"Ocean-Space" by Allen M. Steele

Publisher: Ace Books, New York, 2000
ISBN: 044100850X

Ocean Space is a book that deals with life in an undersea research facility, and the everyday things they have to put up with in order to survive in this element. The first good thing about this book is that Mr. Steele, gets the science right. He takes things like the requirements for the divers to decompress, the use of special gas mixtures to allow for saturation diving, and even the required close living quarters into account. As a former diver these details were extremely refreshing to see.

In many science-fiction books, the science components such as this are ignored by the authors. Why they do this is anybody's guess. It could be something as simple as them not understanding the concepts (and refusing to do research), or possibly even assuming that their audience won't notice and therefore it won't matter if they skimp on the research. Both are unforgivable in my opinion.

The story opens when one of the characters (in a manned submersible mining manganese nodules on the ocean floor) gets into trouble following an unexplained encounter in the deep ocean. This sets the pace of this novel which is quite fast. The pace gets pushed even higher when a second plot line is introduced about the exploration of deeps hydrothermal vents.

For the younger readers who read this there is a young lady who is on her first visit to the installation, although this isn't where she thought she was heading too, as they just said a vacation in Florida. This adds a fair bit of conflict, and humour to the narration. When you add to this a good dose of espionage, some personal conflicts, and stir you have a first rate story that will keep you reading.