The Secret People

by John Wyndham

'The Sun Bird was beginning to travel fast, close to the edge of the whirlpool. They could look right down into the hollow of spinning water' While flying over Africa's New Sea, a water project in the heart of the Sahara desert, Mark Sunnet's rocket plane crashes and is sucked through a hole in the desert floor into a strange, cavernous new world. There, he and his partner Margaret encounter the survivors of an ancient race of underground dwellers whose whole existence is now threatened. Captured and forced to live with other prisoners taken from the surface, the pair know that they must escape before the waters above drown them all . . . The Secret People, published in 1935, is John Wyndham's first novel. 'Perhaps the best writer of science fiction England has ever produced' Stephen King

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Classics, Adventure, Africa, Action

202 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was the son of a barrister. After trying a number of careers, including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, he started writing short stories in 1925. After serving in the civil Service and the Army during the war, he went back to writing. Adopting the name John Wyndham, he started writing a form of science fiction that he called 'logical fantasy'. As well as The Day of the Triffids, he wrote The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned) and The Seeds of Time.

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose this purely because of the cover, expecting it (not only because of the cover but also as this was his first book) to be worse than it was.

I miss the days of cheap books in oxfam, days when every other book on their shelves was a Wyndham book. I suppose it is, in some ways at least, a good thing that no longer seems to be the case.

This is very much a 'testing the water' book - pun intended - and it is so well written, that in some parts, the story becomes secondary to the enjoyment of reading

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Secret People" is a science fiction novel by John Wyndham in 1935. The novel was written under Wyndham's early pen name, John Beynon. " The Secret People" came out in a serialized form in the English magazine "Passing Show". Now before anything else I wanted to know why he wrote the book using another name, so off I went to find out. This is what I came up with, for some reason beyond me Wyndham's full name is John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris. That seems like an awful lot of names for a person to have to remember and write and tell people over and over again, you know like when you go to the doctor and the receptionist asks for your full name, I can just see the look on her face as she is writing all that down, and I'm positive there isn't enough room on any form I've ever had to fill out for anything for all of those names. However, that's what his full name is so it is now perfectly understandable to me why he shortened it writing under names such as, John Beynon Harris, John Beynon, Wyndham Parkes, Lucas Parkes, Johnson Harris and of course John Wyndham. As to why he changed his pen name so often, I'm just going to go with "because he could" and be done with the wondering.

As for "The Secret People" it certainly was unusual, I'll give it that. It was filled with surprises for me, things that have never even occured to me before. For instance I am positive I have never read a book before where mushrooms played such a big part in the story. It has never occured to me that if we had giant mushrooms growing around here, we could defend our small town from all invaders by using the mushroom stems to build walls around our village. We can also use the big round part of the mushrooms as shields. If the creek floods our town as it does once in a while, we can use the mushroom stems to build rafts, if we have enough rope that is, they are fantastic floating machines. I learned that you can live your entire life eating nothing but mushrooms. You can eat them raw, or boil them, or mush them up and eat them like a type of mushroom oatmeal, or make mushroom soup, and there is also a mushroom drink described as "several stages below that inferior vodka which is made from bread".

And where are all these mushrooms? They are in a deep, deep layer of caverns. Caverns that, once you find yourself in them, there seems to be no way to get out again. And where are all these caverns? They are under the Sahara Desert, only the Sahara Desert isn't a desert anymore, it's a sea. The New Sea. It seems that France and Italy joined together and flooded it. According to our novel the idea of the New Sea had been around since the nineteenth century, the great De Lesseps (whoever he is) had first come up with the idea, but it went nowhere until 1945. According to the book:

"Then after being for almost a century a matter of merely academic interest it had, in 1945, suddenly become practical politics. The French, in fact, decided to flood a part of the Sahara Desert. That the undertaking was within the range of possibility had long been admitted by many experts, but until France had discovered Italy's willingness to enter into partnership, the financial obstacles had proved insurmountable. Through mutual assistance and for their mutual benefit the two nations had gone to work upon the most ambitious engineering scheme yet projected."

So, now I know that France and Italy decided to make a sea, but I'm still not sure why, then I read this:

"France could foresee in the creation of this inland sea several advantages for herself. First, she hoped that southern Tunis and a part of Algeria would benefit. It was argued that the land about it would rapidly become fertile. Trees would grow, clouds would follow, bringing rain; the rain would induce still more vegetation, and so on until the erstwhile desert sands should bloom. Italy, once satisfied that there was no catch in the plan, became equally enthusiastic. If her barren property should become fertile, at least in part, colonial expansion would give her a chance to build up a yet larger population. The great day when the might of the Roman Empire should be revived would be brought a step nearer."

Now me being anything but a scientist or even a person who thinks scientifically ever, I couldn't see how this plan of theirs could ever work, I'm still not sure where they were getting all the water unless they were just emptying some other sea from some other place. Another thing I was wondering was if you build a sea in a desert would it really make it rain and things grow and all that wonderful stuff? I have no idea. The only way I could see this working at all however, was as a fresh water sea. If it's salt water how is anything going to grow anyway? I'm pretty sure if I went outside right now and watered my plants with salt water it wouldn't be good, I can kill a plant though just by bringing it home so I'm not sure what salt water will do to them, but my sister who is a wonderful gardener doesn't poor salt water on them. So I can't see anything growing if the sea is salt water. And no one could drink it, so why would they move to a now watery desert that still has no drinkable water? So in my mind it has to be fresh water.

