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Twenty Trillion Leagues Under The Sea
It is 1955. Funded, in part, by a reclusive Swiss millionaire and working -- it is claimed -- from Nemo's actual blueprints discovered in India, the French Navy build a replica Nautilus. Crewed with sailors and scientists, and commanded by the short-tempered Captain Mason, it is launched in great secrecy from Bayonne.
Almost as soon as it is underwater, however, and having passed beyond the Continental Shelf, an accident (or sabotage!) sends it plummeting towards the ocean floor. The crew desperately attempt repairs as the pressure builds, threatening to crush the entire craft.
But then something very strange happens: despite the fact that they are still descending, the pressure equalises. The descent continues for days; soon passing the 5000m depth that ought to mark the bottom of the ocean. As days turn to weeks, the mystery of their plight only grows deeper: for they pass hundreds and soon thousands kilometres of 'depth' with no ill effects.
Other constraints press upon them: particularly the need to find food, and conserve fuel. Pressures amongst the all-male crew intensify as well, approaching breaking point as weeks pass, and the depth becomes measurable in millions of kilometres. Are they dead, trapped in an eternal descent to Hell? Have they passed through some portal into a realm of infinite water? Or have they somehow stumbled upon -- or been deliberately lead to, via the mysterious Indian blueprint -- some truth about the world too profound even to be measured in trillions?
Then, when they think all hope is lost, and as they approach the trillionth kilometre of depth, they see light below them ...
Almost as soon as it is underwater, however, and having passed beyond the Continental Shelf, an accident (or sabotage!) sends it plummeting towards the ocean floor. The crew desperately attempt repairs as the pressure builds, threatening to crush the entire craft.
But then something very strange happens: despite the fact that they are still descending, the pressure equalises. The descent continues for days; soon passing the 5000m depth that ought to mark the bottom of the ocean. As days turn to weeks, the mystery of their plight only grows deeper: for they pass hundreds and soon thousands kilometres of 'depth' with no ill effects.
Other constraints press upon them: particularly the need to find food, and conserve fuel. Pressures amongst the all-male crew intensify as well, approaching breaking point as weeks pass, and the depth becomes measurable in millions of kilometres. Are they dead, trapped in an eternal descent to Hell? Have they passed through some portal into a realm of infinite water? Or have they somehow stumbled upon -- or been deliberately lead to, via the mysterious Indian blueprint -- some truth about the world too profound even to be measured in trillions?
Then, when they think all hope is lost, and as they approach the trillionth kilometre of depth, they see light below them ...
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 16, 2014
10 people are currently reading
693 people want to read
About the author
Adam Roberts
258 books560 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.
Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 121 reviews
May 25, 2021
More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/
Although titled as an obvious reference to Jules Verne, in reality the genes of this book are pure Lovecraft (specifically: At the Mountains of Madness). Mysticism, religion, aliens(?), horror, madness - it's all here within a really bizarre setting: France, post World War II, inside a nuclear submarine with a bunch of Frenchman and 2 Indians. A more suitable title would have been "Under The Oceans of Madness" and clearly referenced Lovecraft. Because the 'homage' here is more about making fun of Verne than in taking the spirit of the Tweenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea story and creating a new interpretation. It was frustrating to read; by the end it felt like the author was trying too hard to create a classic 1950s horror sci fi with big Ideas (with a capitol "I"). I guess, in a word, it felt pretentious.Story: The Plonguer is a submarine on a test run; the first 'nuclear-pile' driven engine developed by the French, financed by the Swiss, and engineered by the Indians. When three systems fail simultaneously, the skeleton test crew find themselves in a free-fall to the ocean's bottom, somewhere off the continental shelf outside of France. But the vessel doesn't implode - and as they continue to inexplicably drop, the uncertainty resulting from an endless wait for death will take its toll on the crew, each acting out the stress in unpredictable ways. Cue dimensional beings, metaphysical meanderings, and yeah, a lot of madness.
There were many problems with this book for me. Most especially, is why Verne was used when there is no Verne in here other than using a submarine (would you label Das Boot as a Verne homage because it is in a Uboat?). The lack of understanding of Verne is most evident in the title: leagues are a *distance* not a depth and this story is about falling/sinking. Verne recounted a voyage across the ocean, not how far the Nautilus went down under the ocean. An accurate title here then would be 20 Leagues Under The Sea because that's how far the Plongeur travels before sinking fast and forever. It begs the question: how can a book that is supposed to be so big on ideas, labeled so clearly as an homage to Verne, miss something as obvious as leagues referring only to how far the Nautilus traveled across the ocean - not how far under it went? But that should also give you an idea of what this book isn't: it's not an exploration story with fantastical settings as with Verne. It doesn't even use Verne's tale as a base. It's just a story of a long boring drop that drives the crew insane and completely misses the Victorian adventure point of Verne's story. Adding to the author's mystifying choices was the setting of a nuclear submarine in the 1950s but have the crew look and talk like Victorians. Again, where is the homage and what is the point?
But then there is the writing - it was enough to make my eyes bleed. Take this painful set of sentences from the book as an example:
"The sun is part of a galaxy that surrounds a central black hole; and that black hole has broke the hymen of space-time itself and folded out, a point that is an infinite space in which the galaxy itself is nested. Thought and matter are each inside each other, and each flows without and within, and the principle of flow is the ocean."
Hymen:??? Really?? And what comes after that? A transition from metaphysical prattle to religious metaphors, of course:
"You are dipped in this water, and it is with this water that you are baptized. Streaming, your head surfaces, like the head of somebody breaking the surface of an ocean of words."
In case you didn't get the reference enough, there is an accompanying 'wood block' type of image where a phallic shaped human 'breaks' the hymen of the ocean into a metaphysical space. The mind boggles (ok, no, not really, rather, the mind gives a virtual groan without breaking any hymens).
Jules Verne wrote wonderful arm-chair adventures, not mind numbing observations on the frailty of the human condition when it encounters the unknown. As well, the 'steampunk' joie de vivre of Verne's Victorian world is summarily jettisoned for late 1950s post war racim and stiffness. For a book so earnestly attempting the exploration of humanity, there is not one real person in the whole book. You'll find the most unrealistic dialogue (perhaps meant to sound clever but instead hitting false note after false note) coupled with even more unrealistic situations. In this, we again see the Lovecraftian influence and I am at a loss to see why we need a hybrid of At the Mountains of Madness with Jules Verne's Nautilus.
Another odd choice is the dig at society and the source material (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). Even in the first few pages, the characters are commenting on the stupidity of having a large viewing window in a submarine and how it would make the vessel susceptible to implosion (yes, Verne, you were an idiot for not knowing that, you backwards Victorian!). I have to wonder if the author thought he was being clever with the digs and puns? They felt out of place in a book purported to be an homage, with big Ideas, and a lot of mystical nothings. It also felt indulgent - needing an editor to reel the ego back in.
There are illustrations of a 'wood block cutting' type of nature. Black and white and both sparse yet detailed. They were as cold and stiff as the story, further ruthlessly removing all romance and fantastical and again steering more toward the horror/thriller aspects. I didn't feel they added anything to the story at all.
So yes, this was a disappointment and I spent most of my reading time trying *really* hard to stop rolling my eyes in disgust. I'll pass this along to my neighbor, who has a tween son with a Cthulu poster in his room. Maybe he'll get it.
Reviewed from a copy provided by the publisher.
August 17, 2017
It is fitting that Adam Roberts channels Jules Verne here, as both are iconoclastic High Concept writers. Roberts is one of the most exciting, and probably most under-the-radar, contemporary SF writers at work today. His books differ widely, always with mixed results, and a singular polarising effect: You either love Roberts, or think he is a load of hot air.
When I began reading SF as a teenager, I probably discovered Verne at the same time as I latched onto iconic Golden Age writers like HG Wells and Isaac Asimov. However, Verne was always especially exotic for me (maybe because he was French?)
Despite the outlandishness of his concepts, Verne was always scrupulous in following through with the implications of his Big Ideas – and it is in this dialectical spirit that Roberts engages with the Grand Master.
The result, as you would expect from any Roberts novel, is profound, ludicrous, funny, excruciating, entrancing, bewildering, and ultimately such a mind-fuck that reading this is like mainlining one of the purest drugs in the multiverse.
When I began reading SF as a teenager, I probably discovered Verne at the same time as I latched onto iconic Golden Age writers like HG Wells and Isaac Asimov. However, Verne was always especially exotic for me (maybe because he was French?)
Despite the outlandishness of his concepts, Verne was always scrupulous in following through with the implications of his Big Ideas – and it is in this dialectical spirit that Roberts engages with the Grand Master.
The result, as you would expect from any Roberts novel, is profound, ludicrous, funny, excruciating, entrancing, bewildering, and ultimately such a mind-fuck that reading this is like mainlining one of the purest drugs in the multiverse.
