To Sail a Darkling Sea: A credible zombie story

To Sail a Darkling Sea by John Ringo

To Sail a Darkling Sea is the second installment in the BLACK TIDE RISING series.  Ringo continues to tell the story of the Smith family who are the virtual seed of humanity that survives the Zombie apocalypse and starts the fight to save the world from perpetual barbarity.

Trying to re-establish civilization is complex work. For “Commodore” Smith and his family, that becomes increasingly difficult as numbers of people rescued and the implied logistics support begin to increase commensurately.  How do you keep more and more boats running with limited repair parts, limited fuel and even fewer trained people who know how to fix them? With no land area to grow crops or harvest them, how do you feed everyone and keep them healthy when fishing is your primary food source? All of these complexities and the challenges of managing personalities become more and more difficult.

The daughters of Commodore Smith are amazingly complex, talented teen-agers. The responsibilities they are entrusted with are grossly out of proportion to their chronological maturity, but in a time of complete chaos those things don’t always matter. Faith (Shewolf) continues to blossom into a quasi-Amazon warrior princess whose physical prowess and natural talents make her a tactical zombie killing machine without peer. As a combat vet, I’d say that some of the license that Ringo takes pushes well past the point of credibility. Just basic physiology says that he’s well past reality, but its fiction, so if you can take it with a grain of salt it’s not impossible to digest. Sophia (Seawolf) is a borderline genius with a great work ethic and years of training from her parents to fall back on. Her role as the captain of a small vessel is a lot easier to accept. The mental skills and ability to learn on the fly make her a natural fit and when she is supported by trusted adults things are believable. I do object strenuously to Sophia’s abuse and misuse of alcohol, and the incessant almost sexualization of her character is also uncomfortable. I think it’s beyond tacky to have a 15 year old woman naked on her boat with submarines watching her through periscopes. Sorry…. even if that makes sense after a Zombie Apocalypse, I don’t like it being depicted in this story.

As more resources are collected and more qualified combatants are rescued, the opportunity for greater risk and larger targets makes sense. Ringo’s storytelling and world-building really shine when he gets into liberating small coastal towns and establishing organizational structures that support a way forward into a future not continually decimated by Zombies. Taking logical steps forward and developing tools and tactics that liberate people is very interesting stuff.

To Sail a Darkling Sea is a credible second book in the series. I have no problem getting into the world that Ringo is building. It’s easy for me to buy into the process of integrating newly rescued talents into the organization and trying to balance the social requirements of saving humanity against the tendency towards dictatorial rule by the able. What does a group in these dire straits do with the percentage of the rescuees who refuse to work and abide by the rules of the group? How far can you go before you are crossing the line between acting to save others and forcing others to serve your choices? It’s a fine line and I like how Ringo treads it.