Dwellers in the Deep

by Fenton Wood

An epic story of saturation diving, aliens, aerospace, rogue AI, open-source fusion power, and crashing the gold market!

Jack MacKeltrie is a man without a country.

He's about to be a man without a ship, unless he can find a source of radioactivity to replenish the fuel for his fusion reactor.

He's not a spaceman. He's a salvage diver on Earth, trying to make a living in the face of fuel embargoes and restricted technology. He has his own ship, a hand-picked crew, and a jailbroken AI who knows where the bodies are buried.

Now he's two miles deep in a stranded bathyscaphe, hallucinating and half-dead, chasing after a sunken nuclear submarine.

But he's not alone. In the remotest part of the Pacific, a dead zone without heat, light, warmth, oxygen, or nutrients, the last survivors of a shattered planet are building a ship of their own.

They've got a reanimated German rocket scientist, and a century's worth of shipwrecks and discarded spacecraft scavenged from the ocean floor. All they need is a man with the right skills ...

Reminiscent of the classic Heinlein juveniles, the story begins with Jack's teen years and follows his career as he overcomes the challenges of becoming a commercial diver and welder, working his way up from abject poverty in the wilds of Minnesota. The main plot begins about halfway through, as the story suddenly becomes a lot stranger but still grounded in scientific plausibility.Suitable for ages 9 and up. Contains mild profanity.

Genres: Science Fiction

418 pages, Paperback

Published April 27, 2026

Reviews

[Frederick Heimbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant imagination set free to chase its wildest dreams. There's so much packed in this yarn it'll curl your hair. Another sci-fi story well executed.

[Ryan M Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hacking Galileo was one of my best reads of last year. This one is even better. Lots of technical details throughout and a compelling story from start to finish. There's not much to compare it to - it's kind of in a league of its own - but if you liked Fenton's other books you'll love this one.

[Tamahome · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of short chapters and tons of science details. Can seem more like a magazine article than a novel at times. The book doesn't really match the cover since the main character never goes into space. There are aliens in the ocean though, and powerful AI's in the near future, and lets say there's some connection to outer space eventually. I'm surprised there aren't more reviews. I wonder what Andy Weir's editor would do with this.

[Eric Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wood always achieves this kind of sublime, spare weirdness. If you liked the Yankee Radio stories, or Hacking Galileo or Nightland Racer, you'll find that same style and blend of hard science fiction and the surreal.