November 7, 2021
Weird. With a capital W. Like "Weird Fiction" genre. It is deeply connected with the works of Jules Verne -- more than just the one book the title resembles -- but still it reads more like The Other Side of the Mountain or Dagon or some other supernatural or cosmic horror novel. It does try to give a sciency explanation in the end, but that had my eyes rolling around and around and around.
I enjoyed it far, far more than "20,000 Leagues under the seas", which contained far, far too many lists* of fish. In fact there are no real fish here, though there are "childranhas", which look like children but behave like piranhas.
This is the second of Adam Roberts' books that I've read. I'm willing to try more, though I've considered both of these to be only half-way to my liking.
* The most common English translation of 20,000 Leagues has many translation errors. The worst is a case where it says the submarine "jumped over" an island rather than "blew up" an island. But it does mercifully remove many of those long lists of fish. So, if you've read that you might not know what I'm talking about. But the original is almost like an encyclopedia of fish.
I enjoyed it far, far more than "20,000 Leagues under the seas", which contained far, far too many lists* of fish. In fact there are no real fish here, though there are "childranhas", which look like children but behave like piranhas.
This is the second of Adam Roberts' books that I've read. I'm willing to try more, though I've considered both of these to be only half-way to my liking.
* The most common English translation of 20,000 Leagues has many translation errors. The worst is a case where it says the submarine "jumped over" an island rather than "blew up" an island. But it does mercifully remove many of those long lists of fish. So, if you've read that you might not know what I'm talking about. But the original is almost like an encyclopedia of fish.
January 31, 2014
This book can I think best be described as odd. Things start off in a reasonably conventional manner; a French submarine crew take a new automatic submersible on its maiden voyage. However, the further away they get from dry land the more surreal events become. As they travel deeper and deeper, way beyond all possible depths, they start to encounter stranger and stranger phenomena.
Led by the formidable Capitaine Adam Cloche, the crew of the Plongeur are an eclectic bunch of characters. Also along for the ride are a couple of Indian nuclear scientists and a government observer called Alain Lebret. Monsieur Lebret is particularly interesting; he’s got his own secret agenda that he’ll stop at nothing to accomplish.
The claustrophobic close quarters of the submarine, and their seemingly endless voyage into the abyss, begins to take its toll on everyone. They start to suffer all manner of differing traumas, some physical, others mental. Extreme paranoia and violent outbursts for some, while for others its religious mania and delusions.
Things end on a slightly ambiguous note but I rather suspect that’s the author’s intention. If you got a dozen people in a room and they all read this book there would more than likely be a dozen different interpretations of events. Roberts manages to touch upon everything from politics and religion to the quest for ultimate knowledge and multi-verse theory. I like that idea, that different readers will each take something different away from this book.
Dotted throughout the narrative there are a series of illustrations from the artist Mahendra Singh. Almost like medieval woodcuttings their style complements the text well and gives things the air of dark Cthulhu-esque fairytale. The images vividly capture some of the plots key moments; they’re a nice inclusion.
Unsurprisingly there are also a few cheeky references to the Jules Verne novel that Twenty Trillion Leagues pays dutiful homage too. No Kirk Douglas with a sea lion and an accordion from the Disney adaptation sadly, but I suppose you can’t have everything can you?
To sum up then – Adam Roberts writing is wonderfully odd, Mahendra Singh’s art is evocatively odd, and Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is entirely odd. The good news is that I’m a big fan of odd and I think I rather enjoyed reading it. I say think because there is always the distinct possibility that I am in fact still reading it. As I said things do get epically surreal. I may in fact never finish the book and if I do how will any of us ever really know? Lao-tzu is often quoted as having once said that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step“. To paraphrase this insightful bon mot I can only conclude that a journey of twenty trillion leagues begins with a nuclear submarine…and a sentient mind-controlling beard apparently.*
Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is published by Gollancz and is available now. If you’re looking for some slightly trippy, thought provoking science fiction with a classic heritage I suggest that you could do a lot worse than giving this a go. Adam Roberts has successfully messed with my head I suggest you let him mess with your head too. A whale of a tale indeed.
* Told you it was surreal
Led by the formidable Capitaine Adam Cloche, the crew of the Plongeur are an eclectic bunch of characters. Also along for the ride are a couple of Indian nuclear scientists and a government observer called Alain Lebret. Monsieur Lebret is particularly interesting; he’s got his own secret agenda that he’ll stop at nothing to accomplish.
The claustrophobic close quarters of the submarine, and their seemingly endless voyage into the abyss, begins to take its toll on everyone. They start to suffer all manner of differing traumas, some physical, others mental. Extreme paranoia and violent outbursts for some, while for others its religious mania and delusions.
Things end on a slightly ambiguous note but I rather suspect that’s the author’s intention. If you got a dozen people in a room and they all read this book there would more than likely be a dozen different interpretations of events. Roberts manages to touch upon everything from politics and religion to the quest for ultimate knowledge and multi-verse theory. I like that idea, that different readers will each take something different away from this book.
Dotted throughout the narrative there are a series of illustrations from the artist Mahendra Singh. Almost like medieval woodcuttings their style complements the text well and gives things the air of dark Cthulhu-esque fairytale. The images vividly capture some of the plots key moments; they’re a nice inclusion.
Unsurprisingly there are also a few cheeky references to the Jules Verne novel that Twenty Trillion Leagues pays dutiful homage too. No Kirk Douglas with a sea lion and an accordion from the Disney adaptation sadly, but I suppose you can’t have everything can you?
To sum up then – Adam Roberts writing is wonderfully odd, Mahendra Singh’s art is evocatively odd, and Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is entirely odd. The good news is that I’m a big fan of odd and I think I rather enjoyed reading it. I say think because there is always the distinct possibility that I am in fact still reading it. As I said things do get epically surreal. I may in fact never finish the book and if I do how will any of us ever really know? Lao-tzu is often quoted as having once said that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step“. To paraphrase this insightful bon mot I can only conclude that a journey of twenty trillion leagues begins with a nuclear submarine…and a sentient mind-controlling beard apparently.*
Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is published by Gollancz and is available now. If you’re looking for some slightly trippy, thought provoking science fiction with a classic heritage I suggest that you could do a lot worse than giving this a go. Adam Roberts has successfully messed with my head I suggest you let him mess with your head too. A whale of a tale indeed.
* Told you it was surreal
October 10, 2015
Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com
After reading this book, no-one will be able to deny the fact that's a weird book.
It's just so weird. During its first voyage the Plongeur, a French nuclear submarine, something goes horribly wrong. The vessel keeps sinking far past the depths that would normally crush the submarine. Far past the normal depth of the oceans.
One thing became painfully clear to me when reading this novel; I don't know enough about the classics. Because this is almost a retelling or an updated version of the original Jules Verne novel I suspect it's filled with references that I didn't get. Some things I googled and thus found, others will be lost forever on me. For that part I'm to blame.
But on the other hand, the story could never really hold my interest. It felt very long, even though the story itself wasn't that long (considered in pages). There are also 30 something pages filled with drawings that I didn't found that special. The ending was really lost on me (I suspect it might have been another reference). At the end, I was just glad the journey was over, for the crew as much as for me.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
After reading this book, no-one will be able to deny the fact that's a weird book.
It's just so weird. During its first voyage the Plongeur, a French nuclear submarine, something goes horribly wrong. The vessel keeps sinking far past the depths that would normally crush the submarine. Far past the normal depth of the oceans.
One thing became painfully clear to me when reading this novel; I don't know enough about the classics. Because this is almost a retelling or an updated version of the original Jules Verne novel I suspect it's filled with references that I didn't get. Some things I googled and thus found, others will be lost forever on me. For that part I'm to blame.
But on the other hand, the story could never really hold my interest. It felt very long, even though the story itself wasn't that long (considered in pages). There are also 30 something pages filled with drawings that I didn't found that special. The ending was really lost on me (I suspect it might have been another reference). At the end, I was just glad the journey was over, for the crew as much as for me.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Read
October 19, 2013I think Jules Verne would have been greatly pleased by Adam Robert's updating of his classic SF-thriller … the story and themes of the original are perfectly updated and freshened up for a modern audience. I don't think I've ever read a Vernian homage which so accurately picked at the psychic scab which lies hidden in so many of the master's beat works.
Delirious, frightening, mind-bending … and wait till you see what the author's done to Capt. Nemo! Do I detect a slight bouquet of HP Lovecraft with an afternote of EA Poe?
Strongly recommended for both hardcore and novice SF readers.
The horror, the horror!
Delirious, frightening, mind-bending … and wait till you see what the author's done to Capt. Nemo! Do I detect a slight bouquet of HP Lovecraft with an afternote of EA Poe?
Strongly recommended for both hardcore and novice SF readers.
The horror, the horror!
September 26, 2016
I've noticed a few books appear on my 'to read list' from this author, and so when browsing a book store recently and coming across this one which seemed to be a nod to Jules Verne's famous and similar titled book...I couldn't resist.
