An intimate and evocative chronicle of perhaps the last largely-unknown frontier on planet Earth, The Brilliant Abyss takes readers into the depths of the world's oceans, exploring the mind-boggling ecosystem of the fascinating creatures who live there; the enormous influence the deep sea has on the planet and its ecology and environment; and the potential it offers for life-saving medicines.
Scales details the threats the deep ocean faces from environmental and temperature changes and potential human exploitation of its mineral resources, and makes clear the devastating impact any major shift in the structure of the deep could have.
Technically the deep ocean extends from 1,000 feet down to some 40,000 feet (8 miles!). We know less about the deep ocean than we do about the Moon. Indeed, fewer people have been down to "the deep" than have been to the Moon because the challenges of surviving the immense water pressure in the deep have been nearly insurmountable. Nonetheless, diaphanous creatures thrive there.
In one of the book's most fascinating sections, Scales traces the topography of the deep ocean, which is even more varied and extreme than its Earth-bound counterpart. Seamounts, giant mountain ranges, abyssal plains, hydrothermal vents reaching down to the Earth's core-nobody who reads this book will ever look at the ocean the same way.
Scales is a splendid and evocative writer-her copyeditor says the manuscript is "written with delightful wit and style." She has interviewed experts in all facets of the deep ocean, augmenting her own wide knowledge and giving her book up-to-the-minute authority.
A scientist and writer, Scales stands apart from other recent authors on the deep ocean, including journalists on deep sea diving (James Nestor, Bill Streever) and accounts by or about explorers (Robert Ballard, Victor Vescovo).
Scales's colorful narrative will be illustrated by a map of the topography of the deep ocean and a color insert with photographs of fascinating elements way below the waves.
We will have blurbs from well-known writers and authors. For example, Sy Montgomery, author of the bestselling The Soul of an Octopus, is a friend and called her and her last book "masterful." Mark Kurlansky's book Cod was one of Scales's early inspirations.
Scales's most recent book, Eye of the Shoal (2018), about the world's fish, was named a Book of the Year by New Scientist, and was praised by the New York Times Book Review as "a sprawling, ambitious underwater journey studded with fascinating tidbits," and by the Economist as "an engaging and informative bouillabaisse."
Scales's 2016 book Spirals in Time was a Guardian bestseller. It was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Biology book prize, picked as a book of the year by the Economist, Nature, the Times UK, and the Guardian, and was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.
