One needs to be an outsider to know how and when to escape.

Closer Oceans is the story of pursued young men escaping from a society of ennui to a militarised academy that is eight miles below the ocean’s surface and built within a dome. Fulfilling work and honest living are its promises away from the automation and bureaucracy above, with literature being its most valued resource; mixed with a potion called ichor, books can become weapons and survival tools when chewed.

The potential utopia is being distanced though: centuries of scoundrels have rigged its structure in order to coerce the labouring and keep the best lands and organic foods for themselves. A new scheme rumours to consolidate their corruption even further. Made outcasts on arrival and unwilling to conform, the young men search for how to liberate the Dome.

The optimism of youth keeping its head up is the force majeure against oldness’ bequeathed doom; Closer Oceans answers youth’s call for help when the heaviest decrepitude is all around it. Solutions to artificial intelligence, governance, the search for freedom, persecution and the individual human condition are all found within its voyage.