Sink or Swim?

After seven volumes of adventure in which my heroes — Score, Helaine and Pixel — saved the Diadem, each other and Helaine’s family, I was faced with what they would do next. The answer seemed obvious — they needed a good vacation! But where would three teenagers with magical powers and the Universe to choose from go on holiday?

A few years ago, I was finally talked into trying a Caribbean cruise. I had always thought it would be kind of dull being stuck on a ship at sea, so I’d never gone before. Finally, though, I agreed to try it. And, naturally, after all that resistance, it turned out that I absolutely adored the trip, and I’ve repeated the experience several times since. As a result, I’ve climbed Mayan pyramids, swum with stingrays and had slow, relaxing massages on tropical beaches. So, when it came time for my characters to have a holiday — what better than a magical cruise?

Of course, there’s not much story in just having a holiday. Anyway, Score, Helaine and Pixel aren’t the sort to have anything ordinary happen to them. Where would they go? Well, one of my own favorite writers is C.S. Lewis. I adore his Chronicles of Narnia, and have been quite influenced by them. He wrote a science fiction novel called Perelandra back in the 1950s. At the time, one theory about Venus (long since disproved) was that it might be a world covered in water. Lewis came up with the idea that there were people on Venus who lived on vast floating islands. I liked this idea, and it gave me the basis for the Gatherers in Book of Oceans, though my islands and his are quite different!

There’s nothing quite like being on a ship, surrounded by nothing but water. You look out, waiting for the first glimpse of an island, and then watch it grow closer and larger, and you see details, and other ships and people. What, I wondered, would a world be like where there was virtually no land at all, and people lived on large living plants that floated about instead? For one thing, I realized, the “ground” under their feet wouldn’t be steady, but would rise and fall with the waves. Walking around on the islands would be quite a strange experience.

And, of course, there’s much more to the story than simply people living on islands. What would a story at sea be like without pirates? But then there was another problem — if there was no land, then people couldn’t dig up gold or gems or anything else that pirates might want to steal. So my pirates are after people instead … but why do pirates need so many slaves? Score, Helaine, Pixel and their new friend Jenna are forced to find out and to fight the pirates on one of the very few real islands on the planet. Since this is the Diadem, there are plenty of surprises in store for them — and very little rest and relaxation!