This was a really fun book to read. I loved the diverse characters/creatures that were included, especially since I feel like that doesn't happen a lot, at least not in the books I've read recently. I think if you love lore, mythology and asian influence, I think you'll really enjoy this book. I did have a little bit of trouble getting through some of the book where it felt confusing or a little too slow. Some of the sentence structure felt a little off, but overall, I feel like it didn't take away from the story itself.

I was really excited to read Fathomfolk but unfortunately did not enjoy this one. It was incredibly slow paced and felt too chaotic with so many characters.

Fathomfolk is a modern take on a mythical story. Tiankawi is an above water city. Fathomfolk and humans live side by side. Fathomfolk include sirens, seawitches, kelpies, and kappas. Tiankawi may look like a beautiful perfect metropolis, but it is far from it. Humans live in skyscrapers above. Fathomfolk live in the polluted waters below. Mira is a half-human, half-siren. Mira dedicates her life to the experiment, she becomes the first fathomfolk to be a general. Mira hopes she can make a difference in the fathomfolks quality of life. This is a very interesting and unique story. I liked it very much and could not put it down. Thank you netgalley for an arc.

Fathomfolk is an adult fantasy that hinges on the political unrest between humans and fathomfolk, creatures with gills whose forms are many and varied. Sirens, sea witches, kappas, water dragons and more – all are fathomfolk. Despite their diversity, humans view fathomfolk as a monolith…one they have a vested interest in relegating to society’s underclasses.

Fathomfolk and humans alike call the city of Tiankawi their home. Built partially on the water, with wooden boats in one quarter and trams and cable cars in the next, the city is the highlight of this story. It’s packed with people of different cultures, languages, and religions all jockeying for space in the same area. To build this diversity, Chan draws on legends and languages from all across Asia. You can expect to find names and mythologies from Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, and Korean culture – and others! It’s because of this cultural diversity – and the stark divide between rich and poor, citizen and refugee – that Tiankawi reminded me of real-world cities like Singapore.

This familiarity is no accident. Fathomfolk is a fun fantasy novel, but it also has a clear political positioning: the critical examination of migration politics, xenophobia, and capitalism. Rather than obscuring these realities, Chan draws attention to how magnified these issues become when environmental collapse forces disparate peoples to live together in one densely packed area. The different neighbourhoods of Tiankawi represent some of these ideas, and while I wouldn’t call it subtle, it is effective. The palatial residences in the human-only Jingsha district are located at Tiankawi’s highest point while the poorest fathomfolk live three families to one residence in the mouldy port-side Seong district.

To me, Fathomfolk reads more like a call to action than a fantasy novel – and I’m okay with that. Even its characters are explicitly tied to politics, with each one representing an archetypal figure. We have the Mira, the “model minority” who has to swallow racist hypocrisy to shift the needle for her people; Kai, the politician who naively believes that changing legislation can undo prejudice; Nami, the inexperienced and recently radicalized revolutionary caught up in a movement she doesn’t fully understand; and Serena, the ruthless opportunist who uses flaws in the system against other fathomfolk before they can use them against her. None of them are portrayed as fully right or wrong, fully wise or naive. Each of their perspectives has its flaws.

My main issue with Fathomfolk is not its ideas, but their execution. This is an ambitious undertaking even for a seasoned novelist, let alone a debut! The entire story hinges on its cast of characters but their simplistic development made them seem like symbols instead of people. This was especially obvious with Nami, whose hot-headed recklessness and gullibility made for a rather unlikable combination. I love a political radical, but she was making the rest of us look bad! Clearly that is the point, and she grows a lot as she moves from the realm of talking about politics to becoming involved in political action. By the final chapters, I was rooting for and worried for Nami – in other words, I was finally invested in her character arc. Mira, on the other hand, I was on board with right away. Huge (HUGE!) things happened for her in the final act and I’m excited to see where she’ll end up in the sequel.