And so the book starts, with a French submarine called the 'Plongeour', which is powered up by an experimental atomic pile and a very small, bare bones crew which sets out on a series of diving tests. However very early on during one of these descents it finds itself sinking uncontrollably. Numerous equipment malfunctions cause the crew to lose control of the sub! Obviously everyone expects to die. And yet somehow they don't, and they continue to plummet further, and further, and further down to ever more absurd depths, leaving the crew scratching their heads as to why they are not in fact, dead.
The opening of the book is tense, quite intriguing and mysterious with some good suspenseful moments, interesting characters and a few twists and turns I didn't see coming. The book therefore works quite well for the first two-thirds and I read through it gripped, and then, well then the final third goes all....odd, confusing, disappointing, and a little bizarre. I had a job keeping up and sadly maintaining my interest.
And so a one word review would be 'odd'. But before the last third, this was turning into a really good book. I'm now torn as to whether to read more from this author? We'll see.
And so the book starts, with a French submarine called the 'Plongeour', which is powered up by an experimental atomic pile and a very small, bare bones crew which sets out on a series of diving tests. However very early on during one of these descents it finds itself sinking uncontrollably. Numerous equipment malfunctions cause the crew to lose control of the sub! Obviously everyone expects to die. And yet somehow they don't, and they continue to plummet further, and further, and further down to ever more absurd depths, leaving the crew scratching their heads as to why they are not in fact, dead.
The opening of the book is tense, quite intriguing and mysterious with some good suspenseful moments, interesting characters and a few twists and turns I didn't see coming. The book therefore works quite well for the first two-thirds and I read through it gripped, and then, well then the final third goes all....odd, confusing, disappointing, and a little bizarre. I had a job keeping up and sadly maintaining my interest.
And so a one word review would be 'odd'. But before the last third, this was turning into a really good book. I'm now torn as to whether to read more from this author? We'll see.
March 1, 2014
the expected great writing is there but the lack of female characters - at least so far - is a bit disconcerting and off putting; Jules Verne is boys adventure and I used to love those books when i was 9-14 but now I expect more sophisticated stuff and in Splinter (or Swiftly for that matter which has similar classic inspiration of course) A. Roberts has delivered, but here I am not convinced yet
Finished the novel and it was very uneven - as a verne pastiche including the superb drawings it was quite in spirit from the lack of female characters, to name checking, to crazy but scientific jargon adventure - unfortunately, it mostly remained that and sf has moved a lot since the 19th century so the novel fell flat as modern sf
Finished the novel and it was very uneven - as a verne pastiche including the superb drawings it was quite in spirit from the lack of female characters, to name checking, to crazy but scientific jargon adventure - unfortunately, it mostly remained that and sf has moved a lot since the 19th century so the novel fell flat as modern sf
February 21, 2014
Weird Jules Verne homage. Parallel universe. Weird.
Did I mention weird?
Will certainly stick in my mind.
Did I mention weird?
Will certainly stick in my mind.
April 28, 2016
Adam Roberts loves science-fiction as e fan, knows it as a writer and dissects it as a critic. All his novels are like highly accessible critical studies of the history of science fiction, but at the same time, love letters to what was written before. I've read almost everything that Jules Verne had written and I must said that Twenty Trillion Leagues Under may be the best book about Verne and his writings. I've had a great time with this novel that made me remember my childhood, when even the bad books were great books.
October 7, 2015
Disclaimer: This book was given to me by Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review.
This book was trippy, but that is to be expected when inter-dimensional travel is involved.
I was never bored at all while reading this.
The author was really good at setting the mood for this story, often I felt slightly claustrophobic while reading this.
I highly recommend this.
This book was trippy, but that is to be expected when inter-dimensional travel is involved.
I was never bored at all while reading this.
The author was really good at setting the mood for this story, often I felt slightly claustrophobic while reading this.
I highly recommend this.
December 25, 2024
It's Dec. 25, 2024 and I'm telling my family about this book. It effed me up lol and really stayed with me. So I ask myself, should I have given it one star? No. That wasn't fair, I didn't like it because it disturbed me, but wasn't that the point of the book? I'm still thinking and talking about it so I've changed my rating to three stars . . . For now.
Original review:
"Ugh, just not a fan."
Original review:
"Ugh, just not a fan."
January 29, 2017
Review cross-posted to my blog here: http://www.firstsightsecondthoughts.n...
This book is really… ambitious. Ambition is not a bad thing in books (or in general, as a personality trait, if you ask me), and I would much rather see an author be ambitious and fall short than be lazy and uninspired. But… I’m not going to lie, I think Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea really fell short of its potential, in no small part due to the ambition of its premise. As a writer, I get the appeal of the lofty, artistic vision, but sometimes you have to recognize when execution isn’t matching up to ideals and let some of that vision go. Adam Roberts did not do that, for better or for worse.
Let me start by saying that there’s some very notable false advertising right in the title and on the backcover blurb where the book is described as “a retelling of the Jules Verne classic.” So, uh, about that. No it is not. It makes reference to Verne in quite a few moments. The first 90 pages or so, I feel, was intended to reference and homage 20,000 Leagues. But it doesn’t really succeed in that, and ended up reminding me much more of Moby Dick in terms of theme and captain-craziness. But taken as a whole, almost nothing about the plot of this book resembles 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. There’s a submarine. Some people on it go crazy. That’s about as close as we get.
There are a lot of criticisms I want to make about the writing of this book and the technical flaws therein. But I’m going to start with the one I noticed first, assumed would hold true for the rest of the book, and then was proven correct. There’s not a single female character in this book. In comparison to some of the other things I want to discuss, this seems minor in nature, and maybe it is. But wow, after reading quite a few books in a row with female protagonists, or at least prominent female characters, it’s really jarring. And of course, it’s not actually that notable or remarkable for a book to have few to no female characters, especially one with a fairly small number of characters to begin with. You could not say the same of a book with no male characters, which is predictable, but annoying. I know a lot of people may not be bothered by a complete lack of female characters, especially shrouded as it is in historical accuracy (women were not allowed to serve on submarines until like, two years ago in the US, and they certainly couldn’t in 1958). But you know what? This is a book about a submarine being pulled into a parallel universe made entirely of water by a sentient emerald, so I don’t care much for realism arguments here.
Right, yeah, about that premise. Much of this book – about the first 250 pages out of roughly 300 – is a big mystery. I feel like mystery and suspense is a really hard genre to master because if the payoff, the resolution, doesn’t match with the set-up, it’s a huge anti-climax to the reader. That is what happened here, for me. As soon as the mystery was resolved, my reaction literally boiled down to “well that’s fucking stupid and I just wasted three hours.” The majority of the book is about this submarine, the Plongeur, which is sinking. It is sinking far past depths found on Earth, far beyond pressures it should be able to withstand, into a weird murky water world, and no one aboard quite understands what’s going on. Especially after they all start succumbing to Ocean Madness, and then the murders start. In retrospect, the murders and the interpersonal drama between the crewmen was way more interesting than any facet of the mystery plot or its payoff, so I guess I’m glad that took up as much time as it did.
The payoff, and I have no qualms about spoiling this, is about 50 pages of obscurantist weirdness about the four states of matter and the existence of a tetraverse, four universes each centered on one of the states of matter. There’s approximately one paragraph of an anti-nuclear-fusion moral, and then another page or two of wanking over Jules Verne, and… then it’s over. The force bringing them to this waterverse (our universe being the gaseous vacuuverse, obviously) is a sentient emerald known as the Great Jewel, of vast intelligence, who understands that harnessing the power of nuclear fusion in our universe would threaten all four of them… because reasons. The Great Jewel manages to take control of the two remaining living characters at the end, but they manage to stop it by saying its true name! …Because reasons. And it’s true name is Verne! …Because reasons. There, I just saved you three hours, depending on your reading pace.
My first level of disappointment with this entire anti-payoff is that nothing actually fits together at all. The last 50 pages of the book, tonally and thematically, do not fit with the first 250. If you read 250 pages of Ocean Madness and drama and murder and intrigue on a submarine and survival thrillers, you don’t expect the last 50 pages of the book to be mathematical and scientific explanations about the states of matter and the uses of nuclear fission and fusion. Or at least I didn’t; maybe you would see that coming. I somehow doubt it, though. If you’re reading a murder mystery, you want to not only know who the killer is at the end, you want that revelation to be one that makes sense after everything you’ve read up to that point. As a reader, you’d probably be a little pissed if the murderer turned out to have never been mentioned at all in the book, not even as a background character. You’d be extra pissed if the last 50 pages of your book were replaced by randomly generated chunks of text from science and philosophy textbooks, which is what this felt like at times.
My second, and more frustrating level of disappointment with this book is that I can see a really different direction for it that could have been a really great book. The direction that I thought the book was heading in was entirely different, and in my opinion, would’ve been more emotionally satisfying. I thought that the mystery of the submarine’s perpetual sinking was going to go legitimately unresolved. I thought it would sink until the book ended, never finding the bottom. I thought the climax would focus on the characters, the men aboard the submarine. I thought the overall “moral of the story” would be about the characters and maybe have themes of trusting each other, or looking past differences, or maybe it would be dark and say that people are bastards and kill each other over the stupidest crap. At least then it would be valid to say that this book was about the characters, and not about the author’s tetraverse theory. With the climax the way it’s written here, the characters don’t matter. Their actions don’t matter and never did.
