How Bad Could Things Get? Chris McKinney's WATER CITY Trilogy Tests the Answers

Climate collapse, floods and fires, political divisions, wars and devastation—in America, it's not uncommon for people to feel like it's going to take a great leader to get us safely out of these very hard times.

But that's not where Chris McKinney heads in his WATER CITY trilogy. After the earlier Midnight, Water City and then Eventide, Water City, where a synesthetic former detective's been tackling the crushing issues around him in an effort to save his too-talented daughter from being coopted, McKinney and Soho Press collaborate to move rapidly into the last volume: SUNSET, WATER CITY. 

In a radical switch from the nameless not-quite-hero of the first two books, the third one (set in the year 2160) spins from the point of view of that talented daughter, Ascalon, whose experience at age 19 includes both armed resistance and a lot of forms of tech destruction. Battling both her US neighbors in the toxic lands of the Great Leachate, and the overwhelming technological dominance of the near-deity Akira Kimura, Ascalon's courage and defiance take root in her anger at her father, as well as her love for her vanishing family.

As I read SUNSET, WATER CITY a second time, I thought a lot about trilogies. The one I grew up with was The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien); then there's the Hunger Games trilogy. But also there's a trilogy at the start of Ursula Leguin's Wizard of Earthsea books: A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan (1970), and The Farthest Shore (1972). And I'm one volume into reading Cixin Xiu's formidable Chinese space trilogy right now.

On reflection, I wonder whether world-building requires a bigger canvas than a single book. Building the pressure points needs to extend beyond that first volume, and the most intriguing and memorable characters, whether heroic (Frodo, Katniss) or antiheroic (Ascalon's father and Akira Kimura herself), need years to mature and deepen, in order to provide a meaningful resolution to another world's issues. And maybe that's especially true when, as with McKinney's trilogy, the issues are so clearly unsolved in our own present time: environment, antagonism, excessive power.

So my second reading of SUNSET, WATER CITY looked for how McKinney (who by the way is a native Hawai'ian with ethnic threads that are Korean, Chinese, and Scottish) asserted the solutions to the trilogy, not just to one book. What I found is that this third volume is as much a statement of human value as it is an adventure. Ascalon asks herself, "It this what it always is to be with other people? To not understand each other? To harbor trauma? To bottle anxiety, probe, and flinch before another even responds? I feel lost." When she decides to tackle the bigger issues of her world, she's aware that it's also an escape from this inner lack of certainty; "I will try to bury my grief and rage for now. I will try to fix this. I will take my father and Jon6J to Ascalon Lee. It's time to return to Water City."

A return to Water City demands unusual physical capacities, and many will feel especially strange to "mainlanders" reading the series -- but less so to those who live with islands and oceans. Over time, the presence of this trilogy and the inevitable film versions to follow may bring Ascalon's adaptations to some level of expected adaptation, like Frodo's interaction with the Ring. But expect a first reading to feel uncomfortable; expect to utilize your capacity to "listen" and to "suspend disbelief." Ascalon's discoveries, at first framed in her perceptions of her father, are worth reaching: "He should've known that it's impossible to sleep to the future to change the future. One needs to be awake to change that."

Without spoiling the plot, I can say that Ascalon clarifies her own motives as she battles for what she feels is right. Unlike the three leaders around her -- her father, her mentor Ascalon Lee, and the overwhelming Akira Kimura -- this young woman intends to protect her world, if she can just figure out which elements of it merit that protection.

In a time of chaos and pain, it may seem counterproductive to dip into a trilogy that proposes that Earth's issues are so extreme that only interplanetary settlement and technological unity will pull us through. But McKinney's narrative is so compelling that it's well worth entering his speculative world and his painfully maturing protagonists. Besides ... isn't it time, after so many decades, to step beyond Frodo and Gandalf's solution for Middle Earth?

[For some extra insight from the author, look here: https://www.watercitytrilogy.com/building-water-city.]

Wait, What Century Are We In? Radical New Fiction from Sujata Massey, Mick Herron, Chris McKinney

Book recommendations! My recent reading has been all over the timeline and globe, thanks to three summer releases from the Soho Crime imprint of Soho Press. NOTE the release dates, please, for ordering and pre-ordering. I'm not exaggerating when I say that each of these books has given me insight into the mastery of important stories, as well as intrigue and adventure.

