The War Beneath

The Rise of Oceania #1

by Timothy S. Johnston

Living and working underwater can be a dangerous thing.



First the bulkheads sweat, then there’s a trickle of water, and then in an instant you’re gone. The only thing left is a bloody pulp in the dark water and crushed bone fragments on the seafloor.



And you can’t bolt to the surface in an emergency . . . The Bends will get you.



But that’s not the worst. When you’re living underwater and also working as a spy for your city, that’s when things get really dangerous.



Truman McClusky has been out of the intelligence business for years, working the kelp farms and helping his city Trieste flourish on the shallow continental shelf just off the coast of Florida. Until his former partner shows up, that is, steals a piece of valuable new technology and makes a mad dash into the Atlantic. Before he knows it, Mac ends up back in the game, chasing the spy to not only recapture the tech, but to kill his former friend.



But when he learns the grim truth behind the theft, it sends his stable life into turmoil and plunges him into an even deadlier mission: evade the submarines of hostile foreign powers, escape assassins, and forge through the world’s oceans at breakneck pace on a daring quest to survive, with more lethal secrets than he thought possible in his pocket.



The future of the city depends on McClusky . . . if he can make it back home.

Genres: Thriller

350 pages, Paperback

Published November 20, 2018

About the author

Timothy S. Johnston is a lifelong fan of techno-thrillers and science-fiction thrillers in both print and film. His greatest desire is to contribute to the genre which has given him so much over the past four decades. He wishes he could personally thank every novelist, screenwriter, filmmaker, director and actor who has ever inspired him to tell great stories. He has been an educator for nearly twenty years and a writer for twenty-five. Timothy is the author of The Furnace, The Freezer, and The Void. He lives on planet Earth, but he dreams of the stars.

Visit www.timothysjohnston.com to register for news alerts, read reviews and learn more about his current and upcoming techno-thrillers. Follow Timothy on Facebook and Twitter @TSJ_Author.

Reviews

[Susie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2 stars. I liked the premise. The battles and descriptions were interesting at the beginning but it got really technical and it was a lot of the same. But what really bothered me the most were the interactions and relationships between the characters. It felt off, somehow. A bit stilted. And very odd. But still liked the story.

[Peter Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excited to read the next in the series!

[Kelly]

Timothy S. Johnston knows how to write thrillers set in tight spaces, so the setting for his latest novel, ‘The War Beneath’, may seem a little expansive, until you consider just how tight a space the ocean can really be. Despite the fact water covers over seventy percent of our planet, it’s actually a rather closed environment.

Set in a new world beneath our oceans, this story follows reluctant revolutionary, Truman ‘Mac’ McClusky on a quest to prevent war. The book begins with a quick history lesson, detailing the genesis of underwater living and the various cities that now hug the ocean floor.

Basically, as the water level rose, swallowing islands and dissolving continental shorelines, several countries established new cities under the sea. These cities spawned new industries as the sea floor is mined for gas and other necessary commodities. The cities, themselves, are home to a new breed of pioneer. Living there requires extraordinary commitment. Once at that depth, it would take approximately a hundred hours of decompression to return to the surface.

Travel between the cities is limited only by the vast distances of the oceans, but not as safe as easy as you might think. Vessels are also pressurised to a certain depth. Going deeper adds stress to the hull. There are some very deep trenches in the ocean. Very deep. Surfacing isn’t an option neither, because of the decompression issue. See what I mean about tight spaces and we haven’t even talked about the living spaces inside the underwater cities.

Onto the story. Mac retired from the intelligence business several years ago to live a quieter and, what he believes is a more productive life, helping his underwater city, set just off the coast of Florida, thrive. But when his former partner steals a valuable piece of technology, Mac is drawn back into the game of secret politics, only to find out the stakes are much higher than before.

The governing bodies of the underwater cities want independence from the countries above the surface, meaning a war they can’t win. There are only a handful of underwater cities and the submarine naval forces of Earth’s most powerful nations could crush them in minutes. The stolen technology could change the outcome of this war, though, and when Mac learns what it is, he has to decide between two seemingly impossible outcomes.

‘The War Beneath’ is a thrill ride from beginning to end, with several heart-stopping scenes that clearly illustrate the boundaries of underwater living and warfare. The technology is well researched and stretched to the limit as Johnston tests every boundary, throwing Mac into many seemingly possible situations. Sometimes I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough as I waited for Mac and his team to figure out how to live through their next quandary.