You’ll notice that I haven’t said much about the plot – the less said about it, the better. There’s a lot going on and it isn’t managed well, so it feels messy and chaotic instead of epic. The pacing overall is poor, although it evens out in the last third. I had high hopes that it would stick the landing, but the ending features a bizarre deus ex machina that has me scratching my head.


If you like political fantasy novels or pan-Asian inspired magic and worldbuilding, then you should put Fathomfolk on your radar. This debut novel isn’t perfect, but it is creative – and it has something of substance to say.

Set in the immersive fantasy world of Tiankawi where humans and fathomfolk (sea creatures) coexist but with non-imaginary themes of prejudice, human trafficking, politics, smuggling, border control, privilege, conspiracies, and protest, <b><i>Fathomfolk</b></i> is a solid and memorable fantasy debut from [author:Eliza Chan|8159015].

Although not as fast-paced and action-packed, the narrative is compellingly told from the perspectives of three fathomfolk:
- Mira, a half-siren recently promoted as captain of the city's police force and caught between her identity as fathomfolk and as a human, and dealing with the prejudice against both while seeking protection for those she loves.
- Nami, a rebellious water-dragon banished from her underwater home and sent to Tiankawi finds alliance with a group of fathomfolk rebels and discovers the moral complexities of overthrowing a system and enacting change
- Cordelia, a strategic seawitch using bargains for survival and power while desperate to keep her secrets

While this first novel in the Drowned World series closes at a good point which makes it satisfying enough to read as a standalone, it also leaves plenty to explore further both in plot and world-building in the next books!

I am looking forward to <i>Tideborn</i>, the planned sequel to the series!

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced reading copy of the book!

Amazing book! It didn't take very long for me to get into it, which is always hard for me, and I couldn't put it down! Finished it the same day I started and loved every second of it!

