In the remnants of a London drowned by seas swollen by the melting ice caps, a scientific expedition tries to gather environmental data that might help humanity survive, and we follow the adventures of three participants—two men and one woman—who cut themselves off from their colleagues and stake their futures on adapting to the new conditions. Soon they encounter a piratical band—the leader, Strangman, has a flock of pet crocodiles—and what follows is a Conradian excursion into an increasingly desperate landscape (narratively speaking, The Drowned World is a missing link between Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now). The Drowned World reaches into the future and the past at the same time, portraying an invented world that is both fantastic and strangely literal in its marshaling of detail.