The Sea of Nightmares is an unwritten science-fiction/fantasy novel by Strix Obscuro.
On the distant world of Zura Maja'ne, young Ka'Lela Dane lives a normal, if sheltered, life with her family and friends on a peaceful island. But this peace is shattered when her older sister Ha'Lina runs away and subsequently disappears. As she and her family struggle to cope with this tragedy, strange things start to happen on the island.
This story contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Disorder: Gu'Rima has the Mahe equivalent of high-functioning autism.
- Ambiguous Gender: In Mahe society, children are all considered genderless at birth. As they grow up, each child determines their gender for themselves.
- Ambition Is Evil: La'Sale and her eldest child Na'Lane have some vigorous debates about this.
- And Man Grew Proud: In the prologue, Hali tries to explain to Kala how the humans came to Vise Ni'Hare, filtered through Mahe cosmology and theology. The result sounds sinister."They could not Sing or Shape as we do, so they looked for other ways to make Mother do what they wanted. And Mother got angry and cast them out."
- Arranged Marriage: Traditionally, higher-caste Mahe'ta engaged in arranged marriages as a way of building their clans. This sets off the book's conflict, as Ha'Lina runs away because she doesn't like her betrothed.
- The Clan: Mahe society relies heavily upon clans in order to maintain hierarchy.
- Crystal Spires and Togas: Vise Ni'Hare is very much this trope - the architecture tends towards smoothness and roundness while the fashion tends to be flowing.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The Mahe'bi have very different customs from humans. For starters, Mahe views on gender and sexuality are way more liberal.
- Feuding Families: Goro Ha'Hame is seemingly perpetually wracked with blood feuds. Juro and his clan fled to Vise Ni'Hare after one of those feuds killed his wife and most of his children.
- Gender Bender: The Hara caste are traditionally genderfluid, switching between genders depending on which ceremonies they are performing.
- Handicapped Badass: Gane is blind in one eye, deaf in one ear, and limps, but she can still kick most people's asses.
- Homosexual Reproduction: With homosexuality being much more common among the Mahe'bi, the higher-caste families have developed means of continuing the line if the heirs happen to be gay. Kala's sibling Na'Lane was a product of one of these methods.
- Let Her Grow Up, Dear: Inverted with La'Sale and Guri. One of La'Sale's few character flaws is her efforts to control her children's love lives, whereas Guri is far more willing to trust his daughters' judgment.
- Noble Savage: The humans living on Zura Maja'ne regard the Islanders this way, because while Vise Ni'Hare has plenty of technology, it's deliberately made unintrusive.
- Proud Warrior Race: The Hame'bi are a deconstruction; centuries of inability to back down from fights has left Goro Ha'Hame nearly ungovernable, and Gane and her dad are both crippled and living in exile as a result of a blood feud.
- Silk Hiding Steel: La'Sale leads the people of Vise Ni'Hare with a combination of charm, political savvy, and cunning.
- Vestigial Empire: At one point, Zura Maja'ne was ruled by a vast empire, but in-fighting among its elite factions caused the empire to split up.