I keep comparing this to a murder mystery, which may or may not be a fair comparison to make, but here’s the thing: murder mysteries aren’t about “murder” per se, at least not good ones. They’re about murderers and victims and people who are afraid they might become victims. They’re about detectives and the need to ferret out the truth. Murder is, in point of fact, just the vehicle for those people to act upon. Think, if you will, of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, one of the quintessential murder mysteries. The key to the suspense of that story isn’t just “who’s the killer”. It’s the interactions between the characters as they all accuse each other and the growing tension as they’re all proven wrong. It’s how the characters react to their increasingly terrifying situation and how they cope with it (or not). With this book, the key to the suspense shouldn’t have been “why is the submarine sinking”. It should have been the interactions between the crewmen and how they cope. And what’s extraordinarily frustrating is that that’s exactly what it was for the first 250 pages, and then the last 50 pages went and ignored all of it.
I think I’ve said before, though perhaps not in so many words, that I think character-driven stories with more mundane are more enjoyable than action-driven stories with boring characters. I’d rather read about vivid, lifelike people in a less thrilling plot than a jam-packed balls-to-the-wall action story with a bunch of cardboard cutouts for characters (ideally there’s both interesting characters and an action-tastic plot, but if I had to choose…). This story turned out to be neither, though it had great potential to be both. The characters, while not likeable, were genuinely compelling in the ways they reacted to the stress of their situation. The revelation of Lebret as a Communist spy was wonderful. Billiard-Fanon’s religious mania was great to read and really well-written. The action sequences – the shooting of Lebret and the subsequent puncturing of the hull, Avocat’s donning of the diving suit to exit the submarine – were also sincerely exciting and fun to read. To have all of that ignored in the last act – and ignored in favor of character-less, action-less diatribing no less – felt like a slap in the face.
A more action-centric story or a more character-centric story – though tastes differ, these are both valid approaches to storytelling, in my opinion. However, the theory-centric or concept-centric story doesn’t work at all, and I don’t think that’s unique to me or my tastes. Stories are basically “things happen to people”, at their core. Whether the emphasis is more on the things happening or the people they’re happening to is immaterial. “But what if there’s four universes” isn’t a story. It’s a concept. A concept can be a great starter for a story, but it can’t carry it. And if this book had stuck with what was working – the drama between men who are certain they are about to die and the circumstances that got them there – I can see several ways for this book to have had a great ending. I legitimately don’t understand why the author here – and presumably at least one editor/agent/publisher – thought this hot mess of an ending tacked onto an otherwise enjoyable book was a good way to go.
P.S. Also there’s a one-page epilogue that I didn’t read until after I finished this review, due to the spacing of the illustrations (okay, the illustrations in the book are lovely). It does not improve matters, in my opinion. Also “broke the hymen of space-time itself” is a stupid goddamn phrase and shame on everyone who thought publishing it was a good idea.
This book is really… ambitious. Ambition is not a bad thing in books (or in general, as a personality trait, if you ask me), and I would much rather see an author be ambitious and fall short than be lazy and uninspired. But… I’m not going to lie, I think Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea really fell short of its potential, in no small part due to the ambition of its premise. As a writer, I get the appeal of the lofty, artistic vision, but sometimes you have to recognize when execution isn’t matching up to ideals and let some of that vision go. Adam Roberts did not do that, for better or for worse.
Let me start by saying that there’s some very notable false advertising right in the title and on the backcover blurb where the book is described as “a retelling of the Jules Verne classic.” So, uh, about that. No it is not. It makes reference to Verne in quite a few moments. The first 90 pages or so, I feel, was intended to reference and homage 20,000 Leagues. But it doesn’t really succeed in that, and ended up reminding me much more of Moby Dick in terms of theme and captain-craziness. But taken as a whole, almost nothing about the plot of this book resembles 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. There’s a submarine. Some people on it go crazy. That’s about as close as we get.
There are a lot of criticisms I want to make about the writing of this book and the technical flaws therein. But I’m going to start with the one I noticed first, assumed would hold true for the rest of the book, and then was proven correct. There’s not a single female character in this book. In comparison to some of the other things I want to discuss, this seems minor in nature, and maybe it is. But wow, after reading quite a few books in a row with female protagonists, or at least prominent female characters, it’s really jarring. And of course, it’s not actually that notable or remarkable for a book to have few to no female characters, especially one with a fairly small number of characters to begin with. You could not say the same of a book with no male characters, which is predictable, but annoying. I know a lot of people may not be bothered by a complete lack of female characters, especially shrouded as it is in historical accuracy (women were not allowed to serve on submarines until like, two years ago in the US, and they certainly couldn’t in 1958). But you know what? This is a book about a submarine being pulled into a parallel universe made entirely of water by a sentient emerald, so I don’t care much for realism arguments here.
Right, yeah, about that premise. Much of this book – about the first 250 pages out of roughly 300 – is a big mystery. I feel like mystery and suspense is a really hard genre to master because if the payoff, the resolution, doesn’t match with the set-up, it’s a huge anti-climax to the reader. That is what happened here, for me. As soon as the mystery was resolved, my reaction literally boiled down to “well that’s fucking stupid and I just wasted three hours.” The majority of the book is about this submarine, the Plongeur, which is sinking. It is sinking far past depths found on Earth, far beyond pressures it should be able to withstand, into a weird murky water world, and no one aboard quite understands what’s going on. Especially after they all start succumbing to Ocean Madness, and then the murders start. In retrospect, the murders and the interpersonal drama between the crewmen was way more interesting than any facet of the mystery plot or its payoff, so I guess I’m glad that took up as much time as it did.
The payoff, and I have no qualms about spoiling this, is about 50 pages of obscurantist weirdness about the four states of matter and the existence of a tetraverse, four universes each centered on one of the states of matter. There’s approximately one paragraph of an anti-nuclear-fusion moral, and then another page or two of wanking over Jules Verne, and… then it’s over. The force bringing them to this waterverse (our universe being the gaseous vacuuverse, obviously) is a sentient emerald known as the Great Jewel, of vast intelligence, who understands that harnessing the power of nuclear fusion in our universe would threaten all four of them… because reasons. The Great Jewel manages to take control of the two remaining living characters at the end, but they manage to stop it by saying its true name! …Because reasons. And it’s true name is Verne! …Because reasons. There, I just saved you three hours, depending on your reading pace.
My first level of disappointment with this entire anti-payoff is that nothing actually fits together at all. The last 50 pages of the book, tonally and thematically, do not fit with the first 250. If you read 250 pages of Ocean Madness and drama and murder and intrigue on a submarine and survival thrillers, you don’t expect the last 50 pages of the book to be mathematical and scientific explanations about the states of matter and the uses of nuclear fission and fusion. Or at least I didn’t; maybe you would see that coming. I somehow doubt it, though. If you’re reading a murder mystery, you want to not only know who the killer is at the end, you want that revelation to be one that makes sense after everything you’ve read up to that point. As a reader, you’d probably be a little pissed if the murderer turned out to have never been mentioned at all in the book, not even as a background character. You’d be extra pissed if the last 50 pages of your book were replaced by randomly generated chunks of text from science and philosophy textbooks, which is what this felt like at times.
My second, and more frustrating level of disappointment with this book is that I can see a really different direction for it that could have been a really great book. The direction that I thought the book was heading in was entirely different, and in my opinion, would’ve been more emotionally satisfying. I thought that the mystery of the submarine’s perpetual sinking was going to go legitimately unresolved. I thought it would sink until the book ended, never finding the bottom. I thought the climax would focus on the characters, the men aboard the submarine. I thought the overall “moral of the story” would be about the characters and maybe have themes of trusting each other, or looking past differences, or maybe it would be dark and say that people are bastards and kill each other over the stupidest crap. At least then it would be valid to say that this book was about the characters, and not about the author’s tetraverse theory. With the climax the way it’s written here, the characters don’t matter. Their actions don’t matter and never did.
I keep comparing this to a murder mystery, which may or may not be a fair comparison to make, but here’s the thing: murder mysteries aren’t about “murder” per se, at least not good ones. They’re about murderers and victims and people who are afraid they might become victims. They’re about detectives and the need to ferret out the truth. Murder is, in point of fact, just the vehicle for those people to act upon. Think, if you will, of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, one of the quintessential murder mysteries. The key to the suspense of that story isn’t just “who’s the killer”. It’s the interactions between the characters as they all accuse each other and the growing tension as they’re all proven wrong. It’s how the characters react to their increasingly terrifying situation and how they cope with it (or not). With this book, the key to the suspense shouldn’t have been “why is the submarine sinking”. It should have been the interactions between the crewmen and how they cope. And what’s extraordinarily frustrating is that that’s exactly what it was for the first 250 pages, and then the last 50 pages went and ignored all of it.
