Thu 29 Sep 2016
A Science Fiction Review by Dan Stumpf: JOHN WYNDHAM – Out of the Deeps.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy[6] Comments
JOHN WYNDHAM – Out of the Deeps. Ballantine #50, US, paperback, November 1953. Michael Joseph, UK, hardcover, 1953, as The Kraken Wakes. Reprinted several times under both titles.
From the front cover:
*All over the world, great slimy monsters crept out of the seas — to feed on human flesh!
I think “slimy†is a nice touch; don’t you?
In any case, this is a fast-moving and fairly gripping tale of one of those idiosyncratic Alien Invasions typical of British Sci-Fi, unfolding over a period of several years and narrated by a journalist of the Clark Kent school: handy at crucial moments, and observant enough to see the implications.
It all starts conventionally enough as strange objects streak to Earth from somewhere around Jupiter and mostly plunk into the ocean deeps, except for a few that streak across the U.S. and/or Russia and are promptly shot to space-smithereens, since this was at the height (or depth, if you prefer) of the Cold War.
Some time passes before the Government organizes a research team that includes our narrator and the usual insightful, eccentric) and politically inconvenient) Scientist to see what became of the things, leading to a suspenseful chapter where bathyspheres are dropped, only to have loose cables hauled back up, severed and fused by some awesome heat.
Things progress from here to worse: depth bombs are dropped, ships disappear, then more ships, and finally whale-size blobs start crawling out on land, discharging “millebrachiate tentacular coelenterates†(big honkin’ jellyfish) to devour the locals.
There are some really fine pages of pitched battles with the damn things until (SPOILER ALERT!) they put the blighters to rout, And everyone slaps himself on the back for vanquishing the foe…. And then, very slowly, the polar ice caps start to melt — and at this point the whole thing got unbelievable.
The thing is, there’s a strong subtext in this book of Official dithering and Politicized inaction. Wyndham spreads his story over years, with connecting phrases like “It was not till months later…†or “the following summer…†and that sort of thing. The icecap-melt uses a lot of these, as elected officials all over the world argue over what’s going on and whose fault it is.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to swallow the notion that responsible elected officials, faced with clear evidence of climate change, would mostly just ignore it. There’s even a short bit about New Orleans getting flooded… makes the whole thing unbelievable.
If you can get past this, however, there’s some good reading here, with large-scale catastrophe, small-scale personal crises, and a real feel for the characters involved. What impressed me most though was that Wyndham brought this whole epic in under two hundred pages. If it were done today, he’d have to spend five volumes detailing pointless subplots and diversions to tell the same damn story. No wonder I miss the fast, sharp writing of yester-pulp!
September 29th, 2016 at 6:28 pm
My wife listened to the audio book of this, and loved it so much she listened again.
And yes, it is hard to believe responsible political leaders presented with clear evidence of global warming …
Ooops.
September 30th, 2016 at 9:25 am
This sounds like a must-read book.
Years ago read and liked Wyndham’s DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and REBIRTH. Keep meaning to read more, but have not yet done so.
This sounds like a possible ancestor to those 1950’s science fiction comic book tales about melting icecaps and/or global warming. These include:
Mystery in Space
3 (August-September 1956) Fix-It Men From Outer Space
Strange Adventures
55 (April 1955) The Day the Sun Exploded
64 (January 1956) The Earth-Drowners
96 (September 1958) The Menace of Saturn’s Rings
A science fiction book it might have influenced is J.G. Ballard’s THE DROWNED WORLD.
September 30th, 2016 at 11:07 am
One of the things about his book, that does not seem to be well known, is that the original British edition, as The Kraken Wakes, is seriously different. The main difference is that the narrator’s wife, who is a very strong character in the British version, is completely watered-down in the US version, even to changing which one of them has the nervous breakdown in one of the middle chapters. If you read the UK versions of Wyndham’s novels it is clear that he was an early feminist who wrote strong female characters and that Ballantine Books gutted those aspects his novels. This is even more shocking considering Ian Ballantine’s supposedly liberal views. I, personally, prefer the British versions.
September 30th, 2016 at 11:19 am
I for one did not know this. Thanks, Ken!
September 30th, 2016 at 2:02 pm
Wyndham was definitely an early feminist (the less well known scifi novel TROUBLE WITH LICHEN is essentially as social comedy with a very strongly drawn female central character).
It’s quite clever in that Wyndham makes the POV narrators a rather charming, urbane pair of journalists who only gradually realise that the world is going to Hell in a handcart. Val Guest used a similar technique in the later movie THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, where the main characters talk and act like people in a slice of life drama about Fleet Street, until about half way through the film when they suddenly realise that the are in an apolcalyptic sci-fi movie.
I also love the fact that both the readers and the main characters never quite know what exactly is going on. We and they can guess and speculate, but there is never really any scene where the aliens spell out their plans.
September 30th, 2016 at 8:00 pm
That paperback cover at the top is, of course, by Richard Powers. Always great to see his work.
And yes, Dan, those shorter novels did pack more of a punch.