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The Dragon in the Sea
Twenty subtugs had been lost attempting to bring back oil from the undersea fields on the enemy's borders. A brilliant psychologist-electronics expert is planted in the crew of the subtug Ram to discover the reason. And the reason becomes terrifying reality when, miles deep in the ocean, the minds of the crew begin to crack...
192 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1956
67 people are currently reading
1693 people want to read
About the author
Frank Herbert
547 books16.5k followersFranklin Patrick Herbert Jr. was an American science fiction author best known for the 1965 novel Dune and its five sequels. Though he became famous for his novels, he also wrote short stories and worked as a newspaper journalist, photographer, book reviewer, ecological consultant, and lecturer.
The Dune saga, set in the distant future, and taking place over millennia, explores complex themes, such as the long-term survival of the human species, human evolution, planetary science and ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics, economics and power in a future where humanity has long since developed interstellar travel and settled many thousands of worlds. Dune is the best-selling science fiction novel of all time, and the entire series is considered to be among the classics of the genre.
The Dune saga, set in the distant future, and taking place over millennia, explores complex themes, such as the long-term survival of the human species, human evolution, planetary science and ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics, economics and power in a future where humanity has long since developed interstellar travel and settled many thousands of worlds. Dune is the best-selling science fiction novel of all time, and the entire series is considered to be among the classics of the genre.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 186 reviews
July 9, 2023
This book was clearly in many ways an experimental work by the author. The musings on the psychological nature of birth as compared to the experience of the submariners, the protracted scenes of paranoia and conflict amongst the characters, and the repetition of religious metaphors as well as outright dialogue all illustrate that Herbert was immersed in his own reading of psychology and religion at or around the time he penned this book. In later books, it's clear that such research would pay off, but in this one it makes for some heavy-handed writing when it comes to the characters, and some not-so-subtle narrative voice-over. In short, it turns this book into more of tract than a novel, and there are a lot of elements that slow it down in ways that are, these days, difficult to plow through.
The science fiction elements of the story are muted by the psycho-theological musings, but they do appear throughout the piece. The storyline of a clandestine mission to steal petroleum from under the noses of the enemy in a submersible "tug" is more than a little unlikely, as are some of the physical aspects of that vessel. This isn't 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, however, so the reader shouldn't expect ground-breaking concepts to be presented. Rather, the book focuses on the men (a rather sparse crew of four) on the tug, their interactions and the effects that their duties have on them.
Plot-wise, the story is a little thin. The character who is the main narrative voice (the story is told in the third person, and we get things from the perspective of most of the characters at one point or another) is planted by the psychological department of his futuristic naval forces to learn why so many of their vessels have recently been lost. The mission itself is a sneak into enemy waters, and a sneak back. There are difficulties along the way, of course, mostly having to do with keeping their vessel running, but there is some combat of middling excitement and drama. The situations that the crew are confronted by are dealt with in ways that those familiar with submarine movies or comparable sci-fi products will recognize right up to an including the final that is the dramatic end of the novel.
To my knowledge, this was never adapted for television, which still surprises me as the over-riding impression I got when reading it was that it reads like a 60's sci-fi TV show episode. There are a lot of attributions on the dialogue ("Ramsey said" and "Garcia said") which make the dialogue read almost like a script. The relatively simple sets of the book (the interiors of a few offices, and the relatively easy to dress industrial compartments of the subtug) all struck me as apt for such an adaptation, especially given the limited resources of television when the book was published. (Or, rather, when it was first published as a serial in Astounding magazine.) The cast of characters is small; aside from the four crew members, there are only some minor characters such as the radiation blinded head of Bureau of Psychology ("BuPsych") and a few "walk-ons" in the introduction of the story. That would have made it relatively easy to cast and stage.
It also brings that kind of thing to mind for me in that it is quite dated. It reads like one is watching a black and white episode of a defunct TV show on late night Syfy. A lot of the dialogue is 50s and the technology is sometimes awkward. The book pre-dates the miniaturization of electronics, for instance, so where one reads about the particulars of an electronics officer's job one has to take things with a grain of salt. Even the size of the cast seems unlikely given the scope, range and significance of their mission.
Overall, I can't recommend this one as a sci-fi fan. If you're interested in the nascent writing of an author who would become one of sci-fi's best and boldest, then it is interesting. There are dribs and drabs of his emerging genius throughout the piece. The occasional flash of elegance that will characterize much of his later work, and the conflict of agendas among the (four) crewmembers will ring more clearly in the socio-political work that dominates his later career. As a whole, however, the book is clearly an early work and it suffers in terms of its time in ways that make it unnecessary for most readers.
The science fiction elements of the story are muted by the psycho-theological musings, but they do appear throughout the piece. The storyline of a clandestine mission to steal petroleum from under the noses of the enemy in a submersible "tug" is more than a little unlikely, as are some of the physical aspects of that vessel. This isn't 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, however, so the reader shouldn't expect ground-breaking concepts to be presented. Rather, the book focuses on the men (a rather sparse crew of four) on the tug, their interactions and the effects that their duties have on them.
Plot-wise, the story is a little thin. The character who is the main narrative voice (the story is told in the third person, and we get things from the perspective of most of the characters at one point or another) is planted by the psychological department of his futuristic naval forces to learn why so many of their vessels have recently been lost. The mission itself is a sneak into enemy waters, and a sneak back. There are difficulties along the way, of course, mostly having to do with keeping their vessel running, but there is some combat of middling excitement and drama. The situations that the crew are confronted by are dealt with in ways that those familiar with submarine movies or comparable sci-fi products will recognize right up to an including the final that is the dramatic end of the novel.
To my knowledge, this was never adapted for television, which still surprises me as the over-riding impression I got when reading it was that it reads like a 60's sci-fi TV show episode. There are a lot of attributions on the dialogue ("Ramsey said" and "Garcia said") which make the dialogue read almost like a script. The relatively simple sets of the book (the interiors of a few offices, and the relatively easy to dress industrial compartments of the subtug) all struck me as apt for such an adaptation, especially given the limited resources of television when the book was published. (Or, rather, when it was first published as a serial in Astounding magazine.) The cast of characters is small; aside from the four crew members, there are only some minor characters such as the radiation blinded head of Bureau of Psychology ("BuPsych") and a few "walk-ons" in the introduction of the story. That would have made it relatively easy to cast and stage.
