wend and their cohort are presented as being on the cutting edge, yet at the same time, they clearly live in a world where addressing climate change has acquired a more tragic urgency than we seem to feel here in 2024.

If you are into marine biology, then this is a book for you. Told from a limited third-person perspective following Wend, Be the Sea has plenty of discussions of marine ecosystems, from the effect of warming oceans on coral reefs to the way that ocean currents distribute bacteria widely around the world. It’s fascinating, and I appreciate a good dose of science in my science fiction.

Without going into spoilers, the science-fictional aspect of the plot comes into play late in the book (though Ward lays the groundwork early on, in the form of people’s flying dreams). Suffice it to say, it’s of the Gaia-hypothesis-we-are-all-connected flavour. Ward’s attempt to provide a scientific basis for this experience is enchanting. I how several characters raise different philosophical questions that logically follow from what happens, demonstrating how easily scientific discoveries provoke new lines of thinking about not only what we believe but what we are capable of believing.

I found myself, as I was reaching the end of the book, wishing that all of this had been more prominent up front. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Be the Sea is slow and feels, at times, interminable. I almost set it aside while Wend, Viola, and Aljon were still at sea; their arrival at Hawai‘i came just in time to prevent this. Once they get there, the plot does pick up—but it also turns into a peculiar genre mash-up. At various points the book is intimate and cozy before quickly turning into a thriller, and there’s a fair amount of tonal whiplash as a result.

Wend is a neat main character. They’re seventeen years older than me, yet I could still relate to and appreciate the portrayal of a progressive person in their sixties, grappling with how much the world has changed while still trying to hold on to ideals that have been bent and stretched by the passage of the decades. It made me think a lot about who I will be in 2039. I also enjoyed, to various degrees, Viola and Aljon. However, as the cast of characters expands, some of the interpersonal conflict feels very contrived, and the book fails to establish a clear and convincing antagonist. Shelley is somewhat one-dimensional in her extreme, hot-tempered perceptions of everything Wend does as a misstep. Mira, similarly a tempest-in-a-teapot, comes in out of nowhere in this brief vignette of indignation before being defused and set to one side. The two characters who seem they are the primary antagonists have fuzzy motivations, and wise their actions feel over the top. After spending a third of its length doing almost nothing but character-building among its core trio, the book suddenly springs into action yet cannot seem to decide what kind of story it wants to be. The result is very muddled.

I have similar, albeit more mixed, comments on the characterization and dialogue. There’s a lot to but also a lot that didn’t work for me. First, I really appreciate how hard Ward works to build an inclusive, respectful, and open environment among this cast. There’s a lot of explicit discussion of labels, of boundaries, of the distinctions between kink and sex and the fluidity of gender and attraction. As a trans and aroace woman, all of that is as energizing to me as the pacing of this book was enervating. Not only is Wend a great nonbinary, autistic, demisexual protagonist (whose pronouns everyone respects!), but they are surrounded by a diverse group of people of various ages, shapes, abilities, races, and genders, all of whose needs are discussed, accommodated, and respected. There is often a complaint (sometimes even justified) that, in our effort to improve representation in fiction, sometimes diversity becomes tokenistic, or conversations about a character’s identity become soapboxes that detract from the plot. That never happens in Be the Sea, and this is one of its strongest and most endearing qualities.

On the other hand, some of the mechanisms of how we get to know all these wonderful people feel clunky. There’s a distinct dearth of guile among most of these characters. Everyone very plainly says how they feel, and so the conversations become very overt and lack much in the way of subtlety or messiness. Don’t get me wrong—I think there is a time and a place to model healthier communication, so I don’t want to be too harsh. However, conversations in real life are never as cut-and-dry and clean in their process as the ones depicted here. When every conversation goes smoothly and it feels every character got a chance to say exactly what they wanted, it shatters the illusion. I want dialogue to feel the conversation got away from the author because the characters picked it up and took it off in their own direction.

To summarize: Be the Sea is messy in its plot and not messy enough in its dialogue—maybe I am just too picky. There’s a lot to recommend this book in terms of creativity, diversity, and general ideas. The actual style and execution left much to be desired. I’m glad I read it, and I hope it resonates better with others than it did for me.

Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.

2024-read aces science-fiction ...more6 s MinervaAuthor 10 books87

Be the Sea is a near-future solarpunk science fiction/magical realism book that is definitely worth taking your time for. The gentle atmosphere ebbs and flows the ocean, introducing new characters on your path, most of whom I found very loveable.
The story is told in three acts: first you sail across the ocean with a small cast of characters, experiencing an adventure on the sea and listening to the characters’ stories and memories whenever nature allows such peaceful luxuries. Once on land in act 2, the story unfolds into something larger, with more characters, more intrigue, and higher tension.
The reader gets to follow the characters and conversations so closely that it feels to me as if the story has actually taken me on a holiday to Hawai?i. I felt the water, smelled the scents of all the delicious food, enjoyed visiting an extraordinarily pretty mall. In Wend, the main character, I found one of the most relatable characters I’ve ever seen. Be the Sea contains an amazing amount of representation for queer and neurodiverse characters all around. But while I love Wend and find them so very relatable, I must admit my favourite character was Aljon, the asexual cook and local ray of sunshine.

