A series of books written by Anselm Audley, set on the eponymous giant ocean-planet of Aquasilva. Comprising a trilogy and a separate book, the series focused more in the political, economic and religious issues of the inhabitants than on great battles and heroics, though there are several examples of these, too.
Volumes within the series and publication Years[]
- Heresy, 2001
- Inquisition, 2002
- Crusade, 2003
- Vespera, 2011
Tropes used in Aquasilva include:
- Action Girl: Ravenna and Palatine.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Aether. Seriously.
- Awesome but Impractical: Subverted and played straight with storms and the Aeon. It must be kind of frustrating finally managing to find the mother of all ships, only to discover that you simply couldn't use it. At the time, at least.
- Badass Family: The Tar'Connatur. To name just a few of their traits, they controlled a planet-spanning Empire, they usually had awesome control over Water and, also very usually, are crazy. ¿Not enough? Then consider that they broke down their planet's climate, just to make sure that the enemy power of Tuonetar would never rise again. Also, when the old Tar'Connatur lost the throne, another family just adopted their name and tried to remake the Empire
- Black and Gray Morality: The series is literally about this.
- Chekhov's Gun: Good luck not spotting one.
- Cincinnatus : Subverted. Ruthelo Azrian restored a Republic, but couldn't stand the idea of simply not being in command.
- The Empire: Many. Haleth, Thetia, Tuonetar and even Qalathar were very typical Empires at some point. The Domain, too, being described like a Empire with parts scattered everywhere.
- Evil Twin: Cathan twin is no other than the : insane Thetian Emperor Orosius
- Fiery Redhead: Empress Aesonia, although in a cold and overly threatening way.
- Gambit Pileup: Always. Everywhere.
- The Load: Cathan himself looked like this. Somewhat subverted when he actually managed to bring down both the Domain and the Thetian Empire
- Not So Different: Cathan and Sarhaddon were both trying to avert a new Crusade. Simply, they had opposite motives to do so.
- Schizo-Tech: Pairing medieval land technology and space-ship looking submarines doesn't quite sound right.
- Tsundere: Ravenna.
- Unreliable Narrator: Carausius Tar'Connatur. He forgot to tell the future generations about the Thetians creating the storms.
- Viewers Are Geniuses: Everything is so packed with references to real life history, religion and politics that sometimes it takes a history degree to get to them. For example, Ravenna's grandfather family name Di tolossa. Remember catharism?