It also brings that kind of thing to mind for me in that it is quite dated. It reads like one is watching a black and white episode of a defunct TV show on late night Syfy. A lot of the dialogue is 50s and the technology is sometimes awkward. The book pre-dates the miniaturization of electronics, for instance, so where one reads about the particulars of an electronics officer's job one has to take things with a grain of salt. Even the size of the cast seems unlikely given the scope, range and significance of their mission.
Overall, I can't recommend this one as a sci-fi fan. If you're interested in the nascent writing of an author who would become one of sci-fi's best and boldest, then it is interesting. There are dribs and drabs of his emerging genius throughout the piece. The occasional flash of elegance that will characterize much of his later work, and the conflict of agendas among the (four) crewmembers will ring more clearly in the socio-political work that dominates his later career. As a whole, however, the book is clearly an early work and it suffers in terms of its time in ways that make it unnecessary for most readers.
April 14, 2015
Description: Twenty subtugs had been lost in the attempt to bring back oil from the undersea fields on the enemy's borders. A brilliant psychologist-electronics expert is planted in the crew of the subtug Ram to find out what is happening. And theory becomes terrifying reality when, miles deep under the ocean, the minds of the crew begin to crack...
Read by John Horton
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A good ol' subtug story couched in continuing war (although Russia is only alluded to), and hissing, whistling vintage cassettes. I love the premise here - nicking oil from the enemy's fields under the sea. Thoroughly enjoyable. 3.5*
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No, not that Captain Sparrow, but any excuse...
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From wiki: The Dragon in the Sea (1956), also known as Under Pressure from its serialization, is a novel by Frank Herbert. It was first serialized in Astounding magazine from 1955 to 1956, then reworked and published as a book in 1956.
Read by John Horton□ □ □ □ □ □ □
A good ol' subtug story couched in continuing war (although Russia is only alluded to), and hissing, whistling vintage cassettes. I love the premise here - nicking oil from the enemy's fields under the sea. Thoroughly enjoyable. 3.5*□ □ □ □ □ □ □
No, not that Captain Sparrow, but any excuse...□ □ □ □ □ □ □
From wiki: The Dragon in the Sea (1956), also known as Under Pressure from its serialization, is a novel by Frank Herbert. It was first serialized in Astounding magazine from 1955 to 1956, then reworked and published as a book in 1956.
August 2, 2014
This book was so very Herbert, he hits the ground running with an amazing amount of world building and data compressed into every page while explaining nothing to the reader directly, but through poetry of words implying everything you need, such as magna-boots, plasteel, and diffusion rates. Military cat and mouse books are not my usual "thing" but I did enjoy the conclussions and normal deep looks at society, pyschology, and perceptions.
May 13, 2025
“We eat the apple and we learn just enough to make us afraid.”
An interesting idea, which suggests that knowledge is generally fraught with the awareness of its limits and the dangers lurking behind doors that have been boldly, brashly pushed open and which simultaneously begs the question whether there might not actually be such a thing as blithe and blissful ignorance, or, at least – after all, the quote is coated in religious imagery – the need for spiritual humility.
And yet, Frank Herbert’s debut novel The Dragon in the Sea failed to hook me although the plot – an under-cover psychologist on board a submarine with a crew of four, including himself, trying to figure out if there is an enemy sleeper on the mission – as well as the subject – exploring issues of sanity, madness and religion – seemed promising to start with. The sub’s voyage is laden with action in that adverse events keep following on each others’ heels, but for all that I could not warm up towards this book at all, one reason being the choppy narrative style, which is mainly a result of the author’s tendency, in this book, to use asyndeta consisting of two elements, the second often being shorter than the first. It may serve a purpose, but it sucks to read loads of sentences like,
If the purpose of constructions like that is to convey the sense of claustrophobia the men experience during their mission, Herbert ought not to have made use of these asyndeta when describing events not taking place on the submarine. It may seem a bit narrow-minded on my side to make such criticism but this put me off from the start. Add to this alarmingly cut and dried dialogue plus the repetitiveness of the description of attacks and recoveries the submarine goes through, and you have a reading experience equalling an EU’s commissioner’s lingo in print.
Another thing is that the narrative perspective keeps jumping from one crew member to another so that you actually fail to see the sub’s commander Sparrow exclusively through the eyes of the psychologist Ramsey, which would have made the tale more compelling. Neither does it help very much that Bonnett and Garcia, the two other crew members, are indistinguishable cardboard characters going through the same motions over and over again. All in all, there are so many opportunities to lose interest and none to gain it that I would hardly be surprised at any reader who decides to rise up from that submarine before the end of the story and swim towards other reading adventures.
An interesting idea, which suggests that knowledge is generally fraught with the awareness of its limits and the dangers lurking behind doors that have been boldly, brashly pushed open and which simultaneously begs the question whether there might not actually be such a thing as blithe and blissful ignorance, or, at least – after all, the quote is coated in religious imagery – the need for spiritual humility.
And yet, Frank Herbert’s debut novel The Dragon in the Sea failed to hook me although the plot – an under-cover psychologist on board a submarine with a crew of four, including himself, trying to figure out if there is an enemy sleeper on the mission – as well as the subject – exploring issues of sanity, madness and religion – seemed promising to start with. The sub’s voyage is laden with action in that adverse events keep following on each others’ heels, but for all that I could not warm up towards this book at all, one reason being the choppy narrative style, which is mainly a result of the author’s tendency, in this book, to use asyndeta consisting of two elements, the second often being shorter than the first. It may serve a purpose, but it sucks to read loads of sentences like,
”Turner focused his watery blue eyes on Ramsey, said […]”
If the purpose of constructions like that is to convey the sense of claustrophobia the men experience during their mission, Herbert ought not to have made use of these asyndeta when describing events not taking place on the submarine. It may seem a bit narrow-minded on my side to make such criticism but this put me off from the start. Add to this alarmingly cut and dried dialogue plus the repetitiveness of the description of attacks and recoveries the submarine goes through, and you have a reading experience equalling an EU’s commissioner’s lingo in print.
