Reading Caskey Russell’s debut novel The Door on the Sea had me doing something I haven’t done in a long time: flipping ahead. Not out of boredom, but because of a kind of tingly excitement that I associate with crushing Animorphs or Tamora Pierce’s books as a kid. My fingers themselves were so antsy to see what happened next that I couldn’t stop them from skipping forward—realizing I didn’t WANT any spoilers but catching a tantalizing word from the future anyway—and turning back only to try and read even faster.
Russell, an enrolled member of the Tlingit Nation of Alaska, centers the first installment of his series on a young man of the island-dwelling Aaní people named Elān, who winds up going on a quest to retrieve a supremely powerful weapon. This dangerous yet inexplicable object, called a dzanti by the Aaní, is the kind wielded by the people’s greatest enemy, the Koosh. The narrator’s introduction of this foe in the first chapter stuck with me, not least because of the oral storytelling flourishes:
No doubt in your world you have heard tales of beings so inhuman and horrifying that, even though they may live far away, just hearing about them feels like scaly claws ripping into your stomach from inside; and you banish these creatures to the edges of your mind and try not to think on them, but they lurk in your mind-edges holding knives and calling for your thoughts.
Yet, we soon learn that the Koosh have drawn much nearer than nightmare-fuel usually does. These cruelly destructive beings have enslaved the Aaní’s mundane human enemies, and will come for Elān’s people next.
All of this information is courtesy of raven, one of the most uniquely foulmouthed characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering. On his way to deliver this alarming intelligence about the Koosh to the Aaní council of elders, raven stops to steal some grilled salmon left out by what he terms “stupid fatheads [who] must learn not to leave cooked salmon sitting near an open door.” It turns out, however, that raven is the fathead, as his greed results in Elān trapping him in a cupboard. Raven barters his spying knowledge for his freedom, and surprises himself by promising to take Elān to Botson’s Bay to retrieve the dzanti.
It is this moment of cleverness, curiosity, and a bit of compassion on Elān’s part that places the young man at the core of the Aaní’s clash with the Koosh. Though an unexpected hero, given his studies in the Longhouse of Service and Trade rather than the Longhouse of War and Diplomacy, Elān is a ready one. He is lonely and bored with his life in the village of Naasteidi, disheartened by his future as a teacher. His community sees him as strange and a bit pathetic, which wounds all the deeper given Elān’s grandfather Latseen was the greatest warrior-leader in living memory.
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The Door on the Sea
Indeed, Elān would never have been sent on this mission were it not for Íxt, the Aaní council elder who sent raven to retrieve intelligence on the Koosh in the first place. Íxt, who was also an old friend of Latseen’s, commissions the fastest canoe ever to sail the waves, and marshals a group of warriors to accompany Elān on his journey.
If this is giving you hints of Gandalf and a certain hobbit’s protective Fellowship, you are not wrong. The Door on the Sea is marketed as “[a]n epic quest fantasy debut that is the Tlingit indigenous response to The Lord of the Rings.” Certainly, there are more parallels than simply the set-up. Elān and his occasionally mutinous crew travel through a range of dangers, from the environmental to the human, including a village held under the fascistic sway of a corrupted leader. (Wormtongue in Rohan, anyone?) Only one primary character is a woman, though unlike a certain silent Shieldmaiden, this warrior is vocal when pissed off. The Koosh that Elān finally encounters is alarmingly seductive, and has command over a cloud of vicious flying creatures. Young Elān’s strength surprises his crew, even as the influence of the dzanti corrupts him into enacting a brutal level of violence he once swore never to commit.
All this said, I would argue that the novel’s tone is much closer to The Hobbit, if we must, uh, Tolkien-ize. Russell wrote this for his sons, just as J.R.R. wrote the story of Bilbo for his own children, and the intimate narrative quality of the book elevates it to that rare thing—a lyrical page-turner. Not to mention, I can’t imagine Tolkien using the phrase “an old bag of chalky turds,” spoken by raven, or my favorite of the incorrigible bird’s insults, “that’s like being the brightest berry in a furry pile of grizzly turds.” Having just backpacked through grizzly country in chokecherry season, that one really made me laugh.
Obviously, I delighted in The Door on the Sea, but I’ll acknowledge that it isn’t perfect. At times Russell’s in-depth descriptions of Elān’s sailing maneuvers are in greater detail than most readers need. There are some loose ends, like the vow against violence that Elān swears, which I do imagine will return in the next book but is oddly never considered by Elān after his most explosive act of brutality. Early in the book, Elān suffers from debilitating headaches and vision loss, but that issue only comes up once, at the most convenient moment.
But what spoken tale gathers every single one of its threads? And what debut novel doesn’t have a few shaky spots? None of these inconsistencies hampered my enjoyment of Elān’s adventure in the least. To be honest, the straightforward plot got me out of a reading slump engendered by one too many novels full of excessive twists. Then, the whimsy and the flawed but charming characters kept me addicted. I missed this book when I finished it, feeling like someone had been telling me a story, but suddenly disappeared. I might go right for the audiobook when it comes out at the end of November, as I have a hunch that the aural medium might be an even more satisfying experience of Russell’s tale. And certainly, whenever the sequel to The Door on the Sea comes out, I’ll be ready to pick up right where we left off.
The Door on the Sea is published by Solaris.
I was so looking forward to this book I pre-ordered it and read it the week it came out. Unfortunately, all the things you mentioned here – the inconsistencies in Elan’s character, only one prominent woman, and childish tone of the Raven – made me pretty disappointed in it. I might be curious about the next book in the series to see if Russell improves from his debut, but I won’t spend money on it.
I selected this as my favorite SFF book of 2025 for Reactor’s reader survey! Very strong sense of place/culture, uses the Koosh to recast aspects of the battle with colonialists in a fantasy setting that allows for a variant outcome, without being in-your-face about colonialism. The epic fantasy vibe is never undermined by those echoes of the struggle with colonialists. Also, the indigenous cultures are not idealized, and the tension between tradition and innovation is central to the main character’s motivation from the get-go. And I enjoyed the humor, including the Raven’s potty-mouthed selfishness.
I also hope a few things get smoothed out in the following volumes–and we maybe get another key female character–but I thought it was a very strong start, and I’m giving it to teenagers I know for Christmas.