DROWNING EARTH

In Willson’s thriller, set about 30 years in the future, the crew of a highly advanced submarine battles for survival on the ocean floor as the world above teeters on the brink of nuclear annihilation.

The HMS Bancroft’s Capt. Kel Williams knows every inch of the submarine she commands, because she helped design it. This intimate knowledge is put to the test when she and the crew are sent on a mission to the bottom of the Mariana Trench to investigate the presence of an untapped source of biomass, which holds the potential to cure diseases and form the foundation of new crops. Every nation on the war-torn planet wants it, and the Bancroft races to collect it before it falls into the hands of an alliance of Chinese and Russian communists. As villainous pursuers rapidly close in topside, Kel makes a command decision to take the Bancroft deeper into the trench’s vast network of undersea caverns. There, Kel and the crew realize there’s no easy way out. They’re unable to back out the way they entered, and they can’t use a high-powered torpedo to create a new escape route for fear of collapsing the caverns. Out of options, Kel orders the crew to dive even deeper. Willson ratchets up the danger the deeper they go, and as the super-sophisticated Bancroft begins to strain under the enormous pressures, new threats to the crew’s integrity spring up. Close-quarter violence breaks out, described in sometimes-brutal detail. In the prologue, Willson also unexpectedly introduces a pair of celestial entities who oversee and comment on the proceedings, known as “the Builders.” One, named Willow, has a vested interest in the tiny humans fighting for survival at the bottom of the ocean, but her fellow god, Helios, fumes over her steadfast devotion: “What do you see in this pale blue dot of yours?” Will Kel and the Bancroft escape? Will the Builders intervene? Will the planet survive? Willson takes obvious delight in keeping his readers guessing as the novel goes on.

An offbeat and unyielding undersea adventure that bubbles with tension.