I think I’ve said before, though perhaps not in so many words, that I think character-driven stories with more mundane are more enjoyable than action-driven stories with boring characters. I’d rather read about vivid, lifelike people in a less thrilling plot than a jam-packed balls-to-the-wall action story with a bunch of cardboard cutouts for characters (ideally there’s both interesting characters and an action-tastic plot, but if I had to choose…). This story turned out to be neither, though it had great potential to be both. The characters, while not likeable, were genuinely compelling in the ways they reacted to the stress of their situation. The revelation of Lebret as a Communist spy was wonderful. Billiard-Fanon’s religious mania was great to read and really well-written. The action sequences – the shooting of Lebret and the subsequent puncturing of the hull, Avocat’s donning of the diving suit to exit the submarine – were also sincerely exciting and fun to read. To have all of that ignored in the last act – and ignored in favor of character-less, action-less diatribing no less – felt like a slap in the face.
A more action-centric story or a more character-centric story – though tastes differ, these are both valid approaches to storytelling, in my opinion. However, the theory-centric or concept-centric story doesn’t work at all, and I don’t think that’s unique to me or my tastes. Stories are basically “things happen to people”, at their core. Whether the emphasis is more on the things happening or the people they’re happening to is immaterial. “But what if there’s four universes” isn’t a story. It’s a concept. A concept can be a great starter for a story, but it can’t carry it. And if this book had stuck with what was working – the drama between men who are certain they are about to die and the circumstances that got them there – I can see several ways for this book to have had a great ending. I legitimately don’t understand why the author here – and presumably at least one editor/agent/publisher – thought this hot mess of an ending tacked onto an otherwise enjoyable book was a good way to go.
P.S. Also there’s a one-page epilogue that I didn’t read until after I finished this review, due to the spacing of the illustrations (okay, the illustrations in the book are lovely). It does not improve matters, in my opinion. Also “broke the hymen of space-time itself” is a stupid goddamn phrase and shame on everyone who thought publishing it was a good idea.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 2, 2017
The 1950's, the Plongeur is France's first nuclear powered revolutionary submarine, an eclectic mix of crew are 'chosen' to take her down for the first deep sea experimental dive....
What starts out as an adventure into the deep takes a very interesting turn as Plongeur sinks ever lower, the depth gauge says it should have hit the Sea bottom by now but there is no sign of it, radar also shows no bottom? Where are they, why do they continue to sink ever lower and why is the submarine starting to act in strange ways?
A really different science fiction thriller adventure that takes the reader to what you'd think is familiar territory but then takes you beyond that, beyond your thinking...beyond anything you thought was possible.
Thought provoking, tense, claustrophobic, surprising amongst many others, Twenty Trillion Leagues under the Sea is an adventure into science, and questions and expands what you thought wasn't possible. Slightly strange towards the end which made me scratch my head in confusion but I think that's the point. Great read.
What starts out as an adventure into the deep takes a very interesting turn as Plongeur sinks ever lower, the depth gauge says it should have hit the Sea bottom by now but there is no sign of it, radar also shows no bottom? Where are they, why do they continue to sink ever lower and why is the submarine starting to act in strange ways?
A really different science fiction thriller adventure that takes the reader to what you'd think is familiar territory but then takes you beyond that, beyond your thinking...beyond anything you thought was possible.
Thought provoking, tense, claustrophobic, surprising amongst many others, Twenty Trillion Leagues under the Sea is an adventure into science, and questions and expands what you thought wasn't possible. Slightly strange towards the end which made me scratch my head in confusion but I think that's the point. Great read.
July 23, 2019
Enjoyed this a lot!
October 19, 2025
Wtf was that?
March 25, 2015
Mostly brilliant...
It's June 1958, and French experimental submarine the Plongeur has taken off on her maiden voyage to test her new nuclear engines and her ability to dive to depths never before reached. The small crew is supplemented by the two Indian scientists responsible for the submarine's design, and an observer, M. Lebret, who reports directly to the Minister for National Defence, Charles de Gaulle. It is soon enough after the war for resentments against those who supported the Vichy government still to be fresh, and Lebret was one such, so there are already tensions amongst those aboard. The first trial dive is a success, so the Captain gives the order to go deeper, down to the limits of the submarine's capacity. But as they pass the one thousand five hundred metre mark, disaster strikes! Suddenly the crew lose control of the submarine, and it is locked in descent position. The dive goes on... past the point where the submarine should be crushed by the pressure... and on... and on...
This is a brilliant start to a novel that remains brilliant for about two-thirds of its length and then fades a little towards the end. Undoubtedly the most original sci-fi I've read in a long time, it's a mash-up of references, both explicit and in style, not just to Jules Verne and the Captain Nemo stories, but to lots of early sci-fi, fantasy and horror writers, from Alice in Wonderland to Poe, and even to Dickens. And I'm sure a more knowledgeable sci-fi reader would pick up loads that I missed. Stylistically it reads like a book from the early twentieth century, Wells or Conan Doyle perhaps, but it has a surreal edge and a playfulness with the traditions that keeps the reader aware that it's something more than a pastiche.
And the surreality grows as the adventure progresses and the Plongeur continues its dive to depths that should have taken it through the centre of the earth and out the other side. As it gradually becomes clear to those aboard that the normal rules of physics seem no longer to apply, their reactions range from panic to getting royally drunk to religious mania, while one or two are still willing to speculate that there might be a rational explanation. Arguments begin over what can be happening and what should be done, and the crew are soon at each other's throats. And when it eventually becomes a little clearer where they might have ended up, there's a Lovecraftian feel about the Plongeur's new surroundings and the creatures it encounters there. The book contains 33 illustrations by Mahendra Singh, and even in the Kindle version they work well in adding to the ever-growing atmosphere of horror. There's much science and philosophy in the book, especially around the nature of reality and God, and even a little politics, but this too all feels deliberately off-kilter – not quite in line with the real world and therefore not to be taken too seriously.
I thought I might be hampered by not having read the original Captain Nemo stories, but for the most part I didn't feel I was, though I suspect someone familiar with those would have got more of the references. There was only one point where I felt a little lost (when we were introduced to a character and were clearly supposed to recognise him from elsewhere) and a quick look at Wikipedia's pages on Jules Verne and Captain Nemo was enough to get me back up to speed. The story moves through the Verne originals and on beyond where they finished. But Roberts is playing with Verne's world rather than retelling it, just as he is playing with the real world and science of the '50s too. In the last section he gets a bit overly philosophical and a little too clever, and also takes us into a sequence that drags a little, unlike the rapid pace of the earlier part of the book. But while I felt the ending wasn't as strong as the rest, overall I found this an exciting ride, cleverly executed and full of imagination, and with a great mix of tension, humour and horror. Highly recommended, and I'm looking forward to trying some of Roberts' other books. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, St. Martin's Griffin.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
It's June 1958, and French experimental submarine the Plongeur has taken off on her maiden voyage to test her new nuclear engines and her ability to dive to depths never before reached. The small crew is supplemented by the two Indian scientists responsible for the submarine's design, and an observer, M. Lebret, who reports directly to the Minister for National Defence, Charles de Gaulle. It is soon enough after the war for resentments against those who supported the Vichy government still to be fresh, and Lebret was one such, so there are already tensions amongst those aboard. The first trial dive is a success, so the Captain gives the order to go deeper, down to the limits of the submarine's capacity. But as they pass the one thousand five hundred metre mark, disaster strikes! Suddenly the crew lose control of the submarine, and it is locked in descent position. The dive goes on... past the point where the submarine should be crushed by the pressure... and on... and on...
This is a brilliant start to a novel that remains brilliant for about two-thirds of its length and then fades a little towards the end. Undoubtedly the most original sci-fi I've read in a long time, it's a mash-up of references, both explicit and in style, not just to Jules Verne and the Captain Nemo stories, but to lots of early sci-fi, fantasy and horror writers, from Alice in Wonderland to Poe, and even to Dickens. And I'm sure a more knowledgeable sci-fi reader would pick up loads that I missed. Stylistically it reads like a book from the early twentieth century, Wells or Conan Doyle perhaps, but it has a surreal edge and a playfulness with the traditions that keeps the reader aware that it's something more than a pastiche.
And the surreality grows as the adventure progresses and the Plongeur continues its dive to depths that should have taken it through the centre of the earth and out the other side. As it gradually becomes clear to those aboard that the normal rules of physics seem no longer to apply, their reactions range from panic to getting royally drunk to religious mania, while one or two are still willing to speculate that there might be a rational explanation. Arguments begin over what can be happening and what should be done, and the crew are soon at each other's throats. And when it eventually becomes a little clearer where they might have ended up, there's a Lovecraftian feel about the Plongeur's new surroundings and the creatures it encounters there. The book contains 33 illustrations by Mahendra Singh, and even in the Kindle version they work well in adding to the ever-growing atmosphere of horror. There's much science and philosophy in the book, especially around the nature of reality and God, and even a little politics, but this too all feels deliberately off-kilter – not quite in line with the real world and therefore not to be taken too seriously.
