FATHOM FALL

In a near-future Toronto where clean water is tightly controlled, survival depends on who controls the tap.

Drinking water is managed by Hydrexo, whose head engineers are 14-year-old Wyatt Docherty’s parents. While Wyatt never worries about going thirsty, he’s bullied for being a Water Baby. So he climbs the leaderboard of Fathom Fall, a virtual reality game that involves hunting down Bluddites—slimy, bloodthirsty monsters with gills. Armed with VR goggles and a controller, Wyatt is an elite Bluddite-killer—until a real one appears in his apartment, changing everything. Wyatt’s notoriety earns him a spot in a live, nationally televised Fathom Fall competition with nine other teens under 16, but he soon begins to suspect that there’s more to the contest than video game glory. Using cutting-edge augmented reality, the players enter a brutally gory, hyper-realistic version of the game, where rivalries, alliances, and bloodshed determine who survives. As Wyatt fights to prove he’s more than a Water Baby, he realizes that the game—and the organizer’s motives—aren’t as clean as they seem. Attentive readers may regard some elements of the story as illogical, but the breakneck pace, eerie future setting of environmental devastation, and surprise twist at the end make this a compulsive read with room for a sequel. Wyatt is cued white, and his competitors (only one of whom is a girl) are racially diverse.

A fast, ferocious thriller in which water wars, virtual violence, and murky morals collide.