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Alexander Key definitely has a ‘type’, and this book is straight in his favored genre. Boy’s adventure with a super-powered (generally psionic) protagonist.

Here we have a post-apocalyptic setting, where destructive weapons have reshaped the earth, drowning almost all the land, and causing new, dangerous, weather patterns. All that’s left are a handful of islands; former mountain tops….

Only a small population of humanity is left, and simple survival is the first order of business. This is an action novel, so we don’t get a lot of time with that, but lots of incidental bits are brought up in the course of other things, which is very good for structure and pacing.

Instead, we get an action-focused novel with the New Order threatening the entire cast of characters with a totalitarian regime. Key goes for a very stark and unkind representation here, no pulled punches on the cost of unfeeling conformity and the urge to make everything fit into your boxes without room for freedom of expression. Even so, in the middle of the book Briac does point out the necessity of much of what they did, making sure a partial manufacturing center (part of it, too, is under the waves) stays operating to feed a decent population.

So… it’s often a bit heavy handed, for instance the West being a stand in for, well… and The Peace Union for the communist bloc. There’s lots of, effectively, psionics on the good side of the cast. But, its a good YA adventure novel, and while not Key’s best, it did inspire Hayao Miyazaki, which is great right there.