Former sailor brings Canadian perspective to submarine sci-fi novel
By Ryan Melanson,
Trident Staff
PHOTO: SUBMITTED
A former Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) sailor has drawn on her experience in the fleet to write SHIFT, a science-fiction thriller centred on a Canadian submarine and its crew facing an unexplained phenomenon.
R.T. Wells served in the Regular Force from 2010 to 2016, leaving the Armed Forces as a Leading Seaman (now equivalent to Sailor 1st Class). Her career included postings in St. John’s, Halifax and eventually to Esquimalt, B.C., where she further developed a particular interest in submarines.
Wells initially hoped to become a submariner when she joined the Navy, but instead found herself working with the Victoria-class fleet during a posting to Maritime Forces Pacific. There, she helped rewrite and reorganize submarine trial manuals, ensuring crews had clear instructions to conduct trials safely.
That experience eventually became part of the inspiration for her debut novel, which is set in 2013 and draws on the culture and working lives of RCN sailors and submariners.
“This book is absolutely saturated in personal experience,” Wells said. “It very much explores the culture of submariners, their own sort of quirky lot in life, and how they end up in that role.”
In SHIFT, the crew of the fictional HMCS Wolfville face an unusual challenge when their Victoria-class submarine begins inexplicably teleporting itself to different parts of the world. With each unexpected arrival bringing the vessel into unfamiliar waters, the crew must piece together the cause of the phenomenon while dealing with the attention it attracts from other navies.
Wells always had ambitions to write a novel, and a mentor in a creative writing course helped her settle on submarines as the focus after she considered several Navy-inspired story ideas. She initially played with a more traditional ghost story before developing the science-fiction mystery at the heart of SHIFT.
She describes the concept as “The Hunt for Red October meets Star Trek.”
While researching and writing about the Victoria-class submarine presented some challenges, Wells believes the Canadian setting is also what helps distinguish the story from other military-inspired fiction.
“It’s not the American story or the British story. It’s our story, and that’s what I think makes it truly stand apart. Tom Clancy got there before me, and Gene Roddenberry got there before me, but what isn’t there in either of their storylines is us.”
“It was incredibly satisfying to write about it,” she added.
Now living in Alberta, Wells is planning to return to writing in the new year after focusing on launching SHIFT, which is billed as the first book in a planned trilogy.
SHIFT is available now in paperback and as a Kindle e-book.
