The Abyss Surrounds Us
A pirate captive trains a sea monster in a morally gray future.
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In a future where the NeoPacific is treacherous, genetically engineered sea monsters called Reckoners are bred and trained by family businesses to protect ships from pirates. The Abyss Surrounds Us, a 2016 young adult science fiction novel by Emily Skrutskie and the first in a duology, follows Cassandra Leung.
During a dawn check of her Reckoner, Durga, Cas notices it making strange noises. Her mother, the lead biologist, dismisses her concerns as pre-mission nerves. Cas boards the luxury cruise ship Nereid to protect it with Durga.
Plot
As days pass, Durga’s condition worsens—violent tremors and blood in the water—but the captain refuses to turn back. A pirate ship approaches, and Durga, too weak to fight, is killed before Cas. Pirates board the Nereid, murder the crew, and drag Cas aboard the pirate ship Minnow.
After a suicide attempt, Cas is brought before the notorious pirate captain Santa Elena, who presents her with a baby Reckoner still in an embryonic sac. Cas must train it for the Minnow to use against other Reckoners. She becomes the ward of Swift, one of Santa Elena’s lieutenants, tasked with ensuring Cas raises the pup and adapts to pirate culture—an arrangement neither wants.
Cas successfully births the Reckoner pup from its sac, naming it Bao. She spends time on the training deck with Bao or by Swift’s side, often locked in the deck together. The constant threat of violence from other pirates makes Cas and Swift inseparable.
As Bao reaches adolescence, Cas bonds with Swift and the other lieutenants, even riding Bao alongside the Minnow. Swift helps train Bao using an LED beacon on Cas’ wrist. Cas begins to see Swift as both captor and guardian, but her feelings are complicated when she witnesses Swift raid a civilian ship, reminding her of their shared culpability in violence.
Their relationship stagnates until Swift takes Cas to a combat arena, where Cas wins a fight and gains acceptance among the pirates. Later, Cas discovers a crew member, Code, attempting to poison Bao. Swift tackles him, and they subdue him. Code’s motive was to force Santa Elena to kill Cas and Swift, securing his place as successor.
Shaken, Cas and Swift spend the night together. Code is killed by Santa Elena and fed to Bao after death, horrifying Cas. Swift calls her a hypocrite for being appalled by this but not by the thousands killed by Reckoner Justice.
Background
The novel follows Cassandra Leung, a Reckoner trainer whose monster Durga is killed during a pirate attack. She is taken aboard the pirate ship Minnow and forced to raise a baby Reckoner, named Bao, for the pirate captain Santa Elena. Cas is placed under the watch of Swift, a lieutenant, and the two develop a complex relationship marked by captivity, mutual care, and eventual romance.
Cas successfully raises Bao to adolescence, and the crew accepts her after she bests Swift in a fight. A crew member named Code attempts to poison Bao to frame Cas and Swift, but is killed by Santa Elena and fed to Bao after death. Cas later learns that Swift was the one who poisoned Durga, a betrayal that leaves Cas numb. She frees Bao and officially joins the Minnow's crew as a pirate.
A World Built on Engineered Tides
The NeoPacific ocean anchors the novel's setting, a treacherous waterway where vessels require paid escort to survive the crossing. The Reckoners—genetically engineered sea monsters bred and trained by families like Cas's—function as living guardians, their trainers acting as contracted protectors for ships in transit. Cas's mother holds the position of lead biologist on the Reckoner program, meaning the family business is inseparable from the creatures' very development.
The luxury cruise Nereid embodies the civilian economy that depends on Reckoner protection, while the pirate vessel Minnow operates as its dark mirror, a raiding ship that preys on exactly those convoys. The Flotilla, a floating city in the NeoPacific, serves as a neutral port where the Minnow can dock and where Swift maintains ties to her family's shack. The world blends near-future biotechnology with a maritime economy in which engineered creatures are simultaneously weapons, economic infrastructure, and moral flashpoints, and where piracy remains a viable livelihood for families locked in poverty.
Cassandra's Descent and Reinvention
Cassandra Leung opens the novel performing a dawn health check on her Reckoner, Durga, just before the creature's first paid escort mission aboard the luxury cruise Nereid. Her mother, the program's lead biologist, waves off Cas's unease about Durga's strange noises as simple pre-mission nerves. That dismissal proves catastrophic: Durga deteriorates on the Nereid, its body convulsing and bleeding into the water, and is ultimately killed by pirates when it is too weak to defend the ship.
Cas is dragged aboard the Minnow, attempts suicide, and is then handed a Reckoner pup sealed in an embryonic sac by captain Santa Elana, who demands she raise it as a weapon. Over the following weeks Cas transforms from victim into active participant in pirate life—birthing the pup and naming it Bao, training it on the deck, besting Swift in the Slew combat arena, and making Bao combat-ready in a single day to repel a mainland military assault. Her arc is one of forced adaptation, where survival compels her to absorb the very culture that destroyed her first life.
Captor, Guardian, and the Space Between
Swift is assigned as Cas's ward-keeper on the Minnow, charged with ensuring the captive successfully raises the Reckoner pup and integrates into the ship's culture—an arrangement neither woman finds comfortable. Their bond deepens through shared danger: Cas is perpetually at risk of being murdered or assaulted by other pirates whenever Swift is absent, making their constant proximity a mutual survival strategy rather than mere affection. They grow inseparable, training Bao side by side, sharing a laugh when Cas saves Swift from being mauled during a feeding, and spending a quiet night in each other's company after the Code incident. Yet the relationship is perpetually shadowed by moral conflict.
Cas witnesses Swift participating in a raid on a civilian ship, and the two fall into weeks of silence. Swift later confronts Cas about her selective horror—appalled by Code's death at Bao's jaws yet untroubled by the thousands killed under Reckoner Justice. In their final fight, Swift admits she cares deeply for Cas, an admission Cas rejects because of the inherent power imbalance between captor and captive.
Who Gets to Define Justice
The novel relentlessly interrogates who is authorized to define justice in a world where engineered creatures are deployed as state-sanctioned weapons. Cas's mother's Reckoner program operates under the banner of Reckoner Justice, a system responsible for thousands of deaths—a fact Swift weaponizes in her confrontation with Cas. The pirate Minnow, meanwhile, raids civilian ships and murders crews, yet its members frame their violence as survival, the only livelihood available to families trapped in poverty, as Swift's role as her family's breadwinner illustrates. Cas herself must grapple with killing: she shoots down quad-copter pilots during the mainland assault and, after initial distress, concludes the act was necessary.
The execution of Code—fed alive to Bao—serves as the novel's cruelest moral test, forcing Cas to confront the selectivity of her own horror. Santa Elana's political machinations, including her plan to use Cas and Swift as pawns in a succession struggle, further blur the line between villain and survivor. The Abyss Surrounds Us refuses to let its protagonist occupy a clean moral position.
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Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: The Abyss Surrounds Us (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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