Another thing is that the narrative perspective keeps jumping from one crew member to another so that you actually fail to see the sub’s commander Sparrow exclusively through the eyes of the psychologist Ramsey, which would have made the tale more compelling. Neither does it help very much that Bonnett and Garcia, the two other crew members, are indistinguishable cardboard characters going through the same motions over and over again. All in all, there are so many opportunities to lose interest and none to gain it that I would hardly be surprised at any reader who decides to rise up from that submarine before the end of the story and swim towards other reading adventures.
March 16, 2012
Originally published on my blog here in October 1998.
Frank Herbert's first science fiction novel, set in about 2020 and written in 1956, today reads more like a contemporary thriller than science fiction, even though it is set in a somewhat different world to the real one. It is set during a length, drawn out nuclear war (it was written at a time when comparatively little was known and much less public about the effects of a nuclear attack). The West is running short of oil but cannot easily obtain it while the East controls much of the world's oceans; this is a war in which air power is virtually non-existent because of the lack of fuel. The Western military have come up with a daring plan to obtain oil: sending nuclear powered submarines underwater all the way to Eastern oilfields on their continental shelf, towing oil tanks into the Arctic coastal waters and drilling there to remove cargoes of oil. Putting it baldly like this makes it easier to see the technical difficulties which are skated over - and skilfully hidden from the reader - in the longer explanations in the novel itself.
After some initial success, things have begun to go wrong, until there have been twenty missions in a row that have failed. This is partly because the Easterners have to some extent caught on to what is going on, and partly because of infiltration of submarine bases and crews by carefully hidden sleepers, not yet active spies and saboteurs.
The hitherto most successful crew has been in port for some time. In their last mission, they lost one of their four-man team, the electronics officer. Now they are to go to sea again, with a new electronics officer who is a trained psychologist from security. He is there to investigate what makes this crew successful and to ensure that none of the others are sleepers.
The tense atmosphere of the submarine, underwater and completely isolated because of the need to keep radio silence, is well-portrayed. The issue of the importance of religion to the men on the ship is handled with particular interest and sensitivity. The beginning and end of the book, which take place ashore, are rather less immediately convincing.
Frank Herbert's first science fiction novel, set in about 2020 and written in 1956, today reads more like a contemporary thriller than science fiction, even though it is set in a somewhat different world to the real one. It is set during a length, drawn out nuclear war (it was written at a time when comparatively little was known and much less public about the effects of a nuclear attack). The West is running short of oil but cannot easily obtain it while the East controls much of the world's oceans; this is a war in which air power is virtually non-existent because of the lack of fuel. The Western military have come up with a daring plan to obtain oil: sending nuclear powered submarines underwater all the way to Eastern oilfields on their continental shelf, towing oil tanks into the Arctic coastal waters and drilling there to remove cargoes of oil. Putting it baldly like this makes it easier to see the technical difficulties which are skated over - and skilfully hidden from the reader - in the longer explanations in the novel itself.
After some initial success, things have begun to go wrong, until there have been twenty missions in a row that have failed. This is partly because the Easterners have to some extent caught on to what is going on, and partly because of infiltration of submarine bases and crews by carefully hidden sleepers, not yet active spies and saboteurs.
The hitherto most successful crew has been in port for some time. In their last mission, they lost one of their four-man team, the electronics officer. Now they are to go to sea again, with a new electronics officer who is a trained psychologist from security. He is there to investigate what makes this crew successful and to ensure that none of the others are sleepers.
The tense atmosphere of the submarine, underwater and completely isolated because of the need to keep radio silence, is well-portrayed. The issue of the importance of religion to the men on the ship is handled with particular interest and sensitivity. The beginning and end of the book, which take place ashore, are rather less immediately convincing.
August 30, 2009
I just finished reviewing Peter Maas's The Terrible Hours, and thought of this book for the first time in years... another quite decent submarine story. It's not the best thing Herbert wrote, but compares very favorably with the later volumes in the Dune saga; I also preferred it to the (in my humble opinion) overrated Hunt for Red October. Worth a look if you like tales of the sea.
May 6, 2021
Trash, girl, trash.
like did Frank Herbert discover therapy and The Hunt for the Red October on the same morning and then write this in the afternoon? Cause that is exactly what it felt like and it was terrible.
Because I don't love myself, I decided to read all of Frank Herbert's books. I mean all I really want is the Bene Gesserit and because I like completing lists. But this might be a long painful slog.
like did Frank Herbert discover therapy and The Hunt for the Red October on the same morning and then write this in the afternoon? Cause that is exactly what it felt like and it was terrible.
Because I don't love myself, I decided to read all of Frank Herbert's books. I mean all I really want is the Bene Gesserit and because I like completing lists. But this might be a long painful slog.
May 17, 2012
...Herbert's first novel shows a lot of elements that he would return to in his later work. It is not as complex or conceptually rich as Dune or The Dosadi Experiment but it is certainly a novel that is still well worth reading. It's fairly short but very intense and more action packed than many of his later novels. Quite a few later novels by Herbert don't hold up as well as The Dragon in the Sea does. If anything I like it even better after this reread. There are a few books by Herbert I would rate higher but not many. One warning though, if you do decide to read it try not to think too much of the unfortunate choice of name for the Captain. Herbert really could not have known.
Full Random Comments review
Full Random Comments review
July 26, 2016
The entire book made me super, super uncomfortable. Ugh. Submarines. *shudders*
October 19, 2025
Very nice book about people locked in a subtug, trying to stay sane and searching for a sleeper among them.
February 1, 2025
Mon doux que ce livre était plate. On aurait pu le résumer en 20 pages. Deux ⭐ pour le vocabulaire sur les sous-marins.
