A review by lizziepurpleserenity
Kraken Wakes the by John Wyndham

4.0

I enjoyed this. The pacing was a little slow at times (and it took quite some time to get to some proper action from the deep), but I really liked the husband & wife team, and the exploration of how the press and government might handle such events, from the POV of a journalist. The narrative of the husband occasionally came across as a little patronising about his wife, but this was possibly intentional or else a product of the time it was written - however, despite this being written in the '50s, she was in fact the cleverer of the two of them, who played an important role, something the narrator (her husband) does acknowledge a few times.

I particularly enjoyed when he called the doctor because he thought his wife was finally losing it and it turned out he was the one who needed a break :D .(PTSD basically) And the end, when she reveals that she'd built her arbour brick by brick by herself in order to hide stores of food in case it was ever needed.

In short, she was pretty cool. I also liked that they had a nice, gentle relationship but with conflicty cracks here and there.

The scientist Bocker was pretty cool too.

The end, when the ice caps melt and sea level rises, could have been a description of what is literally going to happen to us all for real one day. Considering this was written before climate science started really taking off and becoming a concern, it's kinda prescient and chilling - and we even have people in power arguing about it!

I'm not sure Wyndham was completely scientifically accurate about how it would all go down, and at times (especially in the last third) the narrative feels a bit detached from the real action and everyday people, due to the privileged/lucky situation of the protagonists, but nevertheless I did enjoy it.