OK story of landsmen and mer-people and a half-breed who could connect them both. It kept me reading. ( )

an alternate history where mer-people exist and have made alliances with the ruling human families of water-edged nations that involve interbreeding for the sake of defense and stuff: interesting? WEIRD AS HELL, but interesting. ( )

http://tamaranth.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/2017110-in-great-waters-kit-whitfield.ht... ( )

Whistle knows he's not like everyone else. His lungs give out after only a half hour underwater, and his tail is strangely divided. Finally, his mother gives up on him and casts him out onto the land, where a scholar takes him in and tries to civilize him.

This could be an interesting tale (heh) of a fish out of water (heh) with a critique of colonialism and humanism running beneath it. But then we get the explanation of *why* Henry/Whistle is being raised, and to me, the explanation turns this book into something even greater.

[b:In Great Waters|6309140|In Great Waters|Kit Whitfield|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1266629732s/6309140.jpg|6494266] is a cross between British history, and [b:The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing|169762|The Pox Party (The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, #1)|M.T. Anderson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172369018s/169762.jpg|577024], but with mermaids. It sounds like crack, but Whitfield is an incredible writer. As in [b:Benighted|362956|Benighted|Kit Whitfield|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174108230s/362956.jpg|353041], fantastical creatures are used to people and complicate a world that is recognizable but a bit off. Issues of power and control, of who gets to make decisions, of what world-view is acknowledged, how history is created, of how norms are created/overturned/reaffirmed--all of it roils through her books. Physicality has a power here that few authors acknowledge, from the calloused hands of lycanthropes in [b:Benighted|362956|Benighted|Kit Whitfield|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174108230s/362956.jpg|353041] to the curved backs and crutches of royalty here. These are the books I would give to anyone who doubts that fantasy can still have new things to say. ( )

http://ninecats.org/margaret/blog/2013/04/25/great-waters-kit-whitfield-iron-kin... ( )