Stranger from the Depths

by Gerry Turner

After sleeping for thousands of years the last survivor of a lost civilization returns to life to reveal secrets of the earth's core never imagined.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, Childrens

205 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

Reviews

[Ravenpi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was just a load of fun. I read it back in the 70's, but, unlike some of the older folk here who've read it, I remember it very, very well. In a nutshell, we follow a band of high school friends who've discovered a statue made of diamond after the New England coast is hit by a tsunami. This -- along with a college professor mentor of theirs -- leads them to discover an undersea tomb which contains Saa, the lizard man depicted on the cover. He -- having been in suspended animation for eons -- leads them to his still-extant city, millions of years old, but protected by various autonomous systems and its diamond-like outer shell. It is a marvel to our contemporary travelers, who (through the "induction machine") learn to communicate with Saa. Saa, naturally, is feeling a bit lonely -- until he finds that there are others of his race in a different, renegade city that is reaching the end of its lifetime. Its people have become superstitious, and unable to wield science and engineering any longer, they rule through a priesthood-like theocracy. Saa and his human friends come in peace, in an attempt to merge the two cities and its peoples -- and I won't give away any more.

The book has some holes, easily forgiven by the adolescent target, and adult reader, alike. It's exciting, fast-paced and original. Highly, highly recommended. Indeed, the whole reason I bumped into this is because it's time for me to buy a new copy!

Enjoy.

[Astrid · Rating 5 out of 5]

I purchased this from Scholastic books when I was 7, I would turn 8 later that year. I remember getting yelled at by my mom because I wouldn't put it down. As I child I just sank into this world and it wouldn't be until I read LOTR when I was around 12 that I would find another world that completely consumed me. I tried to find out information on the author and near as I can tell this was the only book he/she wrote? I would love to have more info.
As to the story itself, what could be more amazing than discovering the remants of a civilization buried under the sea and an actual inhabitant still alive? To me it was Nancy Drew with a pulse and this book started a lifelong love of SF that I've never lost.
My daughter read it when she was around 10 and expressed dismay at one event towards the end that she felt was rather brutal. It never struck me that way when I read it as a child but my childhood was much rougher than hers and even then I had a 'you get what's coming to you' mentality. Do bear that in mind though if you have a copy and are going to allow your child to read it. Unlike many YA novels, this one does have a much deserved but brutal event towards the end. Good luck finding a copy though, you can't have mine!

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book when I was eight. I suspect it wouldn't fare as well at 50+ but at eight it started me on science-fiction.

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

291218: i am inspired to go by memory of books read when very young- if remembered, they are obviously very significant, rated four or five, though i do not recall how old i was when i read this but it was paperback, newish, so i would have been between six/seven/eight. just remember that this science fiction book is one of the first i read, what might be considered young adult now (i must have been younger because i do not remember any icky girls or like, feelings?), that it is fantastic, tragic, horrifying, more science than fantasy, this was important- very early on i required plausibility/possibility rather than impossibility, no matter how extreme. i remember in particular the 'mole' device going through stone and so trapped... fun, quick, fantastic, this i read more than once though it was the paperback cover with 'the stranger' that first attracted me... as with the cover for The Lotus Caves and The White Mountains...

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

So nice, I read it twice - but that was a long time ago in the days of youth. A pleasant, environmentally conscious science fiction adventure for kids that combines HG Wells/Jules Verne with Atlantis-like themes. The star of the book is a lizard man named Saa, a friendly survivor of a dying race of amphibian people who live deep below the Earth. He takes some human kids to this fantasy world, which is, as best I can recall, well described. I honestly can't remember the outcome, but I do remember really enjoying this book long, long ago.
Got this from the Scholastic book club thingy at school for probably 50 cents. Funny, it's now worth a lot of money.

[Anne Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the books I ordered from Scholastic in grade school. Still have it. Definitely a bit dated but an enjoyable read.

[Alice Gorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so much! It was haunting and mysterious.

[Bill Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first science fiction book I remember reading as a child, so I was delighted to share it with my seven-year old daughter. It is a Scholastic book and meant for young readers, so it is kid of hard to review on the typical aspects on which I'd judge a book.

I didn't remember many details from when I read it many decades ago, except for one specific situation that comes up on the penultimate chapter. It felt like exposition city as there were many instances of a character launching into exposition, but maybe that is normal for books written for younger readers. Maybe "show, don't tell" is too subtle for younger minds. I do know that every chapter that went on my daughter kept asking "when are they going to meet the character on the cover? Or is that the statue they found? Are they going to be able to talk?" And she really liked the joke about the Wizard of Ooze.

The science is gonzo, but imaginative and fun. It is a variation of the "hollow earth" theme like Pellucidar or Journey to the Center of the Earth. You've got some Matrix-like things, some advanced civilization stuff, and some kind of cliche good civ/bad civ stuff, and some kids who are just kind of along for the ride.