As the oceans continue to get more inhospitable, the gleaming city of Kiankawi beckons Fathomfolk towards the shore– suppress your waterweaving and join the humans to gain access to the hope of a better life! The reality within the city is, of course, much less pretty- the journey is dangerous and new arrivals face slums, prejudice, and the looming threat of further government crackdown.
Mira is the half-siren captain of the border guard who’s done everything right but still isn’t respected by her human peers. Her relationship with Kai, a Fathomfolk diplomat, has brought her closer to comfort, love, belonging- the things she’s always felt were just out of reach, but she still can’t bring herself to be happy when her success feels so precarious.
Nami is Kai’s wayward little sister, kicked out of her underwater home for a revolutionary scheme gone wrong. Sent to investigate the Oneson Engine, she instead falls in with the Drawbacks, a group of insurgents, and their kelpie second-in-command Firth. Will her work undermine everything her brother has tried to do from within the government? Or is Kai’s battle one he can never win?
Meanwhile, Cordelia the seawitch makes deals and the tension between human and Fathomfolk only grows. Maybe there’s a hope for a peaceful future, maybe there’s change on the horizon. Or maybe everything is about to get a whole lot worse.
2.5/5 stars, rounding up because it’s pretty well written.
What I liked:
Lots of kinds of magical creatures! I loved how Chan pulled from different mythologies and traditions to make Fathomfolk of diverse kinds- I thought it underlined her points about people who are in fact from wildly differing cultures getting lumped together as the same under an exterior gaze and both the difficulties and interesting community that can form as a result.
I love interlocking stories. It took some time for the pace to pick up, but once it did, Chan did a good job weaving Cordelia, Nami, and Mira’s POVs together in a compelling manner. There’s also a strong cast of secondary characters- there’s A LOT of them, but I remember and was able to keep track of most of them (the Chinthe didn’t really stick), which points to good writing.
Something about her early descriptions of Kai made me always picture one of my friends when she talked about him (probably because they both rock cool antlers in the club sometimes). I liked thinking about my friend :)
What frustrated me:
There’s a lot of interesting grey area in stories about violent revolution, about where lines of morality fall- when it comes to fighting fire with fire, how far is too far?- but Fathomfolk seems uninterested in these questions. Chan grasps for this nuance with Mira and Nami both realizing their ways of approaching making things better (working completely within the system vs. reactive opposition to the point of rejecting incremental change) need a bit from the other, but the ball has already been dropped by making the ‘change from within’ side Kai and Mira, two likeable, moral, main characters, while the ‘oppositional revolution’ side (Lynnette and Firth) is nearly comically evil, tricking and drugging their own followers and doing that big stupid thing near the end of the story.
And Nami- poor, poor Nami- I can forgive a naïve teen character (as a neurodivergent young adult I often see a lot of myself in them) but Nami was frustrating for 85% of this book. I also found Nami’s final decision in terms of ‘taking responsibility’ to be a foolish understanding of justice- I would buy Nami suggesting it, but how could Mira encourage it? They’ve established the system as an unfair one, I would not trust them to treat Nami fairly. I was left wondering, damn, does Mira hate her? Nami needs adults in her life, Mira!
Cordelia was almost there for me- aspects of her story I can’t quite spill without spoilers (let’s just say her relationship to her family) were very interesting to me, but her motivations stayed muddled in a way that felt messy rather than mysterious. She’s also…she’s literally Ursula, right? And I was able to look past that until a climatic set piece got a bit too Disney’s Little Mermaid and took me right out of it. I know Ursula doesn’t own that entire brand- I was letting it slide- until that set piece!
The pacing picked up in the back third but it took a while for the story to get moving and a little longer for me to feel invested in the characters. The twist about the Oneson Engines felt a little out of left field- it hurt my perception of Kai and Mira, which I don’t think was interrogated enough, and once again took something that could be metaphorical and powerful and made it literal and blunt (also it once again made Nami look foolish! If so many people know about it, work there, how was she able to learn nothing about it??). And there’s another big twist near the end that felt just a little under set-up to be the big bad final thing (or for Lynette’s actions around it to make sense).
TLDR; not going to read the sequel, but I would read something else by Eliza Chan if it looked interesting to me
Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for an eARC of the book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Thanks to Orbit Books, NetGalley, and Eliza Chan for the chance to read this lovely book. The world is divided by two factions: above are the humans living in towers and down below are the fathomfolk-sirens, kelpies, and others. These groups are in fight to see who will ultimately prevail and rule the world. It will take war and the loss of many innocent lives before any common ground will be found.
This is a wonderful story and I really enjoyed the world building in it. The characters were so vivid that I felt like I was in the middle of the story. Definitely recommend this book.

Fathomfolk is a fantasy book set in the partially submerged South-Asian inspired city of Tiankawi with a mixed population of humans and fathomfolk, which are sea dwelling creatures such as sirens and sea witches. There is large focus on division of race, social status, and wealth among the population that is struggling to survive in their drowning city. This story has loads of political intrigue, a few romances, oppression, racism, and environmental issues including pollution and climate change.
Although this book does start rather slow, I think it was necessary for the large amount of world building and character development as the cast in this book is rather large! The payoff was so worth it as I ended up loving this book and the colorful characters! No detail was spared and I feel like I can totally invision what this city and characters looked like. What a debut novel!! Cannot wait for the next book in the Drowned World series.

First, thank you for providing a digital galley. I was very intrigued by the premise of this book and the stunning cover!

I enjoyed the overall plot and premise, however, I had issues with the world building, pacing and characters that impacted my enjoyment of the book. The world was very complicated for me, the different variations of beings, while interesting, made me want to skim through parts because I couldn’t grasp everything. I also found the characters to be too similar and found it difficult to tell who was speaking, for Mira and Nami in particular. There were many chapters that I had to go back and reread because I was confusing the speaker.

The pace also seemed very slow. I loved the first three chapters and then there didn’t seem to be enough action for quite a while. I liked the ending and am intrigued about the plot of a second book but am not sure I’d be able to follow the world building for a second story.

I think that fans of high fantasy and intricate world building would enjoy this story and I wish it worked better for me.