The environment is well-described to the point where I nearly had to hold my breath for the entire book, something I find myself doing in underwater scenes in movies. The politics are sharp and twisty. What I really enjoyed about the story, though, was the evolution of Mac, himself.

The plot challenges his past, present and future and he has to decide not only who he is, but who he wants to be. He has to balance his wish for a safe future for his city against the future of all the underwater cities and he has the legacy of his father and his relationship with his sister to consider as well.

All in all, I really enjoyed ‘The War Beneath.’ This novel is everything I’ve come to expect from Timothy S. Johnston and a promising start to a new series and one I look forward to following.

Reviewed for SFcrowsnest,

[αλήθεια · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I was not impressed. What really was the plot except to get this mysterious "technology that can change everything"?? Halfway through this kinda slow-paced book, they get the technology ... like now what?? The main character, Mac, was so stale. Oh, he was tortured seven years ago. He says that in passing a couple times with zero emotion..."it was the worst time in my life". Ok... and his (former?) best friend, Johnny, who is the one who tortured Mac, is catalyst to the (nonexistant) plot. Mac like immidiately forgives him, despite half-heartedly promising revenge. Overall, this was a mess in the way that there was no reason to this.

I will say all the underwater stuff was interesting. The environments and underwater cities and stuff was cool. And I can't say the author didn't research his crap. The research and science-y stuff was solid.

Honestly what even was Mac and Kat's relationship. She's a special snowflake who gets all mad when the bad men steaw hew stuff:( It's like they hated each other, then the author's like "oh I don't want to write character/relationship development, so I'm going to have the mc and narrator say 'shes attractive', and call it good." Literally. She was a brat and he was like "um no" and then mac is like "oh she's hot...ATTRACTION!" and then later she kisses him once and then they go and have sex. LIke??? (it wasn't graphic) anyways, I personally didn't even finish the book because the plot wasn't enough for me to get hooked (since I wasn't ever hooked in the begininng), especially once mac and kat got the technology back

[Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's strange how little respect books about the future get. We cannot be bothered to read a novel set a hundred years in the future, even though we constantly fret about what life will be like in 2050. This presents a considerable challenge for authors: what is a writer to do when his primary obsessions involve the path of humanity into distant centuries?

To be sure, the deus ex machina has cost sci-fi writers tremendously: lazy science-fiction writers have too long relied on a "god in the machine"-type device to save their stories after they'd written themselves into a corner. Moreover, when a franchise like Star Trek introduces a miracle technology that saves the hero, it is often never mentioned again. ("Inverse phasing," anyone? How about the "universal translator?) Cheating like that causes mature readers to dismiss science fiction, and thoughtful novels about the future into which humanity is plummeting--1984, Brave New World, Slaughterhouse Five-- are few and far between. Those three titles alone give hope that the genre can be sensibly used to explore and criticize modern-day political issues and modern-day neuroses.

Luckily, some writers are picking up the gauntlet and writing intriguing futuristic novels that are more than just games of "cops and robbers" with laser guns. One such writer is Timothy S. Johnston.

The War Beneath takes place in the Earth of 2129: a world plagued by overpopulation and environmental disaster. In a desperate grab for new resources, governments turned to the oceans, and set up undersea colony cities to exploit the untapped minerals under the sea bed. These colonies gradually grew into sprawling undersea metropolises; over ten million people live and work on the ocean floor on a permanent basis. Johnston cleverly creates a twist in his futuristic zeitgeist: over the decades, the colony workers have started to see themselves more as "undersea" people than people who live on land, and an undercurrent of resentment develops among some who seek independence from the governments that created them. (History may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.) Unluckily for them, the CIA has taken a hand in thwarting secessionist movements in order to stave off revolution and keep the cities producing for on-land governments. (Again, history may not repeat itself...)

There is no "United Federation" at work here: the undersea cities do not always get along with one another. Spies from one city infiltrate the defences of the others, stealing secrets and weapons and leaving bodies in their wake. Johnston rejects a utopian scenario in favour of one where realpolitik rules and where mutual distrust keeps the colonies in a state of paranoia.

