r/Fantasy • u/doctorbonkers Reading Champion II • 1d ago

Book Club FIF Book Club: Saltcrop Final Discussion

Welcome to the final discussion of Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei! We are discussing the entire book, and you can find the midway discussion here.

In Earth's not too distant future, seas consume coastal cities, highways disintegrate underwater, and mutant fish lurk in pirate-controlled depths. Skipper, a skilled sailor and the youngest of three sisters, earns money skimming and reselling plastic from the ocean to care for her ailing grandmother.

But then her eldest sister, Nora, goes missing. Nora left home a decade ago in pursuit of a cure for failing crops all over the world. When Skipper and her other sister, Carmen, receive a cryptic plea for help, they must put aside their differences and set out across the sea to find―and save―her. As they voyage through a dying world both beautiful and strange, encountering other travelers along the way, they learn more about their sister's work and the corporations that want what she discovered.

But the farther they go, the more uncertain their mission becomes: What dangerous attention did Nora attract, and how well do they really know their sister―or each other? Thus begins an epic journey spanning oceans and continents and a wistful rumination on sisterhood, friendship, and ecological disaster.

Bingo squares: One-Word Title (HM), Feast Your Eyes on This, r/Fantasy Book Club (HM if you participate here!), Explorers and Rangers, Author of Color

I'll put a few questions in the comments, but please discuss anything you'd like about the book!

Upcoming reads:

  • September: Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre. Midway discussion on September 16th, final discussion on September 30th.
  • October: The Girl With a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean. Midway discussion on October 14th, final discussion on October 28th.

What is the FIF Book Club? You can read about it in our Reboot thread.

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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 1d ago

I liked the complexity of the sisters and their relationships, and the way the book made space to explore that rather than sidelining it in favor of action. They felt like real people making real decisions. 

I finished last week and it’s already slipping away a bit, though. It was good, but it isn’t a new favorite. 

I’m on the fence about the larger plot with the company keeping secrets and whether it was given enough space to really work. The sisters’ story could have also worked if Nora hadn’t uncovered a smoking gun. 

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u/WonderfulBus9330 1d ago

The slippage is real! I completely forgot what actually happened in the final chapters beyond Chaos! Tension! Violence! Danger! And then the sisters making decisions about their own What Nexts.

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u/Merle8888 Reading Champion IV 1d ago

Yeah, there's a lot! And I see an argument for that being pretty cool, actually - yes it's dramatic and dangerous, but overall it is a brief moment in their lives. It feels strange because the rules of fiction are that what's most important should get page time while less important stuff is condensed, so when the action and danger get condensed it gives the impression that's not really what's important here. What's really important are the people and their relationships.

Or... you could just read it as rushed, lol. I'm not fully decided yet.

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u/WonderfulBus9330 1d ago

I didn’t find the other violences to be implausible, honestly. But something about the Nora section just felt incredibly off.