October 12, 2016
This book was local author Frank Herbert's first and is on a list of Defining Science Fiction books of the 50s. More thriller than SF, it is part sub warfare and part psychological drama. It is set in the near future of an ongoing world war between West and East, where oil is scarce and some targets (including the British Isles) are uninhabitable due to nuclear fallout.
I love a good sub war book, and this reminded me of The Hunt for Red October. Some of the technology is a advanced (a signal repeater and inserted alarm pellets) but the majority is set in the 1950s (manual gauges, wheels and pumps). Torpedoes are used in the usual and also some very creative ways. The author served in the navy as a photographer.
This is also the first book I've read by Frank Herbert, as I somehow missed reading the Dune series as a kid. This watery first book is the opposite of those desert novels, but is still a recommended read.
I love a good sub war book, and this reminded me of The Hunt for Red October. Some of the technology is a advanced (a signal repeater and inserted alarm pellets) but the majority is set in the 1950s (manual gauges, wheels and pumps). Torpedoes are used in the usual and also some very creative ways. The author served in the navy as a photographer.
This is also the first book I've read by Frank Herbert, as I somehow missed reading the Dune series as a kid. This watery first book is the opposite of those desert novels, but is still a recommended read.
January 27, 2014
-Otra forma de hacer género.-
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. Ramsey es un alférez especializado en electrónica del Buereau de Psicología que es destinado a una misión en un submarino para tratar de buscar soluciones que eviten la acción de “agentes dormidos” que están contribuyendo a la gran pérdida de naves en la guerra contra las Potencias del Este, además de tratar de controlar los casos de paranoia inducida que se están dando entre las tripulaciones de submarinos. Publicada previamente por entregas en una famosa revista de género entre 1955 y 1956, además de ser una novela conocida por diferentes títulos en diferentes países y ediciones.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. Ramsey es un alférez especializado en electrónica del Buereau de Psicología que es destinado a una misión en un submarino para tratar de buscar soluciones que eviten la acción de “agentes dormidos” que están contribuyendo a la gran pérdida de naves en la guerra contra las Potencias del Este, además de tratar de controlar los casos de paranoia inducida que se están dando entre las tripulaciones de submarinos. Publicada previamente por entregas en una famosa revista de género entre 1955 y 1956, además de ser una novela conocida por diferentes títulos en diferentes países y ediciones.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
September 16, 2024
The Eastern Powers (EP) have sunk twenty of our subtugs that we are using to get extra oil from wells just off of their shores. Ramsey is assigned to one to find a sleeper agent if there is one. He goes through a five week crash course on the submarine. It’ll just be the four of them Captain Sparrow, Les Bonnett, Jose "Joe" Garcia, and Ensign Ramsey is replacing the electronics officer. There’s a series of crises, they find sabotage—a fine oil spray and a silk rag to create a spark, a dead body in the reactor room, homing beacons planted in their console, hordes of enemy subs searching for them, and so on. The serialized title of “Under Pressure” may be more apt.
Secondary mission for Ramsey is to find out why so many of our submariners are cracking up. The crises involve a lot of submarine jargon, depth, pressure, radiation. We get the feel of the desperation of each situation, but it's still hard to visualize. There are numerous subs surrounding them, time and again they get away. Whether it's using a decoy, faking their destruction, or whatever. I think you really need to be a submarine aficionado to appreciate them. Maybe the story failed to capture me because the mission of trying to steal oil from the enemy seems too high risk, low reward. Also no mention of other aspects of this war. 3.1 stars, there's still the interaction of the four main characters.
Secondary mission for Ramsey is to find out why so many of our submariners are cracking up. The crises involve a lot of submarine jargon, depth, pressure, radiation. We get the feel of the desperation of each situation, but it's still hard to visualize. There are numerous subs surrounding them, time and again they get away. Whether it's using a decoy, faking their destruction, or whatever. I think you really need to be a submarine aficionado to appreciate them. Maybe the story failed to capture me because the mission of trying to steal oil from the enemy seems too high risk, low reward. Also no mention of other aspects of this war. 3.1 stars, there's still the interaction of the four main characters.
November 14, 2025
What does it do to a man, to be locked in a tiny windowless prison for months at a time, with only the same three faces and the same three voices, without pause or respite? With no sun, no wind, no sky; with not a speck of green or the chirp of a single insect? No women, no children, no pets? And all the time, the enemy: searching, searching, searching.
Add to this the twin threats of treachery and sabotage, and the psychological thrill is certainly there. But the technical premise is complete nonsense. How can it make sense to send a state-of-the-art nuclear submarine on a six month mission to retrieve a micro-tanker worth of oil? You'll just have to suspend disbelief on that one.
I've seen two covers for this book, and they both feature a "fantasy" submarine. But the boat Ram described in the text is almost certainly a stubby version of an early Cold War design, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29. However, because of the pressure rating, there are no ports in the hull, and the torpedoes etc. are mounted on the outside, as missiles were on many Cold War planes.
Add to this the twin threats of treachery and sabotage, and the psychological thrill is certainly there. But the technical premise is complete nonsense. How can it make sense to send a state-of-the-art nuclear submarine on a six month mission to retrieve a micro-tanker worth of oil? You'll just have to suspend disbelief on that one.
I've seen two covers for this book, and they both feature a "fantasy" submarine. But the boat Ram described in the text is almost certainly a stubby version of an early Cold War design, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29. However, because of the pressure rating, there are no ports in the hull, and the torpedoes etc. are mounted on the outside, as missiles were on many Cold War planes.
March 13, 2012
Last night I finished reading Dragon in the Sea by Frank Herbert (1956). Dragon in the Sea is quite a departure from Dune. It's more akin to The Santaroga Barrier (my favorite Herbert book) in Herbert starts with a few ordinary events and then turns them into psychological dramas. For this book, he goes one step further and leaves off the chapter divisions to create a literary claustrophobia to match the claustrophobic conditions of the submarine. Some of the psychobabble to explain the captain's behavior was a bit silly but I'll forgive it for the otherwise enjoyable thriller with science fiction trappings.
July 2, 2016
Started the book knowing nothing about it other than the author's sci-fi cred. I kept waiting for the dragon to come. Possible spoiler: there is no dragon. It was like waiting for boats in Watership Down.
