This one may actually be tipping into the novel size -- but it is way too close to call and I cannot find a reliable word count so I count it as a novella.

In 1963, one of the American nuclear submarines shot all its torpedoes but one (and the one that did not get out because it malfunctioned). retaliation followed and the bombs flew in all directions.

But we do not know that when this story starts - because we get to see the world of Remy, a pre-teen girl on the submarine Leviathan, where women are not allowed, boys are being cut so they remain pure (and the voices of the ones who can sing do not break) and the Caplain (a mix between a captain and chaplain) leads a cult whose sole objective is to one day send that last torpedo out and end the world. So what is a girl doing in that vessel? Well, it is complicated and everyone (but the Caplain) thinks that she is a boy. The fact that she can sing really well does not harm anything - because the plan is for everyone to die while singing. For decades now, the submarine had been dodging the people up above the waves - raiding them, stealing boys from them (and throwing girls into the waves). Only a handful of people remember the past - and they are not talking. Everyone else is too young and believes what the Order/cult had taught them - the wars devastated the land and they need to end it for everyone so everyone can go to God. So they live according to the Bible, with prayers and singing in Latin, the way a monastery will live. Most people have a short and brutal lives, if they survive the cutting which is always done once the boy arrives on the boat, then they will be dying from exposure to the reactor - unless they can sing - then they have a chance of a bit longer life. Mostly.

Remy has memories of the sun and when a captured outsider tells her a story of the world, she decides to help her (the fact that the outsider is the first woman Remy ever sees plays a role into it). Remy, and most of the other people on the submarine, are naive to the point of being stupid. And everyone who ever lived elsewhere exploits it. But real friendships still exist - and when people have nothing to lose, they may make weird choices.

I wish the author had actually expanded this and included the end of the story - we get some information about the world, we know that it is 1986, we know that Leviathan was the submarine that sparkled the whole mess and the Chinese and Russians are winning the war but... we never get to see the world. Or to see how the kids who escaped the horrors of Leviathan it into that world. I can see how that can be counted as a complete story but... it feels more like a volume 1 of a bigger story than a complete and finished story. ( )

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2021/04/review-of-we-shall-sing-song-into-deep.... ( )