I thought I might be hampered by not having read the original Captain Nemo stories, but for the most part I didn't feel I was, though I suspect someone familiar with those would have got more of the references. There was only one point where I felt a little lost (when we were introduced to a character and were clearly supposed to recognise him from elsewhere) and a quick look at Wikipedia's pages on Jules Verne and Captain Nemo was enough to get me back up to speed. The story moves through the Verne originals and on beyond where they finished. But Roberts is playing with Verne's world rather than retelling it, just as he is playing with the real world and science of the '50s too. In the last section he gets a bit overly philosophical and a little too clever, and also takes us into a sequence that drags a little, unlike the rapid pace of the earlier part of the book. But while I felt the ending wasn't as strong as the rest, overall I found this an exciting ride, cleverly executed and full of imagination, and with a great mix of tension, humour and horror. Highly recommended, and I'm looking forward to trying some of Roberts' other books. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, St. Martin's Griffin.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
March 17, 2015
It is the year 1958 and the French experimental nuclear submarine, Plongeur, has embarked on its maiden voyage. Everything goes as expected until it reaches 1000 leagues below the surface. At this point, the crew attempts to begin the ascent but systems begin to fail. The sub continues to descend and, as they reach the point that the water pressure should crush it, the crew is forced to face what they perceive as the inevitable end to their adventure and they try to make their peace through confession, something which the reader suspects is likely going to come back to bite them because the sub keeps sinking down and down farther than any of them (or at least most of them) could imagine into what they begin to suspect is an infinite ocean:
“The crew watched with fascination, and then horror, and finally with boredom as the numbers continued their relentless accumulation.”
As they continue to sink into this unknown world and it becomes more and more likely that they will never return home, the crew begins to fall apart with infighting, suspicion, accusations, religious mania, and even murder.
Okay, confession time – I have never read Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea so I have no idea how author Adam Robert’s novel, Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea, stacks up beyond the rather larger number of leagues. I also don’t read a lot of speculative fiction so I can’t say whether this works as such. I will say that I enjoyed this book a lot. It is well-written with plenty of action and even some humour. Although most of the crew tended to be somewhat one-dimensional their descent both in physical and mental terms was both compelling and chilling and was fascinating to ‘watch’. The one exception to the one-dimension rule was Lebret who seems to be both hero and villain and it is never completely clear which is true.
Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is the kind of book that makes the reader think, that posits big questions, and gives unexpected outcomes. And if that isn’t enough, there are some marvelous full-page illustrations by Mahendra Singh that both complement and add texture to the story.
“The crew watched with fascination, and then horror, and finally with boredom as the numbers continued their relentless accumulation.”
As they continue to sink into this unknown world and it becomes more and more likely that they will never return home, the crew begins to fall apart with infighting, suspicion, accusations, religious mania, and even murder.
Okay, confession time – I have never read Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea so I have no idea how author Adam Robert’s novel, Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea, stacks up beyond the rather larger number of leagues. I also don’t read a lot of speculative fiction so I can’t say whether this works as such. I will say that I enjoyed this book a lot. It is well-written with plenty of action and even some humour. Although most of the crew tended to be somewhat one-dimensional their descent both in physical and mental terms was both compelling and chilling and was fascinating to ‘watch’. The one exception to the one-dimension rule was Lebret who seems to be both hero and villain and it is never completely clear which is true.
Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea is the kind of book that makes the reader think, that posits big questions, and gives unexpected outcomes. And if that isn’t enough, there are some marvelous full-page illustrations by Mahendra Singh that both complement and add texture to the story.
January 15, 2015
https://koeur.wordpress.com/2015/01/1...
Publisher: St. Martins
Publishing Date: January 2015
ISBN: 9781250057792
Genre: SciFi
Rating: 2.2/5
Publisher Description: It is 1958 and France’s first nuclear submarine, Plongeur, leaves port for the first of its sea trials. On board, gathered together for the first time, are one of the Navy’s most experienced captains and a tiny skeleton crew of sailors, engineers, and scientists. The Plongeur makes her first dive and goes down, and down and down. Out of control, the submarine plummets to a depth where the pressure will crush her hull, killing everyone on board, and beyond. The pressure builds, the hull protests, the crew prepare for death, the boat reaches the bottom of the sea and finds nothing. Her final dive continues, the pressure begins to relent, but the depth guage is useless. They have gone miles down. Hundreds of miles, thousands, and so it goes on. Onboard the crew succumb to madness, betrayal, religious mania, and murder. Has the Plongeur left the limits of our world and gone elsewhere?
Review: Meh……Interminably long, almost as if your reading time is the same as the subs drop beneath the ocean. A group of uninteresting men plying their arcane drivel with a sense of elitism, coupled with average writing and…..meh.
Publisher: St. Martins
Publishing Date: January 2015
ISBN: 9781250057792
Genre: SciFi
Rating: 2.2/5
Publisher Description: It is 1958 and France’s first nuclear submarine, Plongeur, leaves port for the first of its sea trials. On board, gathered together for the first time, are one of the Navy’s most experienced captains and a tiny skeleton crew of sailors, engineers, and scientists. The Plongeur makes her first dive and goes down, and down and down. Out of control, the submarine plummets to a depth where the pressure will crush her hull, killing everyone on board, and beyond. The pressure builds, the hull protests, the crew prepare for death, the boat reaches the bottom of the sea and finds nothing. Her final dive continues, the pressure begins to relent, but the depth guage is useless. They have gone miles down. Hundreds of miles, thousands, and so it goes on. Onboard the crew succumb to madness, betrayal, religious mania, and murder. Has the Plongeur left the limits of our world and gone elsewhere?
Review: Meh……Interminably long, almost as if your reading time is the same as the subs drop beneath the ocean. A group of uninteresting men plying their arcane drivel with a sense of elitism, coupled with average writing and…..meh.
August 11, 2016
This is one of those reads that captivates you and unnerves you in just the right way that you cannot help but like it. And then, you wonder "how can this end?" Once your answer has been given, you think "I wish I hadn't known." Unfortunately, the book was better without the ending, which just disappoints me, but I can also understand. How on Earth can you even begin to end a novel like this? I'm still confused, but I think the wonder of it was the true sense of disbelief and the curiosity of the unknown.
The book was good, and I believe the reactions of the crew could be genuine, and of course I was thoroughly disturbed by the art (which is a plus, don't worry). The only downside to this book is, in fact, the ending. I excepted some parts of it, but I still have no answers and even more questions. It seems...unrealistic, even for this world. Perhaps I've missed something, or I'm not knowledgeable enough to truly grasp it. Who knows? Just another question without answer I suppose.
The book was good, and I believe the reactions of the crew could be genuine, and of course I was thoroughly disturbed by the art (which is a plus, don't worry). The only downside to this book is, in fact, the ending. I excepted some parts of it, but I still have no answers and even more questions. It seems...unrealistic, even for this world. Perhaps I've missed something, or I'm not knowledgeable enough to truly grasp it. Who knows? Just another question without answer I suppose.
June 7, 2022
Having read 25 of Adam Robert's books, I consider myself a fan.
But, this book is simply awful. It is not even science fiction, just pure fantasy.
The first 2/3 is not so bad, just a submarine that repairs itself by magic and a crew of morons and cowards, even an indecisive captain. Maybe tie a rope to your diver's suit and the submarine, but that would of course break the plot or would necessitate making up a better story.
The last 1/3 tries to make up for the fantasy by explaining how some of the rules of nature do not apply. But it is ill-researched and ill-conceived that the whole story just collapses into pages and pages of made-up technical explanations.
Complete waste of time.
But, this book is simply awful. It is not even science fiction, just pure fantasy.
The first 2/3 is not so bad, just a submarine that repairs itself by magic and a crew of morons and cowards, even an indecisive captain. Maybe tie a rope to your diver's suit and the submarine, but that would of course break the plot or would necessitate making up a better story.
The last 1/3 tries to make up for the fantasy by explaining how some of the rules of nature do not apply. But it is ill-researched and ill-conceived that the whole story just collapses into pages and pages of made-up technical explanations.
Complete waste of time.
July 17, 2014
Yes, this book was odd, but I like odd, so that was fine. For me the dialogue at times didn't feel natural and some of the descriptive passages left things unclear. I really enjoy a novel that develops a strong atmosphere and this book just didn't deliver those imaginary visuals I was hoping for. That aside, I'm glad I read it. The final few chapters actually did a much better job of setting mood and atmosphere, enough to leave an impression weeks after finishing the book.
April 16, 2020
I thought this was a great book. Once you start to read it you can't put it down, despite the time of day and nightmares you might have. Though the ending is a bit open ended, the journey was worth it. Personally, if I were to write it, I would've ended the book with all the people on the submarine dying and it just floating off (or something). Oh well!
