Thomcat
10/12/2016
This book was local author Frank Herbert's first and is on a list of Defining Science Fiction books of the 50s. More thriller than SF, it is part sub warfare and part psychological drama. It is set in the near future of an ongoing world war between West and East, where oil is scarce and some targets (including the British Isles) are uninhabitable due to nuclear fallout.
I love a good sub war book, and this reminded me of The Hunt for Red October. Some of the technology is a advanced (a signal repeater and inserted alarm pellets) but the majority is set in the 1950s (manual gauges, wheels and pumps). Torpedoes are used in the usual and also some very creative ways. The author served in the navy as a photographer.
This is also the first book I've read by Frank Herbert, as I somehow missed reading the Dune series as a kid. This watery first book is the opposite of those desert novels, but is still a recommended read.