October 7, 2021
where was the dragon :(
April 13, 2022
There's an endless war between the East and West, and oil is the ultimate prize, in this book written by Frank Herbert, author of Dune, in 1956.
So, first off, I don't believe that oil would be a big deal in a future war but I can believe that there would be a future endless world divided between the East and the West. Sort of stands to reason considering what is in the news these days — and that's being optimistic that America is still a democracy in the future. Enough said.
So here he we have a story about a subtug (yes — a combination of submarine and a tug towing a storage unit for oil) team of four. And the government (Herbert does a nice touch of never saying that it's an American government, just that various ports are in the continental U.S.) has experienced a loss of a number of these ships and are seeking answers — into the fray they insert a replacement electronics expert who happens to be a psychologist. His task? Is the commander sane? Is there a spy?
This brings a science fiction tale into a more human level — four men, one new and untrusted by the others. Then things happen in the midst of the very difficult and understandable stress-filled situation of sailing into enemy territory. I think it makes very good, realistic and thriller type reading.
I decided to read this book because while I haven't read Herbert's Dune series, I admire the obvious skill and diligence of this author. And now, because I have read this book, I am newly impressed at Herbert's skill in created a tense situation in which very real characters engage. This is a high charge, seat of your pants story and very good reading.
So, first off, I don't believe that oil would be a big deal in a future war but I can believe that there would be a future endless world divided between the East and the West. Sort of stands to reason considering what is in the news these days — and that's being optimistic that America is still a democracy in the future. Enough said.
So here he we have a story about a subtug (yes — a combination of submarine and a tug towing a storage unit for oil) team of four. And the government (Herbert does a nice touch of never saying that it's an American government, just that various ports are in the continental U.S.) has experienced a loss of a number of these ships and are seeking answers — into the fray they insert a replacement electronics expert who happens to be a psychologist. His task? Is the commander sane? Is there a spy?
This brings a science fiction tale into a more human level — four men, one new and untrusted by the others. Then things happen in the midst of the very difficult and understandable stress-filled situation of sailing into enemy territory. I think it makes very good, realistic and thriller type reading.
I decided to read this book because while I haven't read Herbert's Dune series, I admire the obvious skill and diligence of this author. And now, because I have read this book, I am newly impressed at Herbert's skill in created a tense situation in which very real characters engage. This is a high charge, seat of your pants story and very good reading.
May 23, 2021
I thought it would be an underwater sf book with monsters... have NO idea why, NOBODY promised me that, obviously.
Well, it's a pretty technical detail thick yet psychologically deep and emotionally satisfying submarine thriller. It is also a science fiction, but it's quite likely you won't even notice, unless you actually know more about subs... or psychology.
I'm not terribly surprised this book isn't more known. It reminded me of Herbert's Destination Void a lot, which is an even shorter story that took me even longer to get through. Also there's a lot of paranoia. There is/could be an enemy sleeper agent, we don't really know who or if until the end, but the main character actually has a secret mission too, so the secrecy and lies are present in the narrative from the getgo. Herbert also makes us go throught a sort of a submarine drill tutorial with him which helps a bit with catching up with the rest of the story.
It's enjoyable, but don't expect aliens or action that goes beyond managing a fictional submarine.
Well, it's a pretty technical detail thick yet psychologically deep and emotionally satisfying submarine thriller. It is also a science fiction, but it's quite likely you won't even notice, unless you actually know more about subs... or psychology.
I'm not terribly surprised this book isn't more known. It reminded me of Herbert's Destination Void a lot, which is an even shorter story that took me even longer to get through. Also there's a lot of paranoia. There is/could be an enemy sleeper agent, we don't really know who or if until the end, but the main character actually has a secret mission too, so the secrecy and lies are present in the narrative from the getgo. Herbert also makes us go throught a sort of a submarine drill tutorial with him which helps a bit with catching up with the rest of the story.
It's enjoyable, but don't expect aliens or action that goes beyond managing a fictional submarine.
April 8, 2025
I first read this back at University when a paperback rerelease happened in the UK. This is a late 1950s short novel set during WW3 in the 2010s between the USA (and south America) and the "Eastern block" (undefined). The Uk was destroyed during an early nuclear exchange. The war is in its 8th+ year. The story centres around a very deep diving US submarine (SSN) during a combat patrol to steal Oil from the eastern block artic submarine oil field. The US is heavily pentrated by spies and saboteurs and security it tight and paranoid.
The submarine has a 4 man crew with our main character, a specialist psychologist-electronic engineer added to the team for this mission to investigate Eastern block sabotage and to ensure the mission is successful. The previous 20 operations failed.
Herbert captures much of the pressure related difficulties of operating a SSN (then brand new technology) during a war patrol pretty well imo. Perhaps not to the level that an actual wartime submariner might have, but enough for this novel to be convincing.
Its a fascinating and thought provoking book, primary revolving around the high levels of stress face by crew as the psychologist attempts to solve the issues relating to the ongoing failure of this type of submarine issue.
The submarine has a 4 man crew with our main character, a specialist psychologist-electronic engineer added to the team for this mission to investigate Eastern block sabotage and to ensure the mission is successful. The previous 20 operations failed.
Herbert captures much of the pressure related difficulties of operating a SSN (then brand new technology) during a war patrol pretty well imo. Perhaps not to the level that an actual wartime submariner might have, but enough for this novel to be convincing.
Its a fascinating and thought provoking book, primary revolving around the high levels of stress face by crew as the psychologist attempts to solve the issues relating to the ongoing failure of this type of submarine issue.
December 26, 2017
It was okay. I didn't understand this book as well as I would have liked. I feel like I need the Cliff notes to help me. What was the telemeter and how did it work? Who killed the security guy? Why was psych so sure insanity was an issue when they were pirating oil from deep in enemy territory? They shouldn't have been so surprised to lose subtugs under such conditions. What was this war even about and who was the enemy, specifically? Too many unanswered questions.
I liked the Captain Sparrow character, but the rest of the characters felt a lot like cardboard cutouts. I didn't understand the Ramsey character at all, especially in the last 10% of the book.
