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Ironically, for a book in which the characters are constantly at risk of drowning, Deeplight is the first Hardinge book I've read that doesn't feel like I am drowning in it. The elaborate similes and stylized language are considerably toned down; the growing sense of paranoia and destabilization present in all Hardinge books is tempered by an odd note of nostalgia and trustworthy friends. Instead of immediately plunging into a world in which Things Are Wrong And Getting Worse, this book starts in a more mundane place and takes a while to really get going.

Our protagonist is Hark, a rough-and-tumble orphan who brought himself up on the beaches of Myriad. He's caught during a heist, talks his way out of a brutal sentence, and ends up as an indentured servant of the priesthood. Myriad was once a land of terrifyingly present sea gods and the priests who sacrified to and appeased them, but now the gods are dead and the priests are old and dying.

But even bits of the dead gods have power and value, and when Hark comes across a strange, pulsing, perforated object on the ocean floor, he doesn't realize what consequences it will have for him and his friends, for Myriad and its dead gods.

Deeplight is part adventure story with deep sea diving and sneaking around, plus a mad scientist and the very weirdest submersible I've ever come across (operated by producing notes at the precise resonant frequency of godglass) :

"My own invention," explained Dr. Vyne with surprising warmth, turning a large wheel to lower the sub into the water. I call her the Screaming Butterfly. She's a prototype."

"What does that mean?" asked Hark.

"It means that every voyage is a safety test, and it'll be scientifically fascinating if we die in her," Vyne answered cheerfully.

But it's also about the power of storytelling: the stories we tell to and about ourselves, our friends, and even our gods - and how we respond when the stories are challenged. And boy, is every story Hark has ever told or believed about to go down.

As usual, Hardinge's characters are morally ambiguous and their relationships are dysfunctional but relatable. At the start, Hark's only friend is an older boy named Jelt who has saved his life several times...but also endangered it on many others, as much as Hark tries to tell himself differently. The changing dynamics of that relationship and Hark's new, more mature friendships with others are part of a strange coming of age for a street smart boy who has neither been trusting nor trustworthy up to now.

Kly's patience and discretion had been eked out one more time, but Hark guessed that they were probably at their limits. "This is your last warning" was something people might say several times, but there was always a last last warning, and Hark thought he might have reached it. It had a different sound, something you could feel in your bones.

And also as usual, while not embracing grimdark or lingering over violence, Hardinge refuses to sugarcoat messy, morally ambivalent reality and the way that growing up helps you to see just how messy things are.

The governor probably wasn't a good man. It would probably be better to have a ruler who didn't sell people or bend his own laws. For the moment, however, this man was perhaps just the best of the wrong answers available.

A quick note on representation: one of the main characters and many of the minor ones are deaf ('seakissed' from diving too deep and too often), and I appreciate Hardinge's skilful and compassionate representation that never feels didactic. A welcome contrast to Seanan McGuire's Into the Drowning Deep.

With its almost elegiac tone and pervasive sense of loss, even amidst grand adventure, Deeplight is one weird middle grade book. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as a preteen, but it resonates with middle-aged me, facing a changing world and grieving things I didn't know I valued until I started losing them.