Literature / The Saltwater Chronicles

Cover of the first book in the series, The River Against the Sea

The Saltwater Chronicles are fantasy books about Essimore Darkenchyl and her friends written by Z. Lindsey. Essie is a sort of devil-like creature known as an Aordés. She escaped from a stifling, bureaucratic upbringing to work for a different stifling bureaucracy. Her people are known to eat hearts, but in practice, Essie usually solves her problems by railroading her enemies with weird statutes and obscure laws.

Tonally, the books tend toward the hopeful and silly, though they include a few violent moments. The books include a number of fantasy tropes.

Currently, only one book is available, though the author has sworn in multiple interviews that he's already written a trilogy:

• 1. The River Against the Sea (2023)

The Saltwater Chronicles include examples of:

• Aristocrats Are Evil: The War King is a major villain, but even the "good" nobility like Two Rabbit have done some messed up things. Two Rabbit regularly threatens to cut off fingers of people who annoy her, though it's unclear if this is an empty threat or not.
• Armor-Piercing Response: Essie's full of these, but for example, when the fungus monster claims it will kill all life, Essie points out that it can't go in salt water, meaning even if it kills everything on the surface, it still wouldn't have killed all life. Angrily, it replies "I was created to kill the creatures of the land. I'll get to the stupid fish!"
• Badass Bookworm: Devil bureaucrat Essimore Darkenchyl has large chunks of the Agency's book of legal codes memorized and is a walking encyclopedia of pirate lore; she's also a red-eyed devil and one of the most powerful magic users on the planet, and that's before she : eats an ancient monster's heart.
• Badass Bureaucrat: Essimore Darkenchyl's father literally told her that bureaucracy is a (usually bloodless) war of wits; her people are devils created by the spirt of Death who guard magical secrets through a complex web of bureaucracy, and Essie herself solves several problems by threatening her enemies with torturous punishments for daring to violate bizarre legal codes.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: The War King is clearly a jerk, but he's not the main problem Essie faces. About halfway through the book, she realizes the real problem is a zombie plague led by a Sealed Evil in a Can.
• Body Horror: The book includes a fungus which possesses you and turns you into a puppet for a hive mind, which means the main character witnesses various horrors like eyeballs exploding and friends being changed into fungus monsters. Although the book seems to have a generally happy ending, after Essie defeats the fungus monster, she has to see the consequences of all the people who have been possessed by it. Some are dead already, but many have brain damage or are missing limbs or suffering horrible rot. It's so bad she questions whether she won at all.
• Boss Battle: The end of the novel involves Essie entering the lair of the fungus monster and fighting gross fungus tendrils and zombies to get to the creature's metalic heart.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Hyper-competent magical devil Essimore Darkenchyl probably knows more about bureaucratic regulations than anyone in her world, and she uses them to do everything from shaming drunken crew members to getting away with smuggling. She also eats people, but her bosses certainly don't care. Somewhat subverted in that her colleagues are not the biggest fans of her dietary habits, but it's not up to them.
• Butt-Monkey: Merritt is this in the first book; he's too young to be doing his job as security agent, but the others still rib him for being a coward and force him into dangerous situations (mostly because, young as he is, he's one of the few crew members with weapons training.) He ends up sitting out the final battle after an attempt at heroism goes wrong, but that's probably the only reason he survives, so good on him.
• Chekhov's Gag: Throughout the book, humans are creeped out by stories that devil Essimore Darkenchyl and her people eat hearts. Although she swears it's an isolated funeral custom, she also threatens to eat (or makes ill-timed jokes about eating) people at various points in the book. She knows humans are afraid of this possiblity, which is why she says it, but she's presumably exaggerating . . . then she defeats the big bad by . . . eating his heart.
• The Chessmaster: The main villain is manipulating the War King, who turns out to be a Bait-and-Switch Boss. To be fair, the War King knows he's being manipulated and feels like the main villain is too powerful for the War King to stop him.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Essimore Darkenchyl can't understand why everyone else doesn't care as much about bureaucracy as she does, and frankly she doesn't care. Being that she grew up in a small, isolated magical city in the desert, she typically has no idea how the real world works. (And when it doesn't work the way she wants, she usually ignores the dissonance and does whatever she thinks is best anyway.)