Throughout everything that happens, the theme that stood out most to me was the power of working together—even when interactions with other people can be challenging and confusing. Everything in the narrative is treated with kindness, including the difficult subjects that come up. (A list of content warnings can be found via https://www.atthisarts.com/content/)

If you enjoy learning (or already knowing things) about biology, the environment and technologies that could help protect it, the memories and dreams that shape someone, or simply need to be reminded of how the traces we leave in the lives of others can make a huge difference (something we all may need to hear whenever we feel insecure), this is the book for you. Biology nerds will be particularly delighted.

In the acknowledgements, I learned that the author's royalties for this book will be donated to Conservation International, an organisation protecting the ocean. This fits the book and the characters’ ethics so well that I feel it deserves a separate shout-out.

Disclaimer: I was a proofreader for this book.lgbtqia6 s Jessica17 3

I didn’t really know what I getting into when I started this long ocean journey. I’m not a big reader of spec fic and wasn’t familiar with solarpunk, but something about the description of the characters drew me in. I did put it down a few times and read other things in between, but I kept coming back to Wend and all of these rich, odd, diverse and queer characters. it’s a road trip story, a found family story, and an eco-mystery all in one. I was fascinated as much by the futuristic change in language and interpersonal communication as I was by the light tech sci-fi. a near future in which neurodivergent and nonbinary gender folks are freely able to communicate their preferences for conversation, touch, interaction and interior design feels more out of reach somehow than one with zero emissions building design and travel - but they’re both lovely to imagine. the world building is so complex, right down to the plant-based foods. all of this is a rich backdrop for a cast of characters all in their middle life, still learning about themselves and each other. it’s really quite a book - and this is all before you get to the rotifers and cyanobacteria. a long, slow-revealing float in the ocean, reseeding coral reefs along the way. 2 s Chira457 13

2.5 rounded up because mostly I am just really not the audience for this book. The publisher's description of this as a slow-paced, free-flowing long story told in the tradition of fanfiction certainly holds true, for both the good and bad aspects of that. It really feels two books - one, a slice-of-life following these characters as they connect, the other a speculative solarpunk restoration of the ocean, and they aren't merged together well here.

For the good, the cast of characters are all identities that don't typically get centered or really explored in close-future speculative fiction. It's full of queer, neurodiverse characters from all walks of life and cultures, drawn together in what ends up being the story's central mystery.. That mystery is full of wonderful details that dance between the line of speculative sff and reality, a hope for the future and a wish for this world to be both stranger and more interconnected that we can imagine.

However, the free-flowing and slow-paced gets in the way of that a lot. The first third of the book is almost entirely set-up, but done in such a way that feels both overly explanative and avoiding what is really happening. This sort of continues, as the meat of the mystery and plot gets sandwiched and buried in the interpersonal relationships and found family-building of the characters. This will really work for some readers, but I found the blend unbalanced.2024 arc lgbt ...more1 aztlan17

*I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

*Be The Sea* is a solarpunk scifi set in the near future - in 2039, to be exact. We follow Wend, a marine microbiologist as they sail from the Marquesas to Hawai’i and then settle in Hilo. This book was rather slow paced, which would typically turn me off a book, but in this it just felt a relaxed, leisurely pace. If you don’t slow-paced books, I would definitely give this a chance anyway, because it really felt it fitted the book.

I loved the world building in this book. Although it’s set in our world, it’s set in a part of the world I’m completely unfamiliar with, and in this book the world has changed a lot in 15 years. Although a lot of damage had been suffered through the climate crisis, the world was also finally starting to change for the better.

I also really enjoyed most of the characters in this book. My favourites were Aljon and Matt, but almost all of them were people I’d love to be friends with. Personally, I found both Viola and Shelly very frustrating, especially Shelly and her combativeness whenever she even slightly disagreed with someone, but overall the character cast was really lovely.

This book was also incredibly inclusive. The characters have a wide variety of sexualities, genders, relationship styles and other identities, and the communities shown are far better at embracing the traditional ownership and knowledge of the land. It felt so soothing to see a vision of the world that accepts people how they are.

*Be The Sea* was a delightful read that I got to enjoy taking my time with, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested.1 Runalong1,116 60

Not quite my kind of read 1 Dawn VogelAuthor 144 books40

Clara Ward’s Be the Sea is an amazing sci-fi novel filled with found family, lost friends found again, stories, and dreams. Set in a world where climate change has occurred but been mitigated in places, it has a fairly cozy storyline and an eclectic cast of queer and disabled characters.

