n Scott Mackay's Tides, Captain Hab Miquay of the House of Cloudesley forfeits his family fortune to sail through uncharted waters and 100-foot waves, seeking only to learn what lies beyond the mountains of water. With him are Esten Pepteri, the world's most respected scientist, Pepteri's spirited sister Jara, first mate Guenard and a host of criminals plucked from the Island of Liars.
As the book opens, Hab is restless. He's been killing whales for years to support his family—his mother, Gougou; his simpleton brother, Chouc; and his older brother, Romal, who gambles, drinks all day and abuses Chouc as well as a long-suffering and beautiful wife. As far as everyone knows, the world has only one continent, Paras, which is lush and bountiful. The rest of the world consists of water, and to travel around the world requires navigation through killer tides.
When Esten shows Hab volcanic ash that can come only from another continent, Hab convinces King Parprouch to send him on a journey of discovery. This first journey ends in death and destruction. Of seven ships and seven barges to carry the King's bounty, Hab loses four ships and all seven barges. Worse, 47 men are dead, with 42 missing.
To continue his explorations, Hab must go against the 28 Rules of Formulary used to convict men of telling lies. He risks everything to set sail again.
One mutiny and many deaths later, Hab and the remains of his crew sail through 37 final killer tides and finally land on the lost continent, a treacherous, arid place populated by fish-bipeds called hoppers. Starving, the men eat the creatures, who turn out to be an intelligent species. The hoppers have weapons, and they're hell-bent on revenge. And Hab and his crew are trapped on the lost continent with no means of escape.
Verne meets Burroughs
Tides is a grand adventure wrapped in some of the oldest science fiction traditions and embellished with superb writing. Scott Mackay delivers a story in the tradition of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, Murray Leinster's The Forgotten Planet, Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot and even Waterworld (had Waterworld been a good movie, that is).
Journey to the Center of the Earth sends men into the bowels of the Earth, finding adventure, new species and new lands. In Tides, Captain Hab finds adventure, new species and new lands. As for The Forgotten Planet, its tagline is "Marooned on a World of Monsters," which could just as easily be the tagline for Tides. In The Land That Time Forgot, a submarine lands on a lost continent, where monsters roam. The similarities are a good thing, giving readers a strong dose of traditional science-fiction adventure.
The most impressive sequences in Tides are those involving water. Mackay hurls the reader through wave after wave of intense action while men battle 25 tides a night, some soaring 100 feet high, most climbing to 40 feet, while two- to three-ton chunks of ice hit the ship, while the poor first mate initiates a mutiny, only to hang himself in despair.
As for characters, Hab is far more than a typical coming-of-age adventurer. Hab seeks truth, he questions and breaks the 28 Rules of the Formulary, he befriends criminals from the Island of Liars, he battles his own demons while battling the demonic hoppers who are killing his mates.
The only drawbacks to this book are that the other characters are somewhat flat and that the ending is loosely drawn and feels tacked onto the last third of the book. As examples, the romance between Hab and the gorgeous Jara is predictable from the opening pages, and the society of the hoppers is never developed.