• Comically Wordy Contract: Gossen's Guide to Shipping Laws is a massive collection of regulations which is so dense it's typically checked by magic; devil bureaucrat Essimore Darkenchyl's main power (in her opinion) is her vast knowledge of the guide, which she can quote at will. Others think her main power is her abilty to melt zombie faces with magic, but if you add up every problem she encounters in the book, being pedantic and wordy probably gets her out of more problems than being magic.
• Deadpan Snarker: The doctor, who is a grumpy old bastard with one arm. Lampshaded by Bunts, who complains, “Can’t you go five minutes without dispensing ‘wisdom?’”
• Fantastic Racism: Essimore Darkenchyl is nicknamed a 'devil' by people who don't know her well. Sure she eats people, but it's usually done as a mark of respect for the dead (although her people have killed humans for the crime of stealing books, so maybe it's partially earned.) Elves are clearly big, bad colonizers with a racist streak against humans, and everyone rags on duendes, except for Essie herself because she gets enough of that crap from other people.
• Fantastic Slurs: The main character Essie's species is quite rare, has glowing red eyes and horns, seems to have been created by the god of death, and on rare occasions eats people, but it is very offensive to call them devils.
• Flaw Exploitation: Essimore Darkenchyl's whole strategy is rambling until she figures out a person's weaknesses, which she then mercilessly dissects. For example, she terrifies a group of pirates when she realizes they sailed with a pirate she wrote about in her dissertation, so she intimately describes his execution methods.
• For the Evulz: The sniper. When Essie's trying to convince him that he's on the wrong side because the fungus monster will turn on its allies in a generation or so, he says, "Don’t care. Just here to kill.”
• Functional Magic: Magic functions somewhat like electricity, and it has a number of daily in-universe uses from lighting merchant tents to sanitizing minor wounds. Most people are only peripherally aware that magic can be used for more powerful things, and stories of destructive magic read like legends. But it certainly exists.
• Gray-and-Gray Morality: Although one major faction is called the Peace Faction and the other is the War Faction, as the book goes on it becomes increasingly apparent that the Peace Faction is corrupt, and Peace Faction guards do things like take a child hostage and threaten to cut off someone's hand. It's still easier to root for them than the other guys, though, since the War Faction is on the same side as a world-destroying fungus monster.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Deerhunter pulls one of these after he's already infected; it doesn't do much, though, and he returns as a villain a few moments later.
• Little Miss Badass: Salamander, the kidnapped noble girl from the opposing side, is somewhere around fourteen or fifteen. She doesn't seem like it at first, but after she hits Two Rabbit in the head with a shoe and cuts her own tongue in a weird blood magic ritual, you start to get the feeling that she's more in control than the characters think she is. By the end, she's helping her cousin and Essie find the monster's heart, and eventually she becomes queen when Two Rabbit abdicates.
• Loophole Abuse: As dedicated to the rules as devil bureaucrat Essimore Darkenchyl is, she's also not afraid to exploit loopholes in those rules, which makes sense given that her father taught her to view bureaucracy as a battle of wills. Also to be fair, she's often using Developer's Foresight since many of the loopholes she exploits were created specifically to benefit her bosses.
• Magic Wand: Most high-ranking bureaucrats have a quill which they use like a magic wand; of course it's mostly for weighing boxes, but it is indeed magic. Essimore occassionally uses hers to give people she doesn't like a quick zap; it's only later she realizes she can use it for more powerful things.
• Motive Rant: The villain has been imprisoned for thousands of years, so loves the chance to rant about its motives and does so on at least three occasions. Also, after the villain learns that Essie is a magical being created by the god of death and thus has a piece of its dead colleague in her heart, it will not shut up.
• Nerd Action Hero: Devil bureaucrat Essimore Darkenchyl is definitely this; although she Takes a Level in Badass as the stories go on, even from the beginning she's the only supernatural being in a group of (mostly) humans. She can heal faster than everyone else and her magic is more powerful than the others. Throughout the course of the book, she gets shot at, does way more running than she's comfortable with, falls off a tower into the ocean, and melts zombies with magic. That said, it's clear she doesn't want to use her magic for adventurous purposes; her happy place is in a hammock reading about the myriad ways her bosses execute pirates.
• Non-Answer: A favored strategy of bureaucrats everywhere, it is no surprise devil bureaucrat Essimore Darkenchyl is a master at non-answers, especially when questioned about her species' penchant for eating people.
• Our Mages Are Different: All the mages are bureaucrats; except for Essie, few of them can use magic for anything more powerful than signing magical documents
• Our Demons Are Different: Essimore Darkenchyl's people have horns and glowing red eyes, eat organs, and were created by the god of death to keep its holy secrets, but don't call them devils. (Mostly because it makes them angry, but also because they were forged from the heart of an ancient god-killing monster.