I guess if I want to read submarine novels I either need to go back further (I liked Jules Verne) or later than 1956. It could be just me though.
I liked the Captain Sparrow character, but the rest of the characters felt a lot like cardboard cutouts. I didn't understand the Ramsey character at all, especially in the last 10% of the book.
I guess if I want to read submarine novels I either need to go back further (I liked Jules Verne) or later than 1956. It could be just me though.
May 10, 2018
4 stars. The setting is an East vs West war in the style of the old Cold War from the 50's to the 80's except they are shooting. This is a story of a submarine crew on a mission to steal crude oil from their enemy (the Eastern Powers). It was an enjoyable read but unfortunately the terminology is showing it's age (written in the 50's). Also I was not a fan of all the amateur psychology which is a large part of this story. Because of this I was only going to give it 3 stars. However when you consider when it was written the authors vision that a war over oil will be fought is the future is actually really relevant today. Additionally the concept that psychology would be an important part of the health of the combatants was really revolutionary.
August 20, 2023
I picked this book up on a whim because I'm a huge fan of the Dune series and I wanted to check out the author's earlier work. It was fun seeing some of the components that would later go into Dune such as plasteel and mentats. However I was a bit disappointed that I didn't really connect with the characters or the story much. The writing was ok, but at some points the 1950's language was too much. The worst quote was "If we had some ham we would have ham and eggs, if we also had eggs" ...........they were not talking about food, it was a scene in which they had closely avoided an altercation with an enemy submarine. If I rated books out of 10, this one would be a perfect 5
January 19, 2024
I love me a good submarine story, and this one was unexpectedly interesting for being removed from ourbusual World War and Cold War references. Right after finishing this book I dove into his "Destination: Void" and it is interesting to compare them. The theme of a small crew confined to a ship, away from all help, tasked with completing a mission with the odds stacked against them, whether underwater or on the way to a distant star, is very interesting. The words, the concepts roll off the pages and even though they're a bit dated, they're now current 60 years later.
March 24, 2021
You need to know how submarines work to read this. There are no dragons in it. It's very masculine, very churchy.
Read
July 6, 2025Pressurized situation! Pretty dense submarine/ scuba language but really gets going after a while
July 5, 2023
An early work by the master world-builder. A prescient sign of things to come. Paranoia, religion, and a nation's addiction to a precious resource leading to perpetual conflict if only for the sake of authoritative control over the men dying and betraying one another to attain that resource: oil. I've read virtually all of Herbert's works published in his lifetime and this one has a lot of what would become the author's narrative and thematic trademarks, albeit most likely the product of its many printed incarnations over the course of his developing career from pulp magazine writer to speculative fiction luminary.
Read
June 4, 2024This review was originally posted on SFF Insiders
“Submarines stalking each other under the sea are like blindfolded adversaries with baseball bats, locked in a room together, each waiting for the other to strike.”
I mentioned in my review of Amber Benson’s Death’s Daughter my hobbyist interest in what we might call artistic anthropology. How would an actress from Buffy the Vampire Slayer write a fantasy novel? How did the work of Genesis evolve once Phil Collins replaced Peter Gabriel? What can we learn about Elden Ring from the first Armored Core? How did Jan de Bont’s experience as a cinematographer inform his later work as a director?
Well now I can add a new thread to that tangle of questions: how would the author of Dune write a submarine novel?
There are a great many authors I love, despite having only read one or two of their most popular books; and until reading The Dragon in the Sea (apparently the first of three titles under which this book has been published - a 1961 Avon paperback was published as 21st Century Sub, and a 1974 Ballantine paperback was published as Under Pressure) Frank Herbert was just such an author. I was confident in claiming that Frank Herbert was one of my favorite SF authors, despite having only read Dune (multiple times over); so when I saw his name jump off the spine of a worn paperback in our local Half Price Books, and I saw on the cover that it was seemingly a book about submarine warfare, I snatched it up.
Submarine warfare is the proto-space battle. While much of spacefaring military fiction owes a great deal to classic Age of Sail stories and the ship-to-ship combat contained therein; submarines, unlike traditional sailing ships, can maneuver in three dimensions; and so real life submarines are as close as we fiction writers can get to having a hard sci-fi analog for space combat. So it should come as no surprise then that one of the greats of the SF genre began his literary journey by writing about undersea combat.
I knew absolutely nothing about this book going into it beyond what I’ve just described: Frank Herbert wrote it and it is about submarines. From those two points of knowledge I expected something akin to Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October; but was surprised to discover that The Dragon in the Sea is a wholly different beast. It is not a straightforward political thriller like Red October, but veers much closer to the tense, moment-to-moment survival of something like Ben Bova’s Venus. This is a story about four men trying to accomplish a seemingly impossible mission: not because of the steps needed to complete it, but because the twenty crews that tried to do it before them have failed - doomed by sabotage and by a relentless enemy force.
But with Red October initially in my mind, I also expected this to be a Cold War tale. After all, that’s when the bulk of popular submarine fiction takes place, because that’s when the bulk of real-world submarine encounters occurred (WWII had its fair share but beyond classics like Das Boot the Cold War owns the submarine genre); but this is, as I should have expected knowing Herbert, a science-fiction story. The year of the narrative is not explicitly said, but I believe it must be the late 2020s or early 2030s. It is mentioned that one of the crew had a father who died in 2018, and one has a wife who was Miss Georgia 2021. In The Dragon in the Sea, the world is at war, or at least the hot aftermath of a nuclear war (the United Kingdom has been wiped off the map, and the sea around it dangerously irradiated), between the United States and the hand-wave-ily nonspecific Eastern Powers (which I assumed early in the story to be some Russo-China conglomerate; but it is revealed later that they have listening posts in Norway and Normandy, so perhaps the whole of Europe is involved in this alliance). We learn that the United States has been secretly siphoning crude oil from a rich reservoir deep behind enemy lines, and it is the collection of this oil that serves as the primary thrust of the narrative.
