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274pp, 6" x 9" trade size paperback
cover by Jade
$22.50 (paperback)
$9.95 (ebook)

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COVER NOTES
"A new sci-fi adventure by the master of gay thrillers"

Mel Keegan's new story is set in the late 21st Century when major land masses have been submerged by rising oceans and the Earth is a world of water.

Russell is a hydrologist, based on the giant floating platform of Pacifica; his lover, Eric, one of fifty Aquarians, is a new sub-species of human who can breathe underwater. When the pair refuse an attractive offer for Eric's services on a suspicious salvage operation, Eric is kidnapped and a fast-paced intrigue starts to unfold on the "acorn principle" ... a small event turns out to be the key to a major war which would involve the whole Pacifica region

Pullquote:
Mel Keegan’s name is a byword for thrilling gay adventure in the past, present and future — MILLIVRES on Aquamarine.

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AQUAMARINE
reviewed by Buckeroo Bonsai

There is something so satisfying about SF the way Mel Keegan writes it. No: that's the wrong word. The term I think I need here is "comfortable," and the reason I use it, deliberately and specifically, is that when you slide into an SF world designed and executed by Keegan, you feel as if you could actually live there. You could get work, rent an apartment, and take part in the society without 1/ going insane (Blade Runner; Judge Dredd), 2/ dying a spectacularly gory death (Predator, Terminator, Aliens), 3/ Needing to be genetically engineered to even begin (Aeon Flux, Blade), needing to have a brain like a computer to qualify for, and hold down, a job (anything Roddenberry).

Keegan's SF worlds are places where REAL people live, love, work, get into trouble and get themselves back out, which is usually the gist of the plotlines, if you crack them right down to the most basic constituents of which a plot can be composed. (Compare Windrage, Hellgate, Narc ... and this one, Aquamarine.)

I wanted to say that AQUAMARINE is a book for a lazy summer's afternoon, but the simple fact is, if you start reading too late in the evening, you won't get a wink of sleep till you finish it. How "lazy daze" does that sound?

The characters are (as usual in an MK book) gorgeous. Literally. Physically attractive and also damned nice as people -- save for the villains, of course, who are as dastardly as any of Keegan's villains, and deserve everything the've got coming ... which is plenty.

The setting for this novel is something along the lines of Waterworld, but (thank God) without the Mad Max style silliness. The planet Earth has been hit by a comet. Climates warmed fast, oceans rose just as fast. The map changed forever, and small pockets of humanity are not only hanging on, but actually thriving in fantastic cities like Pacifica -- which is afloat, literally, in the middle of the ocean, with a massive ship called the Atlantis as its guardian...

I group AQUAMARINE in a small stack of Keegans, along with WINDRAGE and TIGER TIGER, and if you're reading this review looking for BB's solemn recommendation: grab all three, because if you like one, you'll like all. Keegan strikes again: MUCHLY recommended.