One thing I really enjoyed as I was reading it to my daughter was coming up with different voices for different characters, which my daughter says she likes. Dr. Shaw had a Maine accent. Professor Kincaid sounded like Peter Lorre. Saa sounded a bit like Data. Stan had a deep and manly voice. Gaanu and Krii had a typical villainous voice. The rest kind of all sounded the same.

So is it going to dethrone the Wizard of Oz or the Chronicles of Narnia? No. Is it going to continue to have a place as a nostalgic favorite that led me into reading Tarzan and comic books and enjoying fantasy and science fiction? Absolutely! And I'm very glad I got to enjoy it with my daughter.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 2 of 2014: Stranger from the Depths by Gerry Turner (1967/1970, Scholastic Book Services, 288 p.)

I read this book in the early 1970s. I super enjoyed it at the time. When I re-read the Tripod books (also from my formulative years) last year, I often thought of this book. I could remember the cover and the elements of the story, but not the author of the title. Imagine my DELIGHT when Bill Belcher found a copy and gifted it to me for Christmas!

The book is a young adult sci-fi novel that revolves around the discovery of VERY ancient (100 million years old) civilization of "lizard men". A group of young adults and their mentors stumble across an artifact in Cretaceous-aged rock that leads to the discovery of an ancient city and its sole remaining survivor. With an added bonus of a boring machine that goes through the mantle and into the Earth's core.

In many ways this book is much like Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. The geoscience is dated (pre-plate tectonics and the dinosaur asteroid extinction event) or wrong (radiocarbon used to date Cretaceous-aged rock) with fantastic landscapes in the Earth's mantle.

But having said that...I really enjoyed the book, even almost five decades after originally reading it. I bought this book through one of the book sales at school and (if memory serves), it was the second book I owned (the first being a novelization of Star Trek episodes by James Blish). I remember designing a system (like the Dewey Decimal System) to categorize my personal library.

This was the only sci-fi novel written by Turner and is an edited and abridged version for Scholastic Book Services. I've looked for the original online but have come up with nothing. Maybe I will happen upon it at a used bookstore one day.

It was a nice trip down memory lane.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my favorite book as a young boy in the 1970s, for several years, until I discovered LOTR, Dune and Watership Down in High School. I had the abridged Scholastic version and reread it every few months when I was in Elementary school. The book is filled with children’s fantasy tropes, including the Trio (always boy, boy, girl) who visit a fantastic world.

In this particular case the protagonists are scuba diving teenagers who do not have parents (I think this was explained away as the parents being dead) and have a professor mentor (another common trope). Their independence and ingenuity appealed to me.

Plot borrows heavily from Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne, involving an Atlantean subterranean city of intelligent lizard men, diamond buildings and bubble cars, and a voyage to a dysfunctional city at the center of the earth to rescue it’s inhabitants,

The character of Saa, the lizard man, was fascinating to me, and he seemed an original and unique creation. Sort of a sympathetic version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The cover art by Emmanuel Schongut was beautiful and trippy and I would often marvel at it, while reading the book.

I’m reasonably sure this book does not hold up AT ALL, but it got me through some tough times, during a period of my childhood when escapist lit was very important to me.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nostalgia has taken me back to this book, which I first read at the age of 8 or 9. I believe this was possibly the first "novel" I independently read. It certainly left a lasting impression on me. I think it was the catalyst that initiated my journey into science fiction at such a young age, although my interest had already been ignited to some extent by my mother reading The Secret Land of Og to me; another story featuring an underground civilization. It is intriguing that both works were significant departures from the typical genres associated with their respective authors. Gerry Turner had only penned two other books focused on photography, while Pierre Berton was primarily a historian. I apologize for this turning into less of a review and more of a personal reflection. The scientific concepts presented in this narrative were utterly captivating to me as a child. Upon re-reading it as an adult, I find that I am now more aware of just how fantastical the science depicted truly is. Approaching it as a nostalgic journey to my childhood, I was able to just go with it and embrace the experience and enjoy the adventure all over again.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was going along pretty well, but then the story just kind of petered out. Once they got to the 2nd ancient city, the story really had nowhere to go until it wrapped up in an underwhelming, anti-climactic finale.

The characters were not particularly well drawn or interesting. The girl, in particular, is a very 70s era we have to stick a girl in the story for equality, but we don't have to give her a personality or purpose. The other teenagers have no distinct voice or personalities. This book is all plot, and while the plot is great through about the first half, at a certain point the story had nowhere to go.

I can see where young readers would enjoy it, but it didn't hold much interest for me as an adult.

