Research
Behind the Book
The series is fiction, but much of what happens in it starts somewhere real. This is where the research lives.
What gets researched
- Pods and family structure
- Orca society is built around long-lived matriarchal family groups. Herynn, Okent, Joop and Joom sit inside a real social structure.
- Humpback behavior
- Migration routes, feeding strategies, and the documented instances of humpbacks intervening to protect other animals — the seed of Babel and Hue.
- Entanglement and ocean threats
- Discarded and active fishing gear is a genuine, documented danger to whales worldwide. It is what puts Hue in the nets.
- The world below
- Kelp forests, bait balls, coastal inlets, open-ocean crossings — the actual geography the story moves through.
Research posts
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The ocean science behind the series, sent occasionally alongside release news.