"Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne (1828-1905)

 

Publisher: Crown Publishers, Inc.

Copyright: 1983

ISBN: 0517413736

This book is another classic in what would come to be known as science-fiction. It was originally written in 1869, and illustrates Verne's fascination with science. It is true that the science depicted in this and other of Verne's stories does not match what we consider to be science today, but for the most part it is accurate as far as the scientific knowledge of the time is concerned.

This is essentially a story of discovery, in that Professor Arronax is taken on a voyage under the sea, and being a naturalist is enamoured with the things he sees. It is true that the book is quite long, but the detail Verne goes into is excellent. He is one of a number of authors that I would have loved to have met.

I recently rewatched the Disney version of this book which came out in 1954. As is typical the director once again took huge liberties with Verne's story.  However, considering the year this was made they weren't all that bad as the movie would've had to be quite a bit longer to encompass the entire story. One major change they made however was to hint that Captain Nemo had discovered nuclear energy, and that the Nautilus was powered by it, this was also reinforced when at the end of the movie Nemo's base was destroyed, and a telltale mushroom cloud was evident. Neither of these things were part of Verne's story, and considering that the story is set in 1866, it seems rather silly to contemplate as atomic theory was definitely in its infancy, and Albert Einstein wouldn't be born for 13 years. Add to this that the nature of the atom was formulated in 1911, that electron surrounded the nucleus was discovered in 1897, etc. and we are once again confronted with age old puzzle of why Hollywood can't do basic research.

It would be nice to see some studio take on this and many other classic stories and do them as a miniseries, as the author intended.

"In Oceans Deep: Courage, Innovation, and Adventure Beneath the Waves" by Bill Streever

Publisher:New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2019.
Edition:First edition.
ISBN: 9780316551311
Characteristics: xi, 303 pages :,illustrations

I found this book "In Oceans Deep "to be a very interesting read. The author Bill Streever is a former commercial diver, who worked in the Gulf of Mexico amongst other places. When he left commercial diving he took up research biology and now lives with his wife aboard a sailboat (not a bad life).

These experiences have given him knowledge of most if not all the aspects of diving, and humanity's history underwater. In fact, I feel other authors who don't have these skills and experiences, would be hard pressed to write a book such as this.

The whole book is extensively researched, with the first chapter dealing with the accomplishments of the Trieste when it to descended it into the Challenger Deep back in January 1960. The author then examines the sport of free diving (diving to depth on the single breath of air). The author managed to reach a depth of 132 feet after only four weeks of training.

The next topic was developments in technology to allow divers to stay at depth using various diving suits diving Bell's etc. in this section he also gives an overview of decompression science and how it was developed / discovered when they were utilizing caissons for building bridges.

Next comes saturation diving, which means divers stay under pressure for an extended periods of time, breathing exotic gas mixtures to allowing them to work or do research at depth.  This section included discussion of projects such as the U.S. Navy's Sealab I, II, & III.

Other topics that are dealt with in this book are: 1 atmosphere diving in which the diver remains at 1 atmosphere throughout the by using devices such as the Newtsuit, submersibles, etc. The next topic was remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) how they are used, and some of the accomplishments that have been achieved through their use.

The final chapter talks about some of the interviews the author did when writing this book, the ongoing work to preserve the oceans by these advocates, and the difficulties they are having.

This book was extremely interesting to read, and even though I haven't been diving for many years it makes me want to get back into the sport. Mind you the fact that I live in a landlocked part of the country makes this rather difficult, as there isn't much to see in freshwater lakes.

"Hunt for Red October" by Tom Clancy (1947-2013)

Publisher:Annapolis, Md. : Naval Institute Press, [1984]
Copyright Date:©1984
ISBN: 9780425240335
Characteristics: 387 pages ;,23 cm

This was Tom Clancey's first novel and as such was well written. He did an extensive amount of research, and developed an interesting plot that keeps the reader in suspense. For those people who have watched the movie, it is quite different as it seems to be typical that Hollywood feels the need to dumb things down for their audiences, as well as eliminate and change others things for no apparent reason.

With that being said this is really the only novel by this author that I have ever really enjoyed, as in later books he tends to get a little preachy on how wonderful the United States is. In this book that works well as it deals to defectors the United States, but in others of the series it simply gets to be too much.

The one thing that tended to irk me a fair bit in the book is that nowhere in it is Canada mentioned. Now considering that the majority of the action takes place off our Eastern coast you'd think that we would at least get a mention, but this doesn't happen. Mind you I wouldn't have expected the author to fabricate facts about our submarine fleet, as we don't really have one, but we could have been mentioned with regard to the Atlantic surface fleet. But, I guess you can't have everything, as I've seen American school textbooks, and Canada is primarily depicted as a barren wasteland north of the 49th parallel. Yes, I'll stop whining now!