In the middle of this paranoid frontier is Truman "Mac" McClusky, a secret agent who lives with the burden of inherited expectations. His late father was once the Mayor of an undersea colony named Trieste and a freedom fighter against the government who was killed by political forces before he could lead a revolution, and naturally people look to Mac to carry out the failed revolt that his father dreamed of. (As I write this, I wonder if a character study between McClusky and Muad'dib from Dune would not be misplaced.) Mac resists the urge to lead, even though he knows that his colonies are being unjustly exploited by an indifferent beneficiary government.

A chance encounter strengthens his resolve, however, when enemy agents infiltrate Trieste to try and steal a secret technology. Mac and his colleagues intercept them and Mac recognizes one: it was a traitor who once captured Mac and tortured him, years earlier. The firefight ends in bloodshed and Mac resolves to exact revenge on the traitor and take him out of the picture.

This involves a dangerous pursuit along the ocean floor, where the dangers are both man-made and natural; war subs stalk McCluskey and his navigator as they try to narrow the gap between them and their foe. But as McCluskey closes in on his target, he senses that there are deeper political forces at work--forces that are relying on an international incident to cause an all-out invasion of Trieste.

Author Johnston has a gift for characterization: he introduces character types on the fly and does so without sacrificing suspense for exposition. What's more, he adds key details in the novel that add to the authenticity of this undersea world. The chronology leading up to the events is a nice touch, and Johnston has a passion for the ocean that resonates in his writing. The book is well-paced, the undersea combat action is so vivid it rivals anything Ian Fleming ever wrote, and there are surprises in the novel that will make your jaw drop.

To bring up Ian Fleming is to bring up the one fly in the ointment: the hero's age will force some readers to cock an eyebrow. As pop-culture trivia mavens know, James Bond and Philip Marlowe are both a perennial thirty-four years old in the stories they inhabit: they are young enough to kick ass while being old enough to have some street smarts about the worlds they inhabit. McClusky--a spy who can dish it out with firearms and martial arts skills--is in his early forties, and one crisis demands that he perform a superhuman feat of endurance that even a man of Bond's age would be crushed by. I had to wonder if a man at McClusky's age, even a secret agent, might have chosen different paths to navigate his crises. This leads us to another debate: if a mature protagonist shows enough foresight, and dodges the enemy's bullets ahead of time, will that rob the readers of opportunities for suspense? Anyone who has read Fleming knows that Bond, indestructible superspy, makes plenty of mistakes: ask yourself why he takes so much benzedrine before a high-stakes card game with Drax in Moonraker...

That is an argument for another day.

Overall, I'd say this book will be a pleasant surprise for new fans. The War Beneath cast a spell on me and I couldn't put it down. It is that rarest of beasts: a hybrid of different genres set in a world that is nothing short of ingenious, featuring a hero we can all relate to.

[Gary McGugan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not big fan of sci-fi, have a hard time looking 100 years to the future, and have a conflicted view of water. So Timothy S. Johnston had a few hurdles to overcome to win my interest in "The War Beneath."

He did quite well. But I found the continuous battles tiresome after a while, and he occasionally lost me with the technology and physics. There were tons of descriptions of each of those elements but very little character development. The main character might have been brilliant in every sense, but he never quite captured my emotions.

For someone who enjoys glimpses of a possible future, this story would probably be very satisfying. Readers who prefer constant action in their entertainment would also be well rewarded. Even I found it a book well worth reading despite my personal biases!

[Katie Ipfritsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Timothy S Johnson is really good at writing about extreme environments and using that inhospitable atmosphere to give tension and excitement to his books. I liked that in the Tanner books and I liked that in this book. This book is technical at times but it never drags, it actually had me googling about submarines cause now I’m interested!

I found the female characters, especially Kat, to fall a little flat. Her personality started out strong but is ultimately reduced to a “prize” for our main character and I’m not too keen on that. Otherwise the story was engaging, I learned a lot about submarines, and I’m looking forward to book 2

[Mia J · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not normally a sci-fi person, but this book had me hooked! I can’t wait for the next one!

[David Mincher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book. Definitely allows you to see what lies in our future.

[Matthew Paonessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nice easy read. Cool, fast paced underwater adventures where I definitely learned something about submarines.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the premise of the story. Unfortunately, I didn't love the way the characters were written, or how wooden some of the dialogue was. But to each their own

[Alex Van De Wiele · Rating 2 out of 5]

The over-sexualization of Kat sticks out as an issue throughout the book, but aside from that it's a solid and standard spy novel in an interesting environment.