• Our Zombies Are Different: In the first book of The Saltwater Chronicles, the doctor realizes the zombies are being controlled by a sentient fungus monster and lampshades this trope by angrily shouting, "This isn't some run-of-the-mill zombie plague." Besides being possessed by a Sealed Evil in a Can-type fungus monster, saltwater kills the monsters, and the victims share their brain with the creature's mind before it kills them.
• Pirate Song: The last lines of the first book are Bunts finally finishing the song about pirates he's been trying to sing since halfway through the book.
• Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: subverted in the sense that Essie is constantly working on her actual job between not dying from snipers and not dying from zombies.
• Plucky Office Girl: Essimore, the heroic devil is basically a plucky office girl on a sailing ship; she's a young intern with lots of ideas who has no clue how the real world works, but she's happy to give it a shot. Subverted by her occasional temper and willingness to threaten her enemies with bizarre fates worse than death.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Subverted since the protagonist is a red-eyed devil. While her eyes are always red, it's worse when she's angry: they glow so brightly looking at them is disorienting and nauseating. So, actually, if her eyes are glowing, you should probably take cover.
• Rules Lawyer: Devil bureaucrat Essimore Darkenchyl is obsessed with the rules, to the point of having her favorites memorized. She's also obsessed with the consequences of breaking the rules, especially the more horrifying consequences, all of which she will definitely share with you. (She did her thesis on execution methods for pirates.) Lampshaded constantly since most of her coworkers hate this behavior and are not afraid to let her know.
• Running Gag: The series is full of them. Probably the most common is Essie's obfuscation about her people's penchant for eating people. She never denies it exactly, more just distracts. Other running jokes include mistaking the Blessed Agency for a chamber of commerce, people mistaking the weaver Finch for a baker, and Two Rabbit threatening to cut off peoples' fingers.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The main villain is a telepathic fungus monster that fell from the sky; it was created to destroy all life on the surface of the earth (but not, as it is painfully aware, the fish). Its heart was previously sealed under an ancient volcano by Mother.
• Super Mode: Essimore Darkenchyl's people are already the most powerful magic users on the planet, but when she finds a way to crack open rocks and consume their magic energy, she briefly becomes so powerful she floats and her skin turns blue ... before she falls into the ocean and nearly drowns.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After the villain's heart is destroyed in a burst of pure magic, the magical parasite stops its infection . . . leaving a number of people with terrible, lasting brain damage. Even one of the mains suffers this, having been affected by epilepsy. The author's timeline mentions that she dies a few decades later during an epileptic seizure, so that sucks.
• To Serve Man: Devil bureaucrat Essimore Darkenchyl's supernatural brethren consume each other upon death, which means they have little compunction about eating other creatures, including humans. Essie herself jokes frequently about this . . . it's just a joke, right?
• Vast Bureaucracy: The Blessed Agency is a massive bureaucracy spanning dozens of islands; anyone who wants to ship goods legally to any of these islands needs an Agency bureaucrat on their ship. This bureaucrat seems to be explicitly tasked with being a pain in everyone's ass, and is the only person on a ship besides the captain with a private room because so many past bureaucrats have been murdered in their sleep. Despite being led by immortals and having access to incredible magics, the Agency is mostly obsessed with fining people for improper weights and measurements of cargo. Also executing pirates. They love to do that.
• The Virus: The main villain is a sentient, telepathic metal meteor that fell from the sky; it manifests as a fungal infection that possesses and controls the bodies of its victims.
• Wooden Ships and Iron Men: Despite the series' comedy, which mostly derives from character interactions, the setting is definitely this: The food is awful; life on the ship is smelly and revolting; Conniver's teeth are described as so rotted that you can smell them; many characters are former war vets, scarred-up bruisers, or burnt-out alcoholics; and death is a real possibility for any characters but the main. Lampshaded sometimes, like when Essie says the vegetable stew some villagers give her is the first real meal she's had in a long time. When one villager asks Moss how long they've been sailing for, he says he's been sailing for a few decades, but Essie's only been sailing for a month.
• Wrong Context Magic: Most magic users use magic to make sure no one is forging documents; Essie uses it to melt zombie faces. (To be fair, she also uses it to make sure no one is forging documents.)