First Book in Hugh Cook's Oceans of Light Trilogy.
Description:
In turbulent times, young lawyer Atlanta survives an attack by a golem and decides to deal with her foe, Vignis Vo Gorkindachina. Her decision is to seek to destroy him through the law, by seeking his banishment. In this novel, Atlanta, full of ambition, tests her will and her ability against the world in which she lives. Set in Chalakanesia, a land which straddles the metapsychic faultline, with consequences ranging from the quirky to the terrifying. Not your average everyday alternative reality!
Plot (Spoilers)
The main character is Atlanta Ignalina Jubiladilia a member of the Jubiladilia Family who specialize in diving using "adaptive skins", however Atlanta has chosen a career as an aggressive lawyer, her main customers being fishermen.
Atlanta is engaged to Yulius Epoktatima.
Her friend Soba Lubamacasta has racked up massive debts and is being sued by Gorkindachina who needs repayment to satisfy his own creditors. Atlanta is defending Soba in court and petitioning the senate.
Atlanta's Grandfather Zinjanthrop wants Gorkindachina to go bankrupt so Atlanta's brother Heineman can take Gorkindachina's senate seat.
A deal is arranged to make everyone happy except Atlanta:
- Soba Lubamacasta will become the slave of Yulius Epoktatima, who is intimidated by Atlanta and attracted to Soba
- The Epoktatima Family will pay Soba's debts
- Soba Lubamacasta can then pay Gorkindachina's debts
- Gorkindachina will marry Atlanta
- Gorkindachina will resign his Senate seat, which will go to Heineman
Atlanta is furious at first, but soon relents and ends up sleeping with Gorkindachina, which impregnates her.
There are complaints about the family "adaptive skins", used in diving. Atlanta tests the skins and is almost killed.
Atlanta dithers about marrying Gorkindachina for so long, he marries Atlanta's sister Panjalo instead.
Atlanta reports the dangers of the family "adaptive skins" to the senate.
First book - West of Heaven
Second book - East of Hell
Third book - North of Paradise
Hugh Cook's description of West of Heaven:
Atlanta Ignalina Jubiladilia, an ambitious young female lawyer in a world which is hospitable neither to women nor to their ambitions, faces three problems in this book.
First, this boy. Is she going to marry him?
Second, her grandfather, in danger of being exposed as a pedophile. True, he was a pedophile. But he was caught, put on trial and punished. Should Atlanta seek to defend him now that the years-old sealed court records are in danger of being exposed to public view?
She is disgusted by his crimes, but he is her grandfather. And she is a lawyer, and believe in the rule of law.
Third, the rumors about her family's adaptive skins, organisms which can meld themselves with human flesh to enable normative humans to breathe underwater. Is it true that some of the skins have gone rogue and have started killing people?
Atlanta's first and foremost loyalty is to her family. But she cannot conceal the truth, if the skins have become dangerous. Finally, she has no option but to put her life on the line and try one of the skins for herself, something she would never normally do because she, with her water lung, is perfectly capable of breathing underwater without any such assistance.
This book is part of a trilogy but is a self-contained novel in its own right, complete with a beginning, a middle and an end.