Kindle Edition Amazon Category:  Science Fiction Publisher: Oblique Angles Press ISBN-10:  0998060437 Type: Fiction Pages: 369 Copyright: October 17, 2018 ISBN-13: 9780998060446 Price: $3.99 (eBook) Two young Vushla questioned what everyone knew about death. What should they do with the answer?  When the time comes for Vushla to die, they go into the ocean and are dissolved away. Or so Terrill has always believed, and still believes after taking part in his father's final journey. But when he meets a young Vushlu who lives by the sea, Terrill must confront information that calls this fundamental belief into question. Will the two of them discover the truth? And what should they do with what they find?      <-iframe width="300" height="225" src=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8wBl3G5vF4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>iframe> Excerpt First, you'll need this bit from the Preface to understand the excerpt proper. ------------- When a Vushlu reaches the age of adulthood, its family, or if it has none, respected community members, take it to the ocean. Traditionally, it will never have been there before, unless its family catches sea creatures for a living. Often many families will travel together, a pilgrimage of celebration. On its last day of life, a Vushlu swims out to sea, or if too weak to swim, wades in and lets the waves carry it. The ocean swallows its front legs, its rear legs, its back, its torso, its arms, its shoulders, and finally its head. Immersion in the water softens its living armor, its exoskeleton, until the plates sheet off and wash away, followed by the soft flesh within. No Vushlu has ever returned to its home with this process incomplete. But Vushla splashed with seawater report no pain. -------------- Now for the first Actual Excerpt, a short one. This comes early in Chapter 1, and introduces us to Honnu, one of two major Vushla characters. -------------- Honnu squatted by the campfire, all four legs comfortably sunk in the sand, his lower armor sealed tight to keep sand out, and watched the procession approach the sea. It was a small group, with only one young Vushlu among the older ones. A funeral, then. The young one must be the son or daughter of the Vushlu, aging or ailing, whose funeral it was. Honnu turned away before the group reached the edge of the water. He knew, of course, what would happen, but he had no wish to watch. After all, he lived with the ocean, lived from it, rode out every day to toss the nets and haul them back. He and his family depended on the ocean. But he often thought he must feel like a farmer with a very, very large and powerful bull. Such a useful animal — it sired strong beasts like itself, and it pulled plows through earth too sticky for pull-cycles. But it could, any time it chose to, trample the farmer into jelly. The farmer could hope that the bull would never turn on its master. Honnu lived with the certain knowledge that one day, the ocean would reveal itself as the largest possible beast, and devour him whole. No, he had no need to watch it happen to others, not when he would be paddling the boat out again tomorrow morning. ------------ Here's one more excerpt, a longer one. It starts shortly after the first, and switches partway through from Honnu's POV to that of Kititit, a visiting peddler. (Kititit is a Weesah, not a Vushlu. The two species' anatomy differ substantially, a fact to which Honnu makes a passing reference.) ------------ The last taste of dinner was fading from Honnu’s mouth. Even food was different when the peddler came. This very night, around this same fire, they had roasted and eaten plump sausages spitting with juice, made from some crawling creature that pushed through underbrush and rooted in the earth of far-off forests. Honnu stretched his arms and upper body to soak in the warmth of the fire, welcome as the end of hot season brought cooler night breezes. Which of the peddler’s tales might actually be true? Honnu had never traveled farther than the nearest market town — far enough away from the shore that the sea could not be seen, but not too far for its smell to carry, competing with the smell of the fish he sold and the pastries and spices and flowers in the stalls all around him. Were there really trees so tall that a Vushlu would have to rear back on its hind legs and lean against something sturdy in order to see the tops? Did mountains soar even higher? Did rivers of water pour out of those mountains? Did the mountains rise above the air itself, so that the air strained and grew thin, and one could look down and see the thicker air below? Did fountains of fire leap up from hidden places to consume travelers? Did birds, glowing as bright as any fire, swarm over the fields in springtime, keeping farmers from sowing seed until the birds had flown away? Did a species of giants, giants who never came near the ocean, giants with two legs and two arms like the Weesah but each limb twice as thick as a Weesah’s trunk, raise beasts for farmers, never leaving their ranches, requiring farmers to come to them? Were there places where the sky was always red, and others where the sky was always black? Honnu’s family must know the answers to those questions, or to some of them, but his aunt never wanted to talk about it, and his grandfather changed his story from one time to the next, and his mother said none of it was true. Honnu refused to believe that. Unless he found a way to go see for himself, he would never know. Now he heard sounds of movement and conversation, and tires pushing through sand. The procession must be leaving, with one of its members gone forever into the sea. They would probably not go very far in the dark. There was an inn serving such travelers in the market town. But by morning, they would be on their way back to wherever they came from. To one of the many, many places Honnu had never seen.

Sheila Deeth's review on Amazon and Goodreads
Karen Wyle’s alien life-forms in Water to Water are immediately and vividly real, convincingly non-human with evocatively different emotional needs, and yet profoundly relatable. A world with two different species and one haunting funeral tradition slowly expands as a young adult strives to move on from losing a parent. But losses come in many forms, and simply moving away from a parent might prove similarly difficult. Moving away from a faith could be even harder.

Honnu’s family secret, Terril’s loss, and the curiosity of an alien of different species combine in this haunting tale. The dialog carries convincing depth and humor, like two teens shying away from deeper truths. And the mystery is so completely involving that the reader switches from guess to guess, all the way to the end and beyond. (Yes, I’m still guessing at parts not told!)

Questions of faith, life after death, the threat of new revelation on old traditions,all this and more—deep topics for a tale that’s filled with action, heart and soul. Author Karen Wyle has imagined a world with self-consistent science and social science, and peopled it with youthful characters whose heroes' journey will surely carry readers far beyond the pages. A masterpiece!

Disclosure: I was given a copy and I love it!