Read
August 17, 2024Why I read it: Recently, I've watched The Island at the Top of the World, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Third Man on the Mountain, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. It's safe to say I've been on a little adventure kick, especially of the old-school kind, mountaineering, exploration... back when the world was bigger and there was more in it. This book has been on my to-read list since I bought it for a whole $5, which is a pretty steep discount from $22.99, and the back cover plot summary seemed right up my alley.
Thoughts: Where The Paleontologist was advertised as Michael Crichton + Night at the Museum + Stephen King and failed each of those aspects, Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea was Jules Verne + Event Horizon, H.P. Lovecraft + H.G. Wells + A Voyage to Arcturus, and as far as my experience with each of those things goes, it was very much like them: easy to get into at the start, getting progressively more difficult to swallow towards the middle, then proceeding vertiginously to an ending that makes me go "Oh........ huh." Obviously the real question is, did I get what I hoped out of this book, and the answer is that I actually got more than I hoped.
The main thing I struggled with was that there were a lot of unlikeable characters behaving irrationally, and just as it was getting good and Lebret's ulterior motives were about to be revealed, Billiard-Fanon pops him and the sub (honestly, who shoots a gun in a submarine). Then there was an annoying section of Billiard-Fanon losing whatever marbles he had left, and I really thought the rest of the novel was going to be a slog. Of the characters who were left, maybe only Jhutti would have still been willing to learn more of the world the Plongeur was now in, and with the religious mania suddenly overtaking the remaining crew, I wasn't feeling too optimistic. But then the novel switched back to Lebret's POV and I was so happy, particularly when strange things simply continued to happen to him, so I got the exploration of the strange watery universe I wanted all along. This latter part of the book is probably my favourite, because I didn't know what to expect at any point. Each new development and explanation for what was going on was more WTF than the previous. It made for very tense reading, and suddenly the amount of book I had left was rapidly decreasing.
The discussions of class and race and political affiliation seemed very Vernian to me, and, of course, Prince Dakkar himself is Captain Nemo, meeting yet another tragic ending. The (pseudo?)scientific concepts of universes within universes, each ruled and peopled by incredible entities, was very Voyage to Arcturus, but better simply by virtue of fact that I didn't have to suffer through the protagonists actually visiting all those worlds and meeting all those entities in this one story. This story was a decently-paced exploration of one realm; if Voyage to Arcturus would have been a decently-paced exploration of Tormance, it would've had to have been at least three times longer.
The ending was strange, but perfectly fitting.
Would I read more from this author: Yes!! As soon as I finished this book, I looked him up and saw he has written a fair bit, and of the novels that have wikipedia articles, at least one or two are also right up my alley as far as surface elements go (Splinter, for one, is also a Verne homage, and The Snow seems like an outright scifi version of Private Rites, but replace water with snow).
Would I recommend it: Sure!
Thoughts: Where The Paleontologist was advertised as Michael Crichton + Night at the Museum + Stephen King and failed each of those aspects, Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea was Jules Verne + Event Horizon, H.P. Lovecraft + H.G. Wells + A Voyage to Arcturus, and as far as my experience with each of those things goes, it was very much like them: easy to get into at the start, getting progressively more difficult to swallow towards the middle, then proceeding vertiginously to an ending that makes me go "Oh........ huh." Obviously the real question is, did I get what I hoped out of this book, and the answer is that I actually got more than I hoped.
The main thing I struggled with was that there were a lot of unlikeable characters behaving irrationally, and just as it was getting good and Lebret's ulterior motives were about to be revealed, Billiard-Fanon pops him and the sub (honestly, who shoots a gun in a submarine). Then there was an annoying section of Billiard-Fanon losing whatever marbles he had left, and I really thought the rest of the novel was going to be a slog. Of the characters who were left, maybe only Jhutti would have still been willing to learn more of the world the Plongeur was now in, and with the religious mania suddenly overtaking the remaining crew, I wasn't feeling too optimistic. But then the novel switched back to Lebret's POV and I was so happy, particularly when strange things simply continued to happen to him, so I got the exploration of the strange watery universe I wanted all along. This latter part of the book is probably my favourite, because I didn't know what to expect at any point. Each new development and explanation for what was going on was more WTF than the previous. It made for very tense reading, and suddenly the amount of book I had left was rapidly decreasing.
The discussions of class and race and political affiliation seemed very Vernian to me, and, of course, Prince Dakkar himself is Captain Nemo, meeting yet another tragic ending. The (pseudo?)scientific concepts of universes within universes, each ruled and peopled by incredible entities, was very Voyage to Arcturus, but better simply by virtue of fact that I didn't have to suffer through the protagonists actually visiting all those worlds and meeting all those entities in this one story. This story was a decently-paced exploration of one realm; if Voyage to Arcturus would have been a decently-paced exploration of Tormance, it would've had to have been at least three times longer.
The ending was strange, but perfectly fitting.
Would I read more from this author: Yes!! As soon as I finished this book, I looked him up and saw he has written a fair bit, and of the novels that have wikipedia articles, at least one or two are also right up my alley as far as surface elements go (Splinter, for one, is also a Verne homage, and The Snow seems like an outright scifi version of Private Rites, but replace water with snow).
Would I recommend it: Sure!
February 15, 2019
This is not the first book by Adam Roberts that I have read, as I also read one of his Tolkien-sendups, written under the pen name A.R.R.R. Roberts. His parodies show he has great knowledge of genre works, knowing their strenght and values, and has a fecund imagination of his own. He is also a great SF-author in his own right. Over the years I read reviews of his high-concept work (featuring worlds covered in salt, societies living on an unending wall, snow that never stops falling), but never got to reading it for myself. After reading an interview with Roberts and learning of his appreciation of the nature of SF - being in its ideas, I thought to try him out. And I started with this, as I am a fan of undersea adventures, other worlds, and the old SF-classics by Verne, Wells and Conan Doyle. This book is even illustrated in the style of victorian SF-novels, which added to my enjoyment of it. Like a similar work by Stephen Baxter, The Time Ships, that commented on and expanded on Wells' The Time Machine, this is not a mere sequel. It is at the same time a commentary on the original work, an expansion taking the concept in a different direction and a meta-novel on Verne's imagination and the worlds he made up. This last aspect takes over at the end of the novel, which is far from conventional. I was warned by reading several reviews that the end could leave readers dissatisfied, but I enjoyed the questions it raised none the less. An aspect that bothered me more, precluding me from giving five stars to this novel, was that almost all characters are unlikeable, making it hard to feel for their suffering. Lebret in particular at the end seems to be the protagonist, but is a very unsympathetic character. I think this novel would have worked better with a character who didn't distance the reader as much. On the other hand, the idea's come fast and strong in this novel, almost from the first page, as the submarine Plongeur suffers a mishap and starts to sink. Eventually it reaches the bottom of the ocean, but then it keeps on sinking ... There are weird gravitational anomalies, underwater suns with their own biology (bits, or large chunks, of lovecraftian horror here), a character taken over by religious mania, and then the weird parts are still to come. We also find out the fate of captain Nemo from Verne's original novel! There's also bits of philosopy and speculation about the nature of the universe that I enjoyed even though it was weird (I like some weirdness once in a while). As to what it all means, I'll leave you with a quote from another review I found: '20 Trillion Leagues is concerned with the ontological argument of imagination as a physically creative force. Or one reflective of unseen creations. Or both simultaneously.' Weird enough for ye? I had a great time reading this, even though it was more intellectually fulfilling than emotionally satisfying, and will go on reading more of Roberts work, as I like this kind of high concept imagination.
October 2, 2021
Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea, by Adam Roberts, is a cosmic horror retelling of Jules Verne's famous novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The author channels Jules Verne very well but the two novels are vastle different from each other in atmosphere.
What starts as a routine test of a highly experimental atomic submarine quickly becomes a waking nightmare for its captain and crew. While descending to 1500KM the submarine catastrophically fails and they begin descending to the ocean floor at tremendous speed. The crew awaits their timely demise, which never comes. They simply continue descending deeper into the ocean, with pressure stabilizing at a trillion KM under the sea, which should be impossible.
As they descend ever further into the depths the crew's madness slowly builds and they begin questioning their plight and whether or not it'd even be possible to get home again.
I enjoy modern retellings of stories quite a bit and I equally enjoy all things related to Cosmic Horror (It's one of my favorite genre's of horror) so this book has been quite the treat. The crew's slow descent into madness is a fascinating thing to experience and the weirdness of their journey is equally fascinating as well. I wouldn't say that the book is terrifying but it does have a great atmosphere and a lot of quiet unease, which is pretty standard for cosmic horror.
I will admit that I wasn't fond of one of the character's racist remarks but considering it's channeling H.P. Lovecraft, I don't find it that surprising. Thankfully, it's not a widespread thing and only really pops up in two chapters. It also does a good job of making you really dislike the character even more.