Our protagonist is Ensign John Ramsey, an officer and electronics specialist from the Bureau of Psychology, tasked with embedding himself within the crew of the Fenian Ram to discover both how the Eastern Powers are tracking down the US subs, and if any of the Ram’s crew are sleeper agents for the EPs. And ideally, helping the crew of the Ram to not become the 21st casualty of the oil siphoning effort. Thus is the stage set for internal and external battle.
But it is the presence of this book in Herbert’s canon that is more interesting to me than any specific bit of the plot contained within it. I did not realize when I pulled this book from the shelf that it was Herbert’s first proper novel. Published first as pieces in Astounding Magazine in 1955 and then as a whole novel on its own in 1956, the story of The Dragon in the Sea preceded Dune by an entire decade; and yet we see within it the faint impression of all the themes Herbert would explore and weave into his masterwork.
We see Herbert’s fascination with religion and fanaticism portrayed in the Ram’s Captain Harvey Sparrow, a devout Christian who expends a great many words throughout the voyage praying and citing Scripture. Even the original title of the book is a reference to a passage in the Book of Revelation, “The dragon stood on the shore of the sea… and on each head a blasphemous name.”
And in the closing passages of the book one character even says, “I’m just going to stop posing as a messiah.” I don’t want to speculate that such a simple moment in the story prompted Herbert to begin thinking about the story that would eventually become Dune but…
And John Ramsey too is a kind of proto-Paul Atreides, insofar as he is an outsider to the crew of the Ram and has to prove himself to them, to assuage their doubts about his presence there. He must learn their ways, their customs, their idiosyncrasies - both so he can work with them and also so that he can exploit their weakness (in an effort to weed out which one of them might be a saboteur capable of sending all of them to a water grave).
And the one big motif Herbert keeps circling around in The Dragon in the Sea is the idea of birth. He’s constantly returning to that imagery: the tunnel from which the Ram departs is a birth canal, the crawl space that leads to the Ram’s reactor is a birth canal, the torpedo tubes are birth canals; the ocean is a womb, the submarine is a womb, etc. etc. He’ll often bring up this imagery in the context of safety, or the expectation of safety - the idea of birth as a kind of trauma for the person that is born. In the womb is safety, outside the womb is pain: so the submarine harbor is a womb, the tunnel from it a birth canal, and the undersea battlefield beyond it a world of pain; but conversely, as the crew become attuned to and comfortable within the world of the sub, the sub becomes a womb, the airlock a birth canal, and the shore a world of pain. It’s not particularly subtle. The repetition of the imagery in the book, and the myriad contexts in which Herbert deploys it muddies the thematic waters a bit; but it was his first book, so I’ll graciously extend some degree of understanding that none of us - not even the greats - get everything right the first time.
So, what else is there? If you’re a fan of Herbert’s other work and are curious about his literary roots, I’d recommend seeking out The Dragon in the Sea. Though one final note: if you want to read this book, I do not recommend the Ballatine paperback (titled Under Pressure - ISBN 0-345-29859-4). There were several phenomenally huge formatting issues (including a line that seemingly began in the middle of a sentence - so really I’ve read all of this book except for the beginning of that once sentence), so I’d recommend seeking out a version that doesn’t play so fast and loose with Herbert’s prose.
“Submarines stalking each other under the sea are like blindfolded adversaries with baseball bats, locked in a room together, each waiting for the other to strike.”
I mentioned in my review of Amber Benson’s Death’s Daughter my hobbyist interest in what we might call artistic anthropology. How would an actress from Buffy the Vampire Slayer write a fantasy novel? How did the work of Genesis evolve once Phil Collins replaced Peter Gabriel? What can we learn about Elden Ring from the first Armored Core? How did Jan de Bont’s experience as a cinematographer inform his later work as a director?
Well now I can add a new thread to that tangle of questions: how would the author of Dune write a submarine novel?
There are a great many authors I love, despite having only read one or two of their most popular books; and until reading The Dragon in the Sea (apparently the first of three titles under which this book has been published - a 1961 Avon paperback was published as 21st Century Sub, and a 1974 Ballantine paperback was published as Under Pressure) Frank Herbert was just such an author. I was confident in claiming that Frank Herbert was one of my favorite SF authors, despite having only read Dune (multiple times over); so when I saw his name jump off the spine of a worn paperback in our local Half Price Books, and I saw on the cover that it was seemingly a book about submarine warfare, I snatched it up.
Submarine warfare is the proto-space battle. While much of spacefaring military fiction owes a great deal to classic Age of Sail stories and the ship-to-ship combat contained therein; submarines, unlike traditional sailing ships, can maneuver in three dimensions; and so real life submarines are as close as we fiction writers can get to having a hard sci-fi analog for space combat. So it should come as no surprise then that one of the greats of the SF genre began his literary journey by writing about undersea combat.
I knew absolutely nothing about this book going into it beyond what I’ve just described: Frank Herbert wrote it and it is about submarines. From those two points of knowledge I expected something akin to Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October; but was surprised to discover that The Dragon in the Sea is a wholly different beast. It is not a straightforward political thriller like Red October, but veers much closer to the tense, moment-to-moment survival of something like Ben Bova’s Venus. This is a story about four men trying to accomplish a seemingly impossible mission: not because of the steps needed to complete it, but because the twenty crews that tried to do it before them have failed - doomed by sabotage and by a relentless enemy force.
But with Red October initially in my mind, I also expected this to be a Cold War tale. After all, that’s when the bulk of popular submarine fiction takes place, because that’s when the bulk of real-world submarine encounters occurred (WWII had its fair share but beyond classics like Das Boot the Cold War owns the submarine genre); but this is, as I should have expected knowing Herbert, a science-fiction story. The year of the narrative is not explicitly said, but I believe it must be the late 2020s or early 2030s. It is mentioned that one of the crew had a father who died in 2018, and one has a wife who was Miss Georgia 2021. In The Dragon in the Sea, the world is at war, or at least the hot aftermath of a nuclear war (the United Kingdom has been wiped off the map, and the sea around it dangerously irradiated), between the United States and the hand-wave-ily nonspecific Eastern Powers (which I assumed early in the story to be some Russo-China conglomerate; but it is revealed later that they have listening posts in Norway and Normandy, so perhaps the whole of Europe is involved in this alliance). We learn that the United States has been secretly siphoning crude oil from a rich reservoir deep behind enemy lines, and it is the collection of this oil that serves as the primary thrust of the narrative.
