Today’s my stop on the StormTide blog tour – the third gripping instalment in the FloodWorld trilogy. I also have Tom’s top 5 deep sea story recommendations for you to enjoy!
A world-ending storm is coming, and only Kara and Joe can hold back the tide. In the ocean depths lies a deadly secret: an ancient machine with the power to wipe out all life on earth. Sailing at the head of a mighty armada, the Mariner terrorist Cortez will stop at nothing to get his hands on it.
Racing to the rescue are a ragtag band of heroes in a fleet of battered ships. But as the waters rise, storms rage and tidal waves sweep the planet, will Kara, Joe and their intrepid allies get there in time to stop the apocalypse?
This series just hooks you straight into the action with no time to catch your breath! In this instalment, things are looking bad for Kara and Joe after a resounding defeat in Frisco which resulted in the Mariners being driven back into the ocean. But they and a few brave mutineers have regrouped and they have a surprising new ally.
I have loved watching the main characters grow and develop over the series, and it’s now that we see them come into their own. Kara is a loved and respected leader and Joe has a new-found confidence. But will this mean that they will be able to save the remaining inhabitants of Earth, or will Cortez’s villainous plan come to fruition?
A trilogy designed to thrill readers and to raise questions about the damage we are causing to our planet. A highly recommended read for anyone aged 10+
5 Great Deep Sea Stories – as recommended by Tom Huddleston
In my new adventure story StormTide – the final instalment in the futuristic, action-packed FloodWorld trilogy – our heroes travel deep under the sea. And I mean deep, plunging into a seven-mile oceanic trench on the trail of a madman determined to destroy all life on earth.
I’ve always loved deep-sea stories, and it was really exciting to write one myself. The bottom of the ocean feels like the last frontier of exploration on earth – a place we know almost nothing about, so who really knows what could be lurking down there?
Here are five books, movies and TV shows set deep under the sea that had a big influence on StormTide.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
The original and still the greatest underwater adventure story. When ships start to go missing in the Atlantic Ocean, a French marine biologist is dispatched to discover the truth. Expecting to confront a giant sea monster, he instead stumbles upon the Nautilus, a massive submarine built and run by the maniacal Captain Nemo. The science may not quite hold up today – the submarine actually travels deeper than we now know the ocean to be – but it’s enormous fun.
The Water Babies (film) directed by Lionel Jeffries
This is based on a 19th century novel by Charles Kingsley, but that moral fable hasn’t aged too well! So I’ll go for this goofy film adaptation that I loved as a kid, and that was partly filmed near where I grew up in Wharfedale, North Yorkshire. It follows the adventures of a chimney sweep called Tom (another reason I like it!) who travels under the sea to an animated world of singing lobsters and evil sharks. Think The Little Mermaid, only sillier!
The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham
I loved the books of John Wyndham as a young reader – ‘cosy catastrophies’ like The Day of the Triffids and The Chrysalids presented a world where dreadful things might happen, but there’d always be a nice cup of tea and a roaring fire waiting for the characters at the end of the day. In The Kraken Wakes, alien spaceships land in the ocean, but when the British government sends a bathysphere (a sort of early submarine) down to investigate, the extra-terrestrials lash out, sparking a major conflict.
The Abyss (film) directed by James Cameron
This film was the single biggest influence on the closing chapters of StormTide. It follows the crew of a deep-sea mining rig who stumble upon a mysterious secret at the bottom of the ocean. Is it a new species – or something from another world? With storms, submersible chases, nuclear threats and all sorts of undersea action, it’s well worth checking out.
Blue Planet II (TV series)
Okay, so this one isn’t really a story, but the second episode of this BBC underwater wildlife documentary series, ‘The Deep’, was a real inspiration when I was starting to write StormTide. Just the idea that there was so much going on in the deep ocean, and so much that we don’t yet fully understand, really excited me. Also, I interviewed Sir David Attenborough once for my old job at Time Out Magazine, and he was exactly as lovely as you’d expect!
Thank you Tom for sharing some of your recommendations with us. I’m definitely a huge fan of The Blue Planet television series, and may need to expand my Sci-Fi horizons and try a bit of John Wyndham!
Library Girl.
*Huge thanks to Tom for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour*
Library Girl and Book Boy 