A new book series by acclaimed writer, Rick Riordan will focus on a heroine called Ana Dakkar, in tribute to Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
October 5th, 2021 – that’s the date Rick Riordan’s new book will hit bookstores in the US like a tidal wave. The name of the book – Daughter of the Deep. But it’s not just another book by Riordan. It is a first book in a new series, which for the first time is not inspired by mythology, at least not in its usual meaning. The new series is a modern-day tribute to Jules Verne’s book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In this sense, you could say it’s mythology of science fiction, since 20,000 Leagues and other of Verne’s books are considered to this say as the forefathers of this genre.
Girl Power
According to Riordan, many of his fans have been asking him for a long time when he will write a book which will focus solely on a feminine protagonist. This is that book. Although many of his books have featured strong feminine protagonists, this is the first book which is told in the first person, entirely from the point of view of Ana Dakkar, a high school freshman who finds out her family’s ancestry is no less complicated than Percy Jackson’s, even though the reason for it has to do with technology rather than mythology.
More Hints on the Plot
In the post in which Riordan reported about the book, he also laid a few hints regarding the Harding-Pencroft Academy. Judging by other book series for children and YA, this is probably the name of Ana’s high school rather than an actual academy, as in an institute for higher education.
It is likely, that like Harry Potter, the children at Harding-Pencroft Academy will be divided into four houses:
House Dolphin – communications, exploration, cryptography, counterintelligence
House Shark – command, combat, weapons systems, logistics
House Cephalopod – engineering, applied mechanics, innovation, defensive systems
House Orca – medicine, psychology, education, marine biology, communal memory
If that is indeed the case, I wonder how do they sort the students – a deep diver’s helmet? A pirate’s hat? Also, which house do you think you’d fit in?
About Writing
One of the fascinating things for me about Riordan’s writing has less to do with what he writes, and more to do with the research he conducts beforehand. And this time around, too, Uncle Rick does not let down. According to Riordan the idea has been percolating in his mind since 2008. A long time by all accounts. So, what has he been doing in order to prepare himself to write Daughter of the Deep? Well, in order to know everything he needed to know about submarines and the sea, the writer didn’t settle for going to the library. Nope, as part of his research over the last decade, he has undergone training as a diver, and got his diving license. He dived numerous times in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. He became a lifetime member of the U.S. Naval Institute so he could keep up with news of the marine services through their journal Proceedings, and did a ton of reading on submarines and the sea.
Now, the book is in the final stages of editing, and is scheduled to come out on October of 2021.