Our protagonist is Ensign John Ramsey, an officer and electronics specialist from the Bureau of Psychology, tasked with embedding himself within the crew of the Fenian Ram to discover both how the Eastern Powers are tracking down the US subs, and if any of the Ram’s crew are sleeper agents for the EPs. And ideally, helping the crew of the Ram to not become the 21st casualty of the oil siphoning effort. Thus is the stage set for internal and external battle.
But it is the presence of this book in Herbert’s canon that is more interesting to me than any specific bit of the plot contained within it. I did not realize when I pulled this book from the shelf that it was Herbert’s first proper novel. Published first as pieces in Astounding Magazine in 1955 and then as a whole novel on its own in 1956, the story of The Dragon in the Sea preceded Dune by an entire decade; and yet we see within it the faint impression of all the themes Herbert would explore and weave into his masterwork.
We see Herbert’s fascination with religion and fanaticism portrayed in the Ram’s Captain Harvey Sparrow, a devout Christian who expends a great many words throughout the voyage praying and citing Scripture. Even the original title of the book is a reference to a passage in the Book of Revelation, “The dragon stood on the shore of the sea… and on each head a blasphemous name.”
And in the closing passages of the book one character even says, “I’m just going to stop posing as a messiah.” I don’t want to speculate that such a simple moment in the story prompted Herbert to begin thinking about the story that would eventually become Dune but…
And John Ramsey too is a kind of proto-Paul Atreides, insofar as he is an outsider to the crew of the Ram and has to prove himself to them, to assuage their doubts about his presence there. He must learn their ways, their customs, their idiosyncrasies - both so he can work with them and also so that he can exploit their weakness (in an effort to weed out which one of them might be a saboteur capable of sending all of them to a water grave).
And the one big motif Herbert keeps circling around in The Dragon in the Sea is the idea of birth. He’s constantly returning to that imagery: the tunnel from which the Ram departs is a birth canal, the crawl space that leads to the Ram’s reactor is a birth canal, the torpedo tubes are birth canals; the ocean is a womb, the submarine is a womb, etc. etc. He’ll often bring up this imagery in the context of safety, or the expectation of safety - the idea of birth as a kind of trauma for the person that is born. In the womb is safety, outside the womb is pain: so the submarine harbor is a womb, the tunnel from it a birth canal, and the undersea battlefield beyond it a world of pain; but conversely, as the crew become attuned to and comfortable within the world of the sub, the sub becomes a womb, the airlock a birth canal, and the shore a world of pain. It’s not particularly subtle. The repetition of the imagery in the book, and the myriad contexts in which Herbert deploys it muddies the thematic waters a bit; but it was his first book, so I’ll graciously extend some degree of understanding that none of us - not even the greats - get everything right the first time.
So, what else is there? If you’re a fan of Herbert’s other work and are curious about his literary roots, I’d recommend seeking out The Dragon in the Sea. Though one final note: if you want to read this book, I do not recommend the Ballatine paperback (titled Under Pressure - ISBN 0-345-29859-4). There were several phenomenally huge formatting issues (including a line that seemingly began in the middle of a sentence - so really I’ve read all of this book except for the beginning of that once sentence), so I’d recommend seeking out a version that doesn’t play so fast and loose with Herbert’s prose.
May 19, 2014
Classic Frank Herbert, which means it's heavy on the psychological. The engineering and physics in this book are well done, realistic even if a bit dated. This is a quasi post apocalyptic world, dominated by the military fighting what seems to be an endless war, fought under the sea by the blind dragons of nuclear powered submarines crewed by men suffering from the paranoia of having to always suspect everyone. (In fact, I heard they re-issued this book as The Dragon in the Sea)
Aspects of this book—expressions, strategies, the feel of the ship, have come back to me at different times over the years. I referenced it in a meeting with Navy submariner engineers, discussing some new sensor technology or another and tying it back to something from the book—they'd all read it.
One thing that always has stuck with me is the Captain's definition of sanity—he defines sanity as *the ability to swim*. In his world that would simply be the ability to keep moving forward and coping, irrespective of whether other behaviors are erratic and seemingly insane. The crew's sanity is under constant examination in every chapter.
The book is an exploration in the psychology of human stress (pressure) under extreme conditions where the breaking point of each character is tested. This is echoed by the water pressure on the hull and the dangers the crew faces (internal and external).
I doubt that this book is for everyone. I liked it, but then sometimes my taste runs to this kind of thing (if I'm in the right mood). The world the men inhabit is realistic and consistent. As I said before, the things that happen are consistent with what would be good physics and the plot itself is interesting, too.
Of course Frank Herbert wrote the Dune series, but also Whipping Star, The Dosadi Experiment, and The Santaroga Barrier. "Under Pressure" was his first novel.
Aspects of this book—expressions, strategies, the feel of the ship, have come back to me at different times over the years. I referenced it in a meeting with Navy submariner engineers, discussing some new sensor technology or another and tying it back to something from the book—they'd all read it.
One thing that always has stuck with me is the Captain's definition of sanity—he defines sanity as *the ability to swim*. In his world that would simply be the ability to keep moving forward and coping, irrespective of whether other behaviors are erratic and seemingly insane. The crew's sanity is under constant examination in every chapter.
The book is an exploration in the psychology of human stress (pressure) under extreme conditions where the breaking point of each character is tested. This is echoed by the water pressure on the hull and the dangers the crew faces (internal and external).
I doubt that this book is for everyone. I liked it, but then sometimes my taste runs to this kind of thing (if I'm in the right mood). The world the men inhabit is realistic and consistent. As I said before, the things that happen are consistent with what would be good physics and the plot itself is interesting, too.
Of course Frank Herbert wrote the Dune series, but also Whipping Star, The Dosadi Experiment, and The Santaroga Barrier. "Under Pressure" was his first novel.
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