Eliza Chan’s Fathomfolk is a compelling debut set in a semi-submerged secondary world that is rife with communal tensions and violence, and in which humans and underwater creatures are at constant loggerheads. Through the shifting perspectives of three distinct characters—a half-siren, a water dragon, and a sea witch—Chan deftly straddles various diaspora concerns, be it the hardships of forced emigration, refugee crises, and perils of asylum-seeking in newer climes; or the inevitable loss of cultural identity and memory that can follow when one is uprooted from their homeland and forced to adapt to the customs of a foreign locale, to xenophobic and racist discrimination, and finally, to the moral struggles between playing it safe with one’s oppressor neighbors or burning it all down. By employing clear metaphors and a well-paced narrative, Chan offers a balanced exploration of power structures founded upon inequality and injustice and maintained by systems conferring privileges to a select few. But, by the end of the book. this approach seemed too balanced for my taste.

Except for a small foray into the aquatic haven of Yonakuni early on, much of the action in Fathomfolk unfolds in the semi-submerged city of Tiankawi—a melting pot where the various underwater communities converge alongside land-dwelling humans. Similar to other vividly sketched fictional settlements, such as Mieville’s New Crobuzon or Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpok, Tiankawi’s uniquely vibrant character comes alive via the small architectural details, mouth-watering descriptions of East Asian cuisine, and the heterogenous portrayal of its many bustling inhabitants, even as community tensions simmer in the backdrop.

Within this fictional universe, it turns out that human activity has polluted the oceans to such an extent that most water bodies have been rendered inhospitable, compelling the fathomfolk to emigrate to the few floating islands which remain. Of course, the immigration process isn’t easy, and Tiankawi only grudgingly takes in refugees and migrants from time to time. However, this is ultimately an advantageous move for the ruling class, since the cheap labor afforded by these water-based magical creatures forms the very backbone of the city’s successful economy. Though the humans lack magic, their technology appears to be far superior, allowing them to exert control over the fathomfolk—most of the underwater creatures are treated as second-class citizens, struggle to get their basic rights recognized, and wear devices called “pakalots” that restrain their powers. Chan’s three inter-linked narratives offer a glimpse into how these migrants have adapted to survive by navigating prejudice and oppression in their own ways.

Among the cast of characters, we have three principal players. Foremost, there’s the easily likable Mira, a half-siren who has bargained away her powerful siren song—a reminder of her ancestral legacy—to appear more human; she is also the first of the fathomfolk to be promoted to the captain of the border guard. However, humans are still suspicious about her loyalties, while her own kind distrust her and see her as a “sellout.” She’s the poster child for tokenistic diversity who doesn’t quite fit in anywhere. Yet, even though she is plagued by self-doubt, she tries to effect change from within, hoping that her promotion will motivate the human government to offer positions of power to other fathomfolk as well, eventually.

It doesn’t help matters that her partner is Kai, a water dragon who is also the fathomfolk ambassador in Tiankawi—an alliance frowned upon in fathomfolk circles, due to superstition and internalized ethnic biases. Nevertheless, both try to advocate for more rights and better living conditions for the fathomfolk, though their efforts to influence the government and bring about policy changes are constantly undermined. Thus, their character trajectories highlight the pitfalls associated with changing any power structure from within, and how campaigning for inclusion and diversity often result in tokenistic gestures that do little to uplift the marginalized communities.

Then, we have our second protagonist, Nami—Kai’s younger sister and an impetuous and privileged water dragon from Yonakuni. After a heist in which she is involved goes wrong and her poorer friends get arrested, Nami’s mother uses her connections to spare her daughter imprisonment. Instead, she’s exiled to Tiankawi, where she’s no longer treated as royalty and comes face-to-face with the glaring injustices and inequalities that most fathomfolk suffer on a daily basis. Determined to bring about social change, a now-radicalized Nami casts her lot with the Drawbacks—an extremist group dedicated to eradicating human dominance by any means necessary. In this way, Nami’s arc is essentially a journey of youth radicalization, wherein she realizes her erstwhile aristocratic life shielded her from life’s cruelties, and becomes committed to fighting for her kin.

Finally, there’s Cordelia, a shape-shifting sea witch with selfish agendas, who is happy to play both sides if it means her continued survival (and that of her children). In her guise as Serena, she’s a human woman married to an influential politician with kids, living a life of relative comfort and currying favors. As a sea witch, she drives bargains with desperate creatures, always getting the better end of the deal. Her actions frequently instigate tensions between the humans and fathomfolk, but she cares little for these communal consequences. Her narrative journey offers a peek into the struggles of fitting in by aping one’s superiors in a more pronounced way than Mira’s—and how, sometimes, doing so is impossible without compromising on one’s principles or ethics. It also emphasizes the dilemmas that arise in prioritizing individual interests over those of a collective, particularly in the name of “survival”: although Cordelia does several reprehensible things throughout the book, her complex motivations are carefully delineated, allowing the reader to understand where she is coming from.

