Driving the Deep

Driving the Deep is a successful sequel to Suzanne Palmer’s Finder, offering a similar adventure, where the protagonist meets strange people and visits memorable places, full of all kinds of danger. The standout here is the setting, an underwater facility that is both isolated and heavily guarded.

After saving a space station and surviving meeting with a race of inscrutable aliens in Finder, Fergus Ferguson finds himself with a much more difficult task to perform at the beginning of Driving the Deep: dealing with past mistakes and apologizing to his cousin. Ferguson is a fearless man when it comes to shootouts and fighting thugs in space, but when it’s time to face his family, he shows reluctance and anxiety. But after his friends finally manage to convince him to go back to Earth and make amends, they are kidnapped, forcing Ferguson to leave Earth in search of them – now with the help of an angry detective named Zacker, who’s out for vengeance.

Much like the previous book, Driving the Deep maintains a light-hearted tone despite the violent nature of the events it depicts. This is an adventure story set in space, with Ferguson acting like a sci-fi Indiana Jones: you know the type, the lone wolf that is frequently making jokes about the dangers he’s facing while finding preposterously creative ways of getting out of them.

Ferguson’s relationship with the detective, Zacker, is the initial focus of the book. At first, Zacker believes Ferguson is part of a gang of art thieves who shot his daughter, so he tries to arrest him. The violence that ensues doesn’t make them the best of friends, but they eventually agree to form a contentious alliance: Zacker is to help Ferguson rescue his friends and, in return, the protagonist helps him catch the real art thieves.

Ferguson’s interaction with Zacker tells us a lot about him. Even though Zacker is hostile and angry, Ferguson constantly tries to defuse the situation, explain things to the detective, and calm him down. He shows he’s willing to help Zacker even if he doesn’t directly profit from it – on the contrary, dispatching the detective would have made his life much easier. He helps Zacker because it’s the right thing to do. In other words, Ferguson is a good guy, a man who rejects violence whenever possible, even if it makes things more complicated for him.

The lighthearted tone of the narrative is mostly built by the humorous banter between the characters, who always have a sharp remark up their sleeve, especially when it comes to making fun of Ferguson. Usually, the jokes revolve around his bad luck, the dangers he’s facing, his unorthodox methods (a euphemism for improvisation), or his lack of prowess in some areas. Even the AIs Ferguson comes in contact with have some witty words for him, including the one that commands his ship, the Venetian Sword. When Ferguson is debating whether taking Zacker with him to space is a bad idea or a horrible one, this is how the Venetian’s Sword AI gives their advice:

“In the time we have been associated, it has been clear to me that your problem-solving methodology works best when you take the most difficult and inobvious path in front of you. I cannot speak to why this should work, but it does seem to be your ‘thing’.”

The protagonist’s relationship with AIs is a big point in the book, as Ferguson again shows his kind heart by treating them like people. He asks their name, wants to hear their opinions, and even gives them the power to decide matters that also concern their fate. Zacker seems to have a completely different opinion on AIs – a more hostile, prejudiced one – but this point is, unfortunately, forgotten by the narrative.

The biggest problem of Driving the Deep is precisely the fact that it sidelines the detective as soon as Ferguson travels to the novel’s main setting: the underwater station in a place called the Deep. Zacker doesn’t come along and, since the book focalizes on Ferguson, never leaving his side, this means that the detective disappears from most of the story. This makes the initial focus on him seem unwarranted: in the end, Zacker is more of a loose end that must be tied than a crucial player in the story.

The Deep is the star of the novel. This underwater environment is framed as claustrophobic and oppressive by the characters. The first day Ferguson arrives there – he infiltrates the station by getting a job as a driver –, people are quick to point him in the direction of the station’s psychologist, who basically just offers him a drink and some ice cream. The impenetrable darkness that surrounds everyone seems to be the most pressing cause of unease: when driving the Deep, pilots have no point of reference visually, they see no signs of life when looking outside, no source of light. Even Ferguson, who is accustomed to the feeling of being in outer space, gets unnerved by it.

“Half an hour into the trip, the dark started to get under his skin again. It felt like he wasn’t moving, was held against his will. The progress of the little arrow on his screen was scant proof. Even in space, where movement was microscopic compared to the distances between stars, there were stars. Even in the tangled, inside-out mess of jump space, if you dared risk a look, there was movement.”

The Deep stands in a strange liminal space between being a horror setting and the lair of a James Bond villain. On the one hand, it’s oppressive and mysterious, its darkness capable of concealing any sort of danger or terror, naturally driving men to madness. On the other hand, it’s that kind of isolated eccentric facility, filled with incompetent thugs, that 007 always has to infiltrate during his missions. Ferguson even has his own gadget, brilliantly named “confuddler”, which, like any good gadget, works much like a Sonic Screwdriver, doing whatever the plot needs it to do.

Unfortunately, however, the book doesn’t spend that much time in the Deep. This is a setting that should have been savored, not rushed through, so that the claustrophobia could really sink in. But Driving the Deep is a fast-paced novel that doesn’t allow its setting and characters the needed time to breathe. The people Ferguson meets are one note: appearances are not deceiving in Driving the Deep and if a character appears hostile and dangerous, they are. If a character appears witty and smart, they are. There are no surprises to be found here.

There are also some occasional problems with artificial exposition. A character who knows Ferguson is a pilot, for example, asks him, “you understand the difference between drones and ships?” Well, just imagine if Ferguson answers that he doesn’t, he shouldn’t be allowed to fly a single thing and they are all in incredible danger. The question, then, is only asked so the explanation can be offered to the reader, who doesn’t have the same obligation to know this information.

Nonetheless, Driving the Deep is still a competent follow-up to Finder, solidifying Suzanne Palmer’s series as a reliable source of simple, yet engaging sci-fi adventures.

October 07, 2022.