Underneath the Oversea
About this audiobook
The ocean is rising ... Straight up!
“On a bluff above the sea lived a gargoyle, a tree, two bards, and their various children.”
Gorlen and Plenth, the wandering bards in question, have quit a life of rambling to raise their daughter Aiku in peace at the edge of a curious sea. Aiku’s other father is the gargoyle Spar, who is also husband to a songwood tree and father to a young grove. It’s no more unusual than most families, and their life no less ordinary ... until one extraordinary day, when the messenger birds Aiku loves begin to deliver ominous notes and soon flap away in a frenzy, like a storm fleeing before an even greater storm.
Their warning, meant only for birds, becomes clear to all when the ocean abandons its bed and sails into the sky, carrying off all its denizens (not to mention every ship), while revealing an eerie land of murk and mystery below.
While some might hesitate to plunge into that vaporous realm, for our heroic parents, waiting is not an option. For even as the ocean rose, Aiku was carried off to the lands beneath it, caught in a conflict between elder guardians and illicit sorceries. With no idea what they’re getting themselves into, our bards and gargoyle head straight into the dim new world.
Will the levitating sea crash down again and drown them? Or might it float away to the stars, taking Aiku with it?
Only in the depths beneath the Oversea, at a place of power where ancient forces forgotten and forbidden converge, will all the pieces and the players come together. The stakes, and the tides, have never been higher.
About the author
Marc Laidlaw is best known as one of the creators and lead writer of the Half-Life videogame series, but he initially got that gig on the strength of his short stories and novels of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. His novel The 37th Mandala won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel. A writer at Valve since 1997, his short stories continue to appear in various magazines and online venues.
Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFile’s award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of Card’s Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.
