Review: FATHOMFOLK by Eliza Chan

Publisher: Orbit Books
Page Count: 413
Release Date: February 27th, 2024
Series: DROWNED WORLD, Book 1
Rating: 4/5 Stars – Really Liked It!

The city of Tiankawi is home to both humans and the fathomfolk – myriad magical species who can live both on land and underwater. But humans and fathomfolk do not share the city equally; the fathomfolk are tolerated at best, second-class citizens mistrusted for their magic and strangeness. But the fathomfolk have grievances of their own: the pollution from human inventions is poisoning the water, spreading deadly infections to those who swim in it. With tensions between humans and fathomfolk rising, one newly immigrated water dragon may be poised to send the entire city up in flames.

FATHOMFOLK is an immersive tale in a fantastical city, one that explores the many hardships that face first and second generation immigrants. It’s not a subtle metaphor, but it is an effective one, as the fathomfolk who literally keep the city running face discrimination at every turn. Many fathomfolk are simply trying to escape civil war or collapsing ecosystems, but are met with mistrust and forced to wear a device that suppresses their magic.

We follow three characters in this story: Mira, a half-siren born and raised in Tiankawi who is a captain in the city guard; Nami, a young water dragon exiled from her home who finds herself drawn to radical activists; and Cordelia, a sea witch manipulating both sides of the human/fathomfolk tensions to further her own gains. Nami is likely to be a love or hate character. She’s extremely naive and easily swayed by rhetoric, but to me seemed emblematic of young people who believe that dramatic action is needed to make change happen sooner; that belief in turn can make such people easy to radicalize. Mira, on the other hand, is an advocate for change over time, of keeping your head down and being a model citizen to show that the fathomfolk are an asset, not a great evil. Neither character is wholly right, but the tension between their two ideologies and those ideologies work (or more often, don’t work) is what drives the story.

A few other characters could have used a bit more fleshing out. I loved Cordelia’s conniving nature and the way she manipulated through both magic and more mundane political pressure to make things happen. That being said, I wasn’t fully sure what her endgame was, especially given the amount of chaos she enables that harms both human and fathomfolk alike. (Her storyline also pulls heavily from Disney’s THE LITTLE MERMAID, which I found a bit distracting given how much of the rest of the world felt original.) There was also a secondary character that was introduced in a manner that made me sure they were going to become an important player, so I was perplexed when they ended up doing nothing vital in the story.

The world-building of FATHOMFOLK is certainly overwhelming at first, as you are thrown into a literal and metaphorical deep end. It’s daunting trying to follow all the different water species pulled from different mythologies, understanding their abilities, how they interact with water, how some can shift to live on land, etc. But after a bit I found my rhythm and came to really enjoy this city. It seems to be pulling from a 1920s era Hong Kong or San Francisco, busy and crowded and full of different cultural pockets. While I wish I’d gotten a little more information about the world at large, the focus here is very much on this one slice of the world.

Real quickly, I need to address one of the romance subplots in this book because I’ve seen a few reviews comment about it. Mainly, those reviews complain that the relationship is toxic and icky and feels like grooming and is a terrible romance and THAT IS THE POINT. The romance in question is not meant to be a grand love story or aspirational or something that is supposed to set your heart aflutter. To me, it was very clear that the author is fully aware that one character is manipulating the other to further their own agenda. It’s fine if that kind of storyline is not something you’re interested in, but this subplot should not be mistaken for the author’s romanticizing of that kind of behavior.

Overall, I had a really enjoyable time with FATHOMFOLK. While it did take me a minute to get acclimated to the world, I found it an engrossing story of people just trying to get by in a city that actively works against them. I will definitely be back with part two of this duology releases in the coming months.

Note: I was provided a free ARC by the publisher in exchange for my fair and honest review.