The Lost Code (review)

The ozone is severely depleted, radiation and ocean levels alike are on the rise, the planet's habitable zones are shrinking, and the EdenCorp biodomes scattered across the world are reserved for only the luckiest and wealthiest of the dwindling human population. Owen wins a lottery to attend a summer camp at Eden West, where a near-drowning leaves him with mysterious neck wounds that turn into gills, and he starts to hear a siren calling to him from the lake with a cryptic message. It turns out that EdenCorp is in search of a genetic connection to the legendary civilization of Atlantis—and they're not above a little invasive medical experimentation to find it. Readers in search of a gritty dystopia may find the biodome setting shields them too much from the grim world-ending going on outside, but the wild aerial chase of the ending promises to carry future volumes into the larger world. The familiar array of apocalypse-ready themes, ranging from corporate greed to the fragility of the environment to human arrogance, are on display, harnessed to a combination of science and mysticism (light on the science) with complications that don't always compensate for the excess of exposition needed to convey their relevance. Still, the broad strokes of conflict and characterization make this a movie-ready action flick at heart; with an easy romance and a social world primarily built on well-trodden summer camp tropes, it's a lighter alternative to the bleak post-apocalyptic waterworld of Bertagna's Exodus or Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker (BCCB 6/10) and an accessible entree to the dystopia trend.