The Kraken Wakes (Imprint Books)

by John Wyndham

John Wyndham's classic tale of monsters from the deep, alien invasion and ecological disaster comes alive in this full-cast BBC radio dramatisation. At first, the fireballs seemed to be nothing more than a dazzling display of lights in the sky, plunging into the deepest oceans and disappearing without trace. But when ships started sinking inexplicably and the sea-lanes became impassable it seemed that the world was facing a threat of unprecedented proportions. Mike and Phyllis Watson, both radio journalists, are caught up at the centre of events, well aware that it's not the cold war or international conflicts that are causing these events, but something infinitely more deadly - an alien invasion.And that's not all: the sea level is rising, the ice caps are melting, London and other cities are flooding, millions of people are drowning and ecological disaster looms. And whatever the alien beings are, they have begun to emerge from the sea...A science fiction story full of contemporary resonances, from the fear of global warming to the distrust of official information and propaganda, and the ultimate fear of a challenge to the supremacy of human beings on Earth.
This CD release also includes a detailed sleeve note recounting the making of the radio serialisation, written by Andrew Pixley.

• ISBN10: 0718102126
• ISBN13: 9780718102128
• Publish Date: December 1953
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 25 October 2004
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Michael Joseph Ltd
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

‘I don’t care. I don’t mind working hard when there’s hope. It was having no more hope that was too much for me.’

This may come as a spoiler to people but I have to get this off my chest because I absolutely detest books whose title promises something that the book does not deliver:

The is no bloody kraken in this book.

The kraken only appears as a reference to a poem by Tennyson in which the ills of the world are unleashed. And while this describes the story of the book perfectly, it does little for the unassuming reader who has come here for a kraken adventure.

With this out of the way, there were some marvellous aspects of human behaviour laid out in this book - mostly I fear, human behaviour at its worst. One was the way that fear-mongering and distress will cause people to divide into an us v them mentality. Another, was that despite a likelihood of survival being better in a group, everyone is seen as a victim first, then as an asset to accomplish a common goal.

As this book was written during the Cold War, the utterly stupid assumption that dropping atom bombs on a problem would solve it made an appearance, too. And this assumption was flaunted quite readily as a solution. Of course, it was of absolutely no help whatsoever.

And so it took the near destruction of the world for some nation, who at the time of writing had been written off, to find a solution.

There really is much truth in Wyndham's observations of humans and politics, even tho his description of technology was dated even at the time of writing. This book is sci-fi, but it really is not about fancy technology at all. If anything, it is about the destruction of civilisation by an unknown force who ultimately causes a type of disaster that is very real to the present reader - the melting of the ice caps.

I really admire Wyndham's foresight on this point along with his observations about humans.

Unfortunately, Wyndham's style of writing was not for me. In particular, our main character's narrative was abysmally boring. It was really only when conversing with his wife or some other characters that the story really came to life. This made the reading experience an exercise in drudgery, and the book deserves so much better.