The Kraken Wakes
Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 5:24 am
I'd forgotten just how good an author John Wyndham was. He's long dead now but his books remain as readable as ever, if a little 'quaint' in their very English mindset and the tone of their writing.
In The Kraken Wakes the narrator recounts the course of events following the appearance in the skies, and subsequent plunging into the abysmal depths, of strangely red glowing balls of light, and a cracking tale it is. Firstly beset by a spate of ship dissapearances, followed by other inexplicable phenomena, a gradual disintegration of the world of normal experience follows, in which the very absence of the implied 'aliens' only adds to the tension and gripping nature of the yarn. The absolute and complete isolation of the said depths from our world of the surface is vividly portrayed in a manner that is more accessible, indeed more unsettling, than any blurry film footage shot from a bathosphere or roving camera, and the unknowable region that makes up a large proportion of the world we inhabit is the real star of the show.
Pulling on to a satisfying conclusion I've had a great few days reading this book and I'm much looking forward to getting hold of another of his works. The writing is compact and accessible and no flannel is expended in the telling of the tale; Wyndham simply gets on with it without theatre and to great effect. There is no attempt to ramp up the horror with florid language or high emotion - just a plain down to earth Englishman doing his thing. Great stuff and highly recommended.
In The Kraken Wakes the narrator recounts the course of events following the appearance in the skies, and subsequent plunging into the abysmal depths, of strangely red glowing balls of light, and a cracking tale it is. Firstly beset by a spate of ship dissapearances, followed by other inexplicable phenomena, a gradual disintegration of the world of normal experience follows, in which the very absence of the implied 'aliens' only adds to the tension and gripping nature of the yarn. The absolute and complete isolation of the said depths from our world of the surface is vividly portrayed in a manner that is more accessible, indeed more unsettling, than any blurry film footage shot from a bathosphere or roving camera, and the unknowable region that makes up a large proportion of the world we inhabit is the real star of the show.
Pulling on to a satisfying conclusion I've had a great few days reading this book and I'm much looking forward to getting hold of another of his works. The writing is compact and accessible and no flannel is expended in the telling of the tale; Wyndham simply gets on with it without theatre and to great effect. There is no attempt to ramp up the horror with florid language or high emotion - just a plain down to earth Englishman doing his thing. Great stuff and highly recommended.