Wend, a marine scientist, barters their way onto a boat with Viola (a photographer and the boat’s owner) and her nephew Aljon (who cooks and helps out with the boat) on their way to Hawai’i. Wend is there to test a theory about dreams and birthdays, and they tells stories to Viola and Aljon to attempt to get their point across. When the group arrives in Hawai’i, they find that several events on their voyage have turned into much more than they seemed. As they reconnect with lost friends and found family, Wend and the others navigate what those events mean for their respective and joint futures.

The general storyline of Be the Sea is fairly cozy, though the repercussions of some events could be seen as having a greater impact on the world in which the characters live. However, those repercussions are not particularly prominent within the story, placing this on the cozier side of sci-fi. There are, however, a number of content warnings for the book (listed here), which are worth noting before you commit to this book.

If you enjoy optimistic stories that take into account the realities of our world but present innovative solutions, you’ll enjoy Be the Sea.

The publisher provided me with an advance copy of this novel for review consideration. Sarah Elizabítch57 1 follower

Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for the arc! Ho boy, I really wish I had more positive things to say about this book, but honestly, it missed the mark for me and I had to DNF.

The first act was incredibly boring and was doing so much telling, and telling, and telling. It was monotonous for me. When it wasn’t going on and on about the workings of a boat (yawn) or some other mechanical stuff (also yawn), it was constantly driveling out extremely shallow discourse on neurodivergency, the queer spectrum, and other pc topics. I myself am a neurodivergent woman, and I love to read diversely in general. I also have many other things in common with these people, but if I wanted a book about neurodivergent, gender, sexuality, and other studies I’d pick one up. In other words, these topics seemed forced. They don’t blend in with the story (in which there is barely any). The first act of this book is just constantly rehashing the same talking points and topics. It became redundant and eye-roll worthy. It didn’t help that I already couldn’t connect to the characters, despite having many things in common with them. Unfortunately, I heard that these issues continue for the rest of the book. I had to put it down. I just couldn’t anymore. Rory49 10

If I could describe Be the Sea in just two words they would be: lyrical prose. This book is beautifully written, and while I didn't connect with the story as much as I wanted to, the writing was beyond my expectations as it flowed through me and wrapped itself around me the water that our MC, Wend, loves so much. If you want a brilliant brain-tickle when it comes to prose, look no further.

Beyond that of the gorgeous writing, Ward sets the tone of Be the Sea as a (Dare I use this term?) cozy, solar-punk science-fiction. Wend is the opposite of so many MCs being a young soul in an old body, and it's honestly extremely refreshing to read a book with this point of view. The novel is set aboard scientist Viola's zero-emissions ship, a person that Wend admires greatly and happens to share a birthday with, as they traverse the Pacific ocean. As they sail, they tell each other stories of their youth to pass the time, and Wend hopes they can find a deeper connection with Viola and her cousin, Aljon, as they go.

Be the Sea is a wonderfully cozy story that will have you speculating on how our dreams, actions, and relationships impact us and intertwine with each other as we grow. Jasmine ShouseAuthor 6 books81

Full of sea-based magical realism and sci fi elements, reading this felt swimming: sometimes floating, sometimes speed swimming.

Wend (neurodivergent and nonbinary) takes a chance by offering themself as crew on Viola's boat in exchange for Wend's stories. With all too real dreams, Wend, Viola, and Aljon make their way to Hawai'i, where Wend rediscovers personal connections and uncovers a mystery.

I absolutely love the way neurodivergence was represented in this novel. It's not often I read about older protagonists so having the majority of the cast in their 60s was a really great change too. The queer rep was also fantastic with a pan and nonbinary MC and supporting characters that are ace, Sapphic, and poly. The pacing was a little rough with the beginning being very slow which made the last third feel jam-packed by comparison. However, I LOVED the found family aspect and thoroughly enjoyed the magical realism in the flying/swimming dreams. 1 oli99 3

Received this from NetGalley
I really wanted to love this book in its entirety but it often felt it was dragging on a bit. There were definitely elements of the novel that I enjoyed the consistent Pacific Islander theming and the characters actually being Islanders is half the reason I picked up this novel. The other half being the sea exploration theming.

I loved the actual action scenes and many of the heart to heart scenes but there was occasionally just too much information dumping. I love a good info dump as much as the next person but at some points it was hard to keep up with.

Wend, Viola and Aljon will have my heart though, the characters are so relatable and Ward's writing really made me feel for a lot of the characters especially with their backstories and certain eveents that go in the story but I won't go into too much! You'll have to read this story yourself!advanced-reader-copy Milele232 7

This book explores in many ways the interface between humans and the sea . Beyond physical utilization or misuse, the ocean has countless emotional resonances. Interfaces between humans, bad and good, accidental or intentional, are just as much a focus, and the two themes are inter-related in a structural way. The result is a book that while at times has a 'cozy' feel, at times is fast-paced and plot driven, but this holds tightly together. The slower times help the reader understand the characters but their reactions under pressure in the rush to a conclusion build on and deepen that understanding.

Be the Sea is deeply sensitive, inclusive and unique.books-i-own-and-have fantasy-and-sci-fi recommended-to-me SiavahdaAuthor 2 books166

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