[Parma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this in 1969 when 10 years old. It launched me into a lifelong enjoyment of science fiction. The plot was much more intricate and interesting than the other books I’d read previously - a real thrill!

[Airyie · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it as a kid. Need to find it to give it a reread.

[Aaron Ruddon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this in elementary school. A rollicking and intriguing adventure that was perfectly suited to a kid devouring theories on hollow earth and aliens!

[Jimbethhoward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imaginative, memorable. Probably read most of this on the school bus.

[Lauren Gustafson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the very first chapter book I ever read back as a kid in the 70s and I think it both established and cemented my love of science fiction. The imagery Turner painted was quite vivid and I could totally picture myself along with the gang in the city of Haad, riding in the Mole and along the fiery shores of Oonu.

I'm not sure what happened to my original book, but I was lucky enough many years later to find another copy at a Friends of the Library booksale and snatched it up lovingly. I still pull it down from the shelf from time to time and enjoy an afternoon re-read several decades later. Usually while snacking on an 0882.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK, so, this is a pretty standard 1960s/70s "Lost World" sci-fi story, in which some New Englanders accidentally stumble upon a lost city from a civilization of reptilian people who flourished millions of years in the past. With the geological shifts of millions of years, the city ended up buried deep beneath the sea and earth. A survivor in suspended animation revives and becomes their guide to the lost world. I read this around 1985, I think, with a battered old mass market paperback printed in 1970. I lost it sometime in the 80s. Sometime in the early 21st century, I remembered this book from when I was a kid, and tried to Google it, but no longer remembered the author or title. I couldn't find it. I tried again and again over the years. And then, in early 2024, I finally stumbled on the right search terms to find the author and title on Google. It is out of print, not available on Kindle, but I was finally able to locate a used copy through Amazon. Now, I'm not saying the effort would be worth it to anyone but me - it's a good book, but not great literature - but I had such fond memories of reading it while camping when I was 10. To my surprise, it actually held up pretty well upon re-reading!

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable sci-fi tale for juveniles. I read this, oooooh, probably in the 3rd grade, so easy reading (with lots of challenging, imagination-spurring ideas). Apparently printed in abridged and unabridged editions. I read the abridged Scholastic edition.

A modern variant on 'Journey to the Center of the Earth', with a race of beings using advanced technology to colonize the earth's interior. From keep-cool body suits to magma-proof transporters, everything has a power limitation due to the incredible heat, a resource & time limit that keeps the plot moving right along.

Two schoolboys discover an undersea tunnel while scuba diving. In it, they discover a box, which turns out to be the tomb for an alien being (or non-human, sentient, terrestrial species).

They awaken the creature, which has been in suspended animation for millennia. It takes them on a journey, a captivating adventure to prevent disaster and yadda blah-blah.

Good fun, not sure if I can recommend it to other adults, particularly as it's out of print and very expensive to obtain.

[Jake Artley · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorites from childhood, bought via Scholastic Books probably shortly after it was issued in paperback. It's likely one of the first couple of science fiction books I read, along with A Wrinkle In Time. Other reviewers have given a synopsis, so I'll just add that I still own my copy and reread it many times as a kid and even again last year as a 60 year old. It still holds up as a well-written story while also bringing back the memories of the joy of discovering and reading science fiction for the first time, the joy of possibilities.

[D Parsons · Rating 2 out of 5]

A purely nostalgic read. One of the first science fiction novels I ever owned...bought the abridged version from Scholastic books back in the day. I ordered the unabridged version through ILL. What a difference 45 years makes. I can see why I liked it then; however, really poor writing and editing. Worst of all, the "science" in the story is horribly flawed even for the original publishing date of 1967.

[Wayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book when I was a teenager and I found a copy again recently. It was written in the 50's or 60's. It was pretty good, and hasn't suffered too much over time. It's trying to not be sexist and sometimes succeeds. It's a bit more advanced than a lot of YA books I've read. I did enjoy it, but it's not fantastic.

[Jack Mort · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this in 1970. Even after all these years it was still one of my favorite book.s. I finally found an affordable copy at Amazon, it arrived in the mail today and read it in just about one sitting. It's still an interesting story, and easy to read. It was a genuine pleasure to read again, in some ways like being reunited with an old friend.

[Miles Zarathustra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book when I was younger and I remember really loving it.

[Rob Pucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good old sci-fi.

[Lon Kvanli · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this story to my sons when they were in grade school. They loved it.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book when I was a kid and it was good fun sci-fi.

[Artis Fricbergs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't believe I found this. I think this is the first novel I ever read when I was 9 years old.

[Brian Cowlishaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was fun reading this book from my childhood--every bit as enjoyable as I remembered. Not great Literature, but great fun. Thanks, Bridget!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully cheesy and poorly written. I giggled a lot.