Overall, I thought the book was quite entertaining. It's an interesting combination of both Jules Verne and H.P. Lovecraft, which is something I didn't really expect I'd ever come across but here we are. I've decided to give the book a 4 out of 5. It's an entertaining book but I wouldn't call it amazing enough to warrant a 5 out of 5.
What starts as a routine test of a highly experimental atomic submarine quickly becomes a waking nightmare for its captain and crew. While descending to 1500KM the submarine catastrophically fails and they begin descending to the ocean floor at tremendous speed. The crew awaits their timely demise, which never comes. They simply continue descending deeper into the ocean, with pressure stabilizing at a trillion KM under the sea, which should be impossible.
As they descend ever further into the depths the crew's madness slowly builds and they begin questioning their plight and whether or not it'd even be possible to get home again.
I enjoy modern retellings of stories quite a bit and I equally enjoy all things related to Cosmic Horror (It's one of my favorite genre's of horror) so this book has been quite the treat. The crew's slow descent into madness is a fascinating thing to experience and the weirdness of their journey is equally fascinating as well. I wouldn't say that the book is terrifying but it does have a great atmosphere and a lot of quiet unease, which is pretty standard for cosmic horror.
I will admit that I wasn't fond of one of the character's racist remarks but considering it's channeling H.P. Lovecraft, I don't find it that surprising. Thankfully, it's not a widespread thing and only really pops up in two chapters. It also does a good job of making you really dislike the character even more.
Overall, I thought the book was quite entertaining. It's an interesting combination of both Jules Verne and H.P. Lovecraft, which is something I didn't really expect I'd ever come across but here we are. I've decided to give the book a 4 out of 5. It's an entertaining book but I wouldn't call it amazing enough to warrant a 5 out of 5.
October 18, 2018
Despite my rating, definitely worth a read. Adam Roberts is a king of high concept, and both his imagination and prose is delightful throughout. Unlike others books in this genre, the story jumps straight in without delay, backstory or heavy exposition, which made the opening act really appealing. Roberts' choice of innovation regarding the narrative and pacing, is both what creates some real originality but ultimately lost my attention and ability to read it as a single, cohesive story.
SPOILERS BELOW:
The way in which the characters are bumped off almost one by one, was a brilliant murder mystery type injection, and kept the plot fresh. However, at the span of an entire novel, because certain characters who did survive into the final act ended up becoming the lead character(s), I ended up not caring about their outcome. The prose is absolutely gorgeous, in particular a few chapters dedicated to a single diver plummeting downwards through the ocean, utterly alone and heading for death. The richness of some of these scenes, made up for some really cliched sci-fi dialogue, and hectic pacing, such as a big reveal in the third act, that goes by in an instant, destroying all of the brilliant mystery of the first two acts. There is a great story being told here, for me personally, I would have either axed the third act and left some mystery in tact, or simply made the novel longer to give the third act the time and space to naturally expand and come to a close.
But as I said, go read it! The audiobook in particular has a passionate narrator.
SPOILERS BELOW:
The way in which the characters are bumped off almost one by one, was a brilliant murder mystery type injection, and kept the plot fresh. However, at the span of an entire novel, because certain characters who did survive into the final act ended up becoming the lead character(s), I ended up not caring about their outcome. The prose is absolutely gorgeous, in particular a few chapters dedicated to a single diver plummeting downwards through the ocean, utterly alone and heading for death. The richness of some of these scenes, made up for some really cliched sci-fi dialogue, and hectic pacing, such as a big reveal in the third act, that goes by in an instant, destroying all of the brilliant mystery of the first two acts. There is a great story being told here, for me personally, I would have either axed the third act and left some mystery in tact, or simply made the novel longer to give the third act the time and space to naturally expand and come to a close.
But as I said, go read it! The audiobook in particular has a passionate narrator.
January 16, 2021
In Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea by Adam Roberts the replica of Captain Nemo's Nautilus is built and crewed with sailors and scientists to travel to the Continental Shelf and possibly beyond.
However, as soon as it passes those depths they lose control of the vessel and it continues to sink nonstop. Instead of dying and being crushed by the pressure, weird stuff starts to happen. The pressure equalizes, and they continue to go deeper; deeper, in fact, than it seems to be possible...
This was a nonstop ride that continued to ramp up every single chapter. It is filled with claustrophobia, mystery, peculiarity and eeriness, characters you want to throttle and characters you are rooting for, and weird shit that just gets weirder and weirder.
On top of all that, there are magnificent illustrations by Mahendra Singh at the end of every chapter! Here are some illustrations that don't spoil anything, but I promise you they get weirder and more intriguing.
One final note: it's not necessary to have ready Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea prior to reading this. There are some references but if you just read a quick summary of the Jules Verne's book, that would be more enough. ALSO, you do not need to have liked Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to enjoy this. I personally hated that book, but still loved this one!
5/5, strongly recommend!
However, as soon as it passes those depths they lose control of the vessel and it continues to sink nonstop. Instead of dying and being crushed by the pressure, weird stuff starts to happen. The pressure equalizes, and they continue to go deeper; deeper, in fact, than it seems to be possible...
This was a nonstop ride that continued to ramp up every single chapter. It is filled with claustrophobia, mystery, peculiarity and eeriness, characters you want to throttle and characters you are rooting for, and weird shit that just gets weirder and weirder.
On top of all that, there are magnificent illustrations by Mahendra Singh at the end of every chapter! Here are some illustrations that don't spoil anything, but I promise you they get weirder and more intriguing.
One final note: it's not necessary to have ready Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea prior to reading this. There are some references but if you just read a quick summary of the Jules Verne's book, that would be more enough. ALSO, you do not need to have liked Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to enjoy this. I personally hated that book, but still loved this one!
5/5, strongly recommend!
July 12, 2025
I've read quite a bit from Adam Roberts over the years, in a fairly haphazard fashion, and starting with his parody of The Hobbit. They tend to be enjoyable genre reads, infused with a bit of literary flair, that are enjoyable for the first three quarters but then don't quite land the ending.
Twenty Trillion Leagues Under The Sea fits into this pattern nicely. Post WW2, an experimental French nuclear submarine goes missing on its maiden voyage. It keeps descending, and descending, and descending... and like the proverbial boiling frog, it only gradually dawns on the submarine's crew that something has gone very wrong and that they are... somewhere else.
A pleasantly tense claustrophobic horror tone descends throughout the book's middle section, before the enigmatic Lebret takes on sole narrating duties for most of the rest of the book and things get... odd.
There's a lot to enjoy here, but it's not one of his best, and my copy was beset by typos. Generally, I'm not overly pedantic about errors, I'm sure there are plenty in my own work, but these were jarring and weird and there were so many that I can only really put it down to sloppy editing.
This is going straight to a charity shop, so if you're still interested, keep an eye out in the Oxfam Books shops of West London.
Twenty Trillion Leagues Under The Sea fits into this pattern nicely. Post WW2, an experimental French nuclear submarine goes missing on its maiden voyage. It keeps descending, and descending, and descending... and like the proverbial boiling frog, it only gradually dawns on the submarine's crew that something has gone very wrong and that they are... somewhere else.
A pleasantly tense claustrophobic horror tone descends throughout the book's middle section, before the enigmatic Lebret takes on sole narrating duties for most of the rest of the book and things get... odd.
There's a lot to enjoy here, but it's not one of his best, and my copy was beset by typos. Generally, I'm not overly pedantic about errors, I'm sure there are plenty in my own work, but these were jarring and weird and there were so many that I can only really put it down to sloppy editing.
This is going straight to a charity shop, so if you're still interested, keep an eye out in the Oxfam Books shops of West London.
February 21, 2025
A first-rate homage to classic sci-fi/fantasy. Shortly after the Second World War, the French navy's first nuclear submersible makes its maiden voyage, and is never heard from again. Its crew must survive a strange new world, an impossible problem, and each others' weakening resolve.
I listened to the audiobook, and had a great time. Roberts' writing is economical and tense where it needs to be, and is allowed to relax and become as expansive as the infinite world he leads us to. I loved the strange natural laws, odd creatures, and completely inexplicable metaphysics at play as the author explores this new world. Roberts captures the Age of Exploration attitude perfectly, even though this story is set in the 20th century. Every so often, one must remind themselves that it was not written much earlier.
Few other, if any, modern takes on a classic story have so completely caught my attention before, but I look forward to diving into more of Roberts' work.
I listened to the audiobook, and had a great time. Roberts' writing is economical and tense where it needs to be, and is allowed to relax and become as expansive as the infinite world he leads us to. I loved the strange natural laws, odd creatures, and completely inexplicable metaphysics at play as the author explores this new world. Roberts captures the Age of Exploration attitude perfectly, even though this story is set in the 20th century. Every so often, one must remind themselves that it was not written much earlier.
Few other, if any, modern takes on a classic story have so completely caught my attention before, but I look forward to diving into more of Roberts' work.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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