Chan’s extension of empathy to all her principal figures is perhaps a factor in what makes Fathomfolk an engaging read. Even when she relies on stereotypes, her characters are well realized. And although human society is clearly at fault, there isn’t a particular antagonist as such that must be defeated. The enemy is none other than the system that puts both the poverty-stricken humans and the asylum-seeking fathomfolk at the bottom of the pecking order. The various choices that her characters make highlight the different ways in which one may strike against the powerful: Mira believes more fathomfolk representation in government positions is of paramount importance; Kai believes in a moderate, legal approach and attempts to pass a bill that would allow those wearing “pakalots” to fight back in self-defense by granting them slightly more bodily autonomy than before, even though it’s an agonizingly slow and difficult process; Nami and the Drawbacks believe demonstrations, protests, and even acts of violence are necessary to effect change. Yet, Chan is careful to remind us that the collective villainous might of humanity isn’t an easy force to be reckoned with—after all, it is their actions that have forced the fathomfolk out of their ancestral homes, caused them to develop incurable, chronic conditions such as “gill rot,” and which are still insidiously siphoning off their magical powers and cutting their lives short.

Although Chan portrays community tensions, prejudice, and xenophobia with nuance, her simplistic depiction of leftist extremist violence made me a bit uneasy, particularly when so many elements of her book already have rich, real-world resonances. The Drawbacks are labelled as an “insurrection group” who constantly choose violence as the path to liberation. Even when they succeed somewhat, they are shunned for it. Many fathomfolk, including Mira, do not agree with their methods; Nami is seen as naïve, immature and hot-headed for siding with them; and, within the group, there seem to be disagreements regarding the degrees of violence. But perhaps what’s most damning is that the Drawbacks appear to not care for fathomfolk casualties—at multiple points, it is fathomfolk that suffer at their hands, not the humans whose comfortable lives are only partially disrupted. The narrative makes it evident that their violent methods cannot be trusted nor endorsed—their extremist leader, Lynette, is killed by one of their own, and a more moderating influence, Firth, is elected to continue the movement.

But this is exactly how mainstream western media prefers to portray radical leftist extremism. Even when they are shown to be ideologically correct, the methods of groups such as these are presented as espousing senseless violence and a disregard for all forms of life; the fact that they do not seem to care about the deaths of their own kin is taken as further evidence of their villainy, even as the deaths of all those killed (directly or indirectly) by the oppressors are conveniently brushed under the carpet. In these narratives (a recent example would be Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier [2021]), more often than not, the leaders of these groups are killed to satisfy the status quo—their deaths leading to a slight compromise between the oppressors and the oppressed, though never quite full liberation. While the systemic violence perpetuated by the oppressors remain unacknowledged, any “violent” reaction by the oppressed in response to the oppression becomes a threat to be immediately eliminated in order to preserve the status quo. But if the status quo is harmful and exploitative, does it not deserve to be reckoned with by force, especially when all forms of nonviolent and peaceful resistance have failed?

When narratives, either overtly or subtly, imply that violent leftist activism is a threat to all populations, they make an extremely faulty and problematic allegation, particularly when passivity and the preservation of the status quo have resulted in the current state of our world—several ongoing genocides, vast levels of poverty and inequality everywhere, and the consequences of climate change being disproportionally borne by certain populations (all exacerbated by the deployment of generative AI, burning of fossil fuels, and other extractivist endeavors). As a writer from the Global South who has witnessed actual change happening only when the powers that be are directly confronted, I was discomfited with Fahthomfolk’s portrayal of extremist violence in a somewhat negative light, because nothing in this world was ever achieved by asking our oppressors nicely—and histories of colonial resistance testify to this.

Moreover, the powers that be usually have a vested interest in promoting political radicalism as unfavorable, conflating protests for basic rights as “terrorism”—just look at the way Western media is unable to name as “genocide” the unending violence in Gaza—all funded by the military-industrial complex that is the USA—but is quick to label Hamas as “terrorists” while effectively ignoring Israel’s systemic apartheid and colonization of Palestinian lands. Additionally, violence isn’t a weapon that is readily available to all oppressed groups—look again at the ongoing genocides in Congo, Sudan, and elsewhere. And finally, it feels a little disingenuous to present those fighting for change as violent leftist extremists when several acts of extremist violence seen in our world often come from conservative far-right groups (such as the January 6 United States Capitol attack, when a mob of a far-right Trump supporters attempted to overtake the nation’s legislature). Thus, the very idea that unjust power structures can be successfully changed from within—or modified instead of being dismantled—allows for diversity to remain only a tokenistic endeavor, benefitting only a select few who are co-opted into the system, acting as the new gatekeepers and furthering the status quo.

With regard to the necessity of violent resistance movements, I’m often reminded of the works of the political philosopher and activist Franz Fanon. In his seminal work, The Wretched of the Earth (1961), he writes:

And it is clear that in the colonial countries the peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms; colonization and decolonization is simply a question of relative strength.

Coming back to the events of Fathomfolk, the fact that Chan chooses to play it safe by seeking a middle ground (the Drawback’s attack has unforeseen consequences, their leader killed and the movement more tempered) may please western readers who prefer neat resolutions and deux ex machina solutions, seeing everything in black and white. The ending of the book clearly succumbs to this—out of nowhere, the playing field is almost magically levelled, with more equality between the humans and fathomfolk even as some threats are left unresolved, to be tackled in the sequel.

In many ways, Fathomfolk managed to be a refreshing and thoughtful read, with lovely worldbuilding and many surprising twists and turns. It probes into the daily struggles of refugees and diaspora communities while also highlighting the heterogenous nature of such groups, the novel’s many viewpoints serving an important thematic function. But I wished it had delved deeper into the politics of resistance movements, examining the oppressive circumstances that necessitate the use of violence as the only method to achieve freedom. While it does raise several relevant questions and urgent real-world concerns, it does not answer all of them satisfactorily, and I hope that the upcoming sequel will explore these strands of rebellion and justice more bravely and confidently.