Q and A / FAQ on Echo and the Sea

Unsure if the new Indestructibles spinoff will be for you? Here's a quick Q and A about Echo and the Sea and how ti fits into the Indestructiverse: 

​Q: What sets Echo and the Sea apart from the Indestructibles series?
 
A: Well, while it takes place in the same universe as the Indestructibles – I’ve started calling it the “Indestructiverse,” something a fellow author came up with a few months back that I thought was perfect – Echo’s story is its own arc. Where the Indestructibles is a lot more comic book sci-fi, Echo is more fantasy, with a lot of myth and magic involved in her world.
 
Q: What made you want to break from the Indestructibles?
 
A: First I should mention – I’m definitely continuing the Indestructibles. The fifth book in that series is in the works already! But Echo’s tale is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’ve had this particular book plotted out in my mind since not long after my first book came out, but when the Indestructibles kicked off, I had to give those characters my full attention. When Like a Comet came out last year, I saw a window to explore another corner of the Indestructiverse and write about some new characters, themes, and adventures.
 
Q: Is Echo and the Sea the same reading level as the Indestructibles?
 
A: Similar. It has some darker themes and a little bit more violence—for readers of the series, Echo is more similar in tone to the Entropy of Everything than the original book. A bit more mature with some harsher consequences for the characters, but I think readers of the series will find it to be a similar vibe and tone. The characters are a bit older at the start, too.
 
Q: Where does it take place in the Indestructiverse timeline?
 
A: Echo’s story starts right around the time the first Indestructibles book takes place, almost simultaneously.
 
Q: Why take the Indestructiverse to Atlantis?
 
A: The idea actually came out of a game that some of my writer friends and I play—I call it the “if they ever let me write” game, where we throw out script or story treatments for characters we’d love to work on. I’d had a running joke about what I’d do if I got to write someone like Aquaman or Namor, and in the end, what I realized was I wanted to do was something original: an Atlantis on the verge of war with the surface world, a swashbuckling high-seas adventure, and a young woman caught up in a life-changing adventure.
 
Q: You’ve got a lot of mythological references in there.
 
A: I do. I love mythology. I read Edith Hamilton’s Mythology until the cover fell off as a kid, and love stories like Neil Gaiman’s American Gods or Sandman. Echo’s story gave me a chance to delve into those more fantastical elements that I’m not able to work with in the main series.