The Weight Of A Thousand Oceans

Jillian Webster

Self Published

Otago Daily Times, August 28th 2021

“Our species has been plunged back into the Stone Age. There are no guarantees – there’s only life and death. Choose life, Maia.”

For 20 years, Maia has lived in Edenic isolation in a sanctuary created by her Grandfather before a forseeeable but unspecified catastrophe wiped most of humanity off the face of the earth. Cut off from the rest of the world, the ruins of New Zealand’s population is reduced to a handful of small communities scattered across the South Island and Northern tribe whose demographic make-up (old men and young women) is every bit as troubling as it sounds, and the ruins of the past are “[have] become one enormous ghost town full of…skeletons from a world that no longer exists”.

Maia’s grandfather wants her to stay in the place he has worked so hard to make safe, but she longs to become part of a new generation exploring and rebuilding the world. Her restlessness is exacerbated by a recurring nightmare in which her mother stands before a dark and foreign city, exhorting her to step out into the abyss before vanishing to be replaced by a transformed version of Maia herself. When she hears rumours of a new society being established in the Old Arctic Circle, Maia feels sure that this is where she is meant to be, and after her grandfather’s death, she sets out to find it. The resulting journey sees her almost starve to death as a stowaway on a trading ship come privateer, marooned in the centre of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and facing down a cyclone in a raft of driftwood and bottles. Surviving by tapping into an internal power she has spent years attempting to repress, Maia finally realises who – or what – she truly is (a revelation that is not entirely unexpected) and reaches the gates of a new world only to find herself faced with another life-defining choice; enter the Arctic Circle or stay with the man she loves.

The first volume of the Forgotten Ones trilogy, The Weight of a Thousand Oceans is freed from the constraints of plot and pacing faced by a stand-alone novel. Rather than rush to a denouement, the story has time to develop weight and depth, creating a richly realised world in which it is all too easy to lose oneself. Why civilisation finally collapsed is never revealed, but its consequences are visible in the disappearing snow caps and seas choked with jellyfish and plastic. Maia’s physical surroundings are vividly realised, and her emotional states, particularly her grief, are tangible in their intensity.

Born in Zeeland, Michigan, Jillian Webster is relatively new to the country, which may account for some slightly discordant notes. For example, it is not clear where Maia and her Grandfather live: somewhere high in the mountains but close enough to the sea that a trip to the shore is trivial. Similarly, despite suggestions that Maia is Māori (brushing her hands along flax leaves reminds her that “her ancestors used the long hardy leaves to make everything from woven baskets to rope to footwear”), she does not seem to identify as such, and it is not clear whether this is in any way related to her true nature. That said, these details are unlikely to bother international readers, and the book as a whole transports the reader into its reality, and I am looking forward to rejoining Maia on her journey through The Burn of A Thousand Suns.