Rating: 2.5 rounded up to 3⭐️

This is a most recent read of mine and I personally found it just okay but I will never tell you guys to not read a book because what didn’t work for me, might work for you and I’d hate for you to miss out on a potential favorite book so yeah Fathomfolk. This is an adult fantasy that takes place underwater kind of reminiscent of The Little Mermaid, while still being very unique. Essentially there is a clash between humans (who live on top obviously) and Fathomfolk which consists of sirens, sea witches, kappas who live below in the polluted waters. We follow a water-dragon named Nami) and a half siren named (Mira) who join forces to seek equality, but they must decide if the cost of change is worth it. The book dives heavily into some very current issues, including the topic of the ill treatment of refugees. What I will say one of the things I really loved about the story was the worldbuilding. It was great. I just think this fits well into the mold of what the season of Spring means, fresh and new and change, especially change and this book follow characters who fight the broken system in their own ways. Yeah I recommend giving it a try and I hope you love it.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and the publishers for allowing me the opportunity to read this e-arc. I look forward to reading more.

DNF at 58%. I've been reading this off and on for weeks because I feel like I should like it but just don't. The writing is good and the world is interesting and complex. I just don't really care about the characters and I don't have any idea where the story is going. Mira is the most interesting of the POV characters but we don't get to spend enough time with her - if this book was fully her story... but it's not. Nami is spoiled and naive and I just am not interested in the way she views the world.

I had really high hopes for this book. I've heard fantastic things about it and the blurb sounded so fascinating.

When picking this up I was imagine sea dragons and creatures, but unfortunately I couldn't get past around 100 pages into this. I couldn't connect to any of the characters and I found myself having to go back and reread things cause things didn't make sense in parts.

I'll definitely give it another try later on down the year but it just wasn't hitting the right spot at the time.

The intricate world building throughout this story takes you into a fantasy world among dragons, kelpies, sirens, and a seawitch residing as fathomfolk mingled with humans in Tiankawi. There's a distrust between the two species as politics and social class comes into play, resulting in a rebel uprising among folk and constant restrictions implemented by humans.

The story was intriguing and the characters unique. I really enjoyed the author's descriptiveness of the surroundings as it helped to imagine this city and underwater world cohabited by folk and humans. The character development of Nami was very well written and really showed her growth and maturity.

This is the first story in the Drowned City series with the ending left open to continue in book two, Tideborn. Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for the ebook.

The descriptive copy for Fathomfolk promises complex, unusual, thoroughly worked-out worldbuilding, and this the book delivers, so why did I set it aside every time I picked it up, and why could I never remember from one attempt to the next who the people were or what events I had just read about last go-round?

I think the answer is twofold: 1., there's a certain flatness to the characterizations, so that I couldn't find myself invested in anyone; 2., the political situation in the world of Fathomfolk maps all too exactly on to the political situation in ours -- specifically, the political situation of the US vis-a-vis, especially, Mexico and Central America. I felt as if I wasn't reading fantasy so much as costume drama.

In short -- all the imaginative work seems to have gone into the worldbuilding, but that didn't leave much to spare for the characters or the story.

Thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for the ARC.

Water Dragons, Sirens, Sea Witch, Political Fantasy with lots of social issues covered. The topics covered are heavy and this is not for everyone but if you are willing to stick with it you might be surprised.

# Fathomfolk
# 3/15/2024 ~ 3/17/2024
# 3.5 / 5.0

I am going to DNF this for now. The story and world seem to be very interesting, however I just truly cannot get into it. I do not think it is bad or poorly written, It just is not really working for me. I am not going to post this review on goodreads, because I may go back to It someday and finish it, however at the moment its just not working.

I really got bored in the first few chapters of the book; the pace was too slow, and there was nothing to keep the reader so immersed in the worldbuilding. Though I love the idea that there are these people who live in water and there are folks who aquatic animals inspire coupled that with east asian fantasy, A very unique idea to use for a book

extremely slow-paced and overall confusing. i think the author tried to go for so many themes and storylines at the same time so it made it hard to follow.