1920s India, Courtrooms and Crime (JULY Release)

The 1920s gave women freedom of dress, dance, and hair in the United States, as well as the vote -- but social change moved differently in India then, and Perveen Mistry, British-trained daughter in a Bombay law firm, can't find her footing. She should be recognized as a solicitor. But when she rashly tries to stand up before a judge on behalf of another family's injured servant, her credential aren't good enough: "I completed the bachelor of civil law education at Oxford University. Following this, I clerked at Freshfields which granted me the rank of solicitor." The judge traps her with an inquiry into her grades on the law exams, which of course she hasn't taken. "Female law students were not permitted ..." A very embarrassing move by the judge banishes Perveen from the courtroom, threatens the liberty of the woman she'd tried to rescue, and sweeps her career faux pas onto the gossip mill.

Death, poisonings, and legal manipulations with the upper-class that used to hire that now-injured servant as a baby nurse escalate the crises around her. Despite its supposedly sedate setting, THE MISTRESS OF BHATIA HOUSE turns into a page-turner of betrayal, dishonesty, and by necessity, bravery, as Perveen risks her most important relationship—with her powerful father—for the sake of her surging principles. 

Followers of the series (this is the fourth of Massey's 1920s India mysteries) will get little more of the romance between Perveen and the British man who's won her heart in earlier books. But oh, what an education in customs, cruelty, and courage!

Cold War Refresher for Awkward Spies (SEPTEMBER Release)

The "Slow Horses" Apple TV series has brought fresh attention to Mick Herron's addictive espionage series set "today" (more or less) in London. Although THE SECRET HOURS is billed as a stand-alone, it's slowly revealed to be a Cold War back story to some of the most compelling characters of the book series. Discovering which of the ardent young people from 1994 Berlin match the partners in the current investigation of MI5 is half the fun. When they start to key into the Slough House itself, though, forget putting the book down. As the unnamed "First Desk" at MI5 refects, "You never know. You never know when treachery might strike, or from what quarter. ... What we do in the secret hours reveals who we really are." Soon various forms of skullduggery, including betrayal and murder, rack up: "Killings happen It is not a matter of whether this is true or not; it is more a matter of whether it is justifiable." 

Herron's crime novels feature sharp threads of wry humor, and every triumph gained by his spooks and "joes" come with a huge serving of regret. THE SECRET HOURS gains double poignancy if you've been reading the earlier titles (I actually re-read them, almost annually). But if you're a novice, plunge in anyway. Odds are you'll then email the local librarian for earlier books in the series, and work your way back to this 2023 release with delight and escalating appreciation.

What Could Go Wrong With Artificial Intelligence That Hates You? (JULY Release)

My grown sons speak Asian languages—it's unusual for Vermonters, granted, and they've been given quite a few side-eyes in Asia for the unexpected sounds coming from their mouths. I think that enhances the fascination I find in Chris McKinney's "Water City" series, with its multiple scenes of Japan and more. McKinney, despite the sound of his surname, is native-born Hawai'ian and his ocean savvy formed the fabric for the first book in the future-utopia neo-noir of Midnight, Water City. With EVENTIDE, WATER CITY,  the threads of manipulation that might have been excused on the part of world-saving science in the first book start to bite ... and draw blood.

McKinney's protagonist, whose name we still don't have, served as risk-it-all detective in the first book. But now he's retired, letting his wife do the career climbing, and instead he tackles the daunting task of teaching and then keeping up with his daughter Ascalon—who, like her father, is a synesthete, someone whose perceptions arrive in the form of colors, sounds, even messages that don't mirror everyday reality. 

The idyllic life of water exploration with Ascalon ruptures under the intrusion of the potent and often cruel (needlessly? or correctly?) Ascalon Lee. By the time this strange villain-rescuer is captive, the roles of father, detective, bounty hunter, and world-saving hero have whirled into enormous confusion for McKinney's narrator: "She's got her gun raised to my belly. This should be easy. So easy. How many times have I pulled a trigger before? Then a single thought floods my mind. Anger. Rage. It's this emotion that makes it possible for me to make everything all about me. The thought melts and oozes into a deep self-loathing." There, bet you didn't see that coming — but if you savor well-written noir, you should have guessed. 

In this year of ChatGPT and other mixed monsters, the role of artificial intelligence in McKinney's series can't avoid a mix of promise and menace. Keep your eye on both Ascalon and Ascalon Lee, to gather hints of where this frankly terrifying series is headed for its finale, as the last of the trilogy, Sunset, Water City, will release in December.

I'd like to send all three of the books to my Congressional delegation. If only I thought they'd read them. Well, at least we the voters can be forewarned.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.