OK, now that we have mushrooms, caverns, deserts and seas all we need is the people to finish our story. As for them our hero is Mark Sunnet and our heroine is the beautiful Margaret Lawn. Our main characters get trapped in the caverns that you can't get out of with a whole lot of other people, I'm not telling you how. When Mark wakes up in a "room" with other men who are dressed in rags with long, dirty beards he asks this:

"But what are you all doing here?"
"Just living here."
"But why?"
"Because we darn well can't do nothing else. D'you think we're here for fun?"

He finds out that there are hundreds of men and women living in the caves and most have been there for years. The groups of people are broken up into three catagories; first, the people like Mark who have come in from the outside, next the people who have been born while in the caverns, they are called the "natives", they have no desire to leave; and finally we have the "secret people", little people everyone calls "pygmies", it's good they are there or we wouldn't have a book title. They don't want anyone to leave, they want to keep their world a secret.

Now here's my water problem, I'm already convinced the sea should be fresh water or pointless, but from things I've read it seems to be salt water:

"Besides, it's salt water-it's got into some of the reservoir caves already, and joined the fresh water streams."

So it is salt water and if I'm right will not help the desert at all. Another thing, they are worried it will polute their fresh water streams, are there really streams under the desert? Finally, there's a cat in there, just one, running around the caverns. The cat won't eat mushrooms so they catch fish and feed it the fish. If they can catch fish in their mysterious streams, why in the world don't they eat some themselves? At least once in a while for a change from mushroom oatmeal. I've told you enough now, how they all got there, if they ever get out, if they ever turned the Sahara into a beautiful seaside resort, if any pygmies wind up married to outsiders and all living happily ever after, how there happens to be enough light for everyone to be able to see just fine, and how they build fires without wood, you will have to find out by either reading the book or just searching the internet.

It said on my copy that it is a "Science Fiction Classic" so I looked up the words Science Fiction and it is described as this:

"Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginative content such as futuristic settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life."

Well, it was set in the future, it was written in 1935 and set in the year 1964, so that covers the futuristic parts and maybe the cat is an alien. Oh, and no one in the novel looks anything like the cover picture of the strange guy with mushrooms growing out of his head, that's just one more odd thing about the book. It certainly was interesting, I'll give Wyndham that. On to the next book. Happy reading.

[Tweety · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, after reading reviews I feel a bit like I'm about to praise an "OK" book to the sky. This is John Wyndham's first book (as nearly every reviewer has said), however, I don't feel it shows, not anymore more than The Day of the Triffids. In fact, I liked this book much better. The first half was amazing, it was felt like a mix between The Loch and Journey to the Center of the Earth. And even Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. How could I not love it?

What starts as a hot, dull vacation in Africa, soon turns into a nightmare for Mark and Margaret, after one flight over The New Sea which has covered a part of the Sahara Desert. It leads them to a lost civilization, caves, monster fungi and the most startling of inventions.

After the halfway part things slow a little, Mark and Margaret are fighting for their freedom and their lives. As The New Sea grows steadily larger above their heads, the rock bead begins to leak, and its only a matter of time before they can never escape. They fight with the Pygmies, who are also fighting for their lives as well as their civilization.

I don't want to give anything away, because the surprises were the kind that once spoiled would never be the same.

While I'm not going to say this is amazing literature (how can I with all the "OK" reviews and three stars?), but I can and will say that I really, truly, loved it. Maybe I was in the mood for good Si-Fi pulp. Or maybe I don't have very good taste, whatever. (I think my taste is pretty good, so we'll allow me a few iffy ones, right?) Anyway, for fans of Science Fiction and John Wyndham I'd whole heartedly recommend this. I can only hope you'll enjoy it at least half as much as me.

PG There are some mild swears, a bit of violence, more when it comes to warfare and a bit of what I'd call "Chinese Torture". I must say about the torture, I'm very glad we were not show it step by step, because I think we can all imagine how it feels to have splinters thrust into our fingers, without being told. We do get the "excitement" of being there, but it is blacked out among other things which aren't every expounded on.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an entertaining, fast-paced, old fashioned, adventure novel. Part of the Sahara has been flooded to form an inland Sea. Mark and Margaret take a plane trip to view this new sea, something goes wrong, and they crash. The beginning of the story has something of a Jules Verne flavour to it, especially when the protagonists reach the underground cavern system and the giant mushrooms. Unfortunately, there are no dinosaurs, but there is a remnant of an ancient civilization dwelling in these caverns, who aren't particularly happy about the new sea leaking over their heads. Mark and Margaret are also not the only prisoners, and it is imperative that they escape, only there are differing opinions on how this should be accomplished. Benyon's ancient subterranean civilization is fairly interesting (what we learn of it anyway). A fun little evening's diversion.

[Simon Pressinger]

No sense wasting time on a book you’re not enjoying, even if it is from an author you really admire. But it was his first published book and he was a young man. There’s some signs of the brilliance he displays in his later work, but it’s a real shame to see old yet familiar racial stereotypes, and used in such a cringingly insensitive 2D fashion. Sure, I’ll probably return to it, but right now I’m in no mood for anything that doesn’t grip me.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

After saving the family business and, in the process, making himself a rich man, Mark Dunnet is taking a well-earned break. He has bought himself the newest model, rocket-propelled aeroplane, which he calls the Sun Bird, and is randomly flying from place to place. But when he stops off in Algiers, he meets beautiful Margaret Lawn and falls promptly in love. He invites her to fly with him over the New Sea, a massive engineering project to flood part of the Sahara desert and make the surrounding land fertile. He promises her the Sun Bird is safe. Which just goes to prove—never trust anything a man says, girls. The plane’s engine blows up mid-flight and sends them hurtling into the New Sea. Luckily the body of the plane remains intact and watertight but the radio is broken, so they are floating aimlessly when they get sucked into a whirlpool that drags them down into the depths… and deeper… down into an underground world that has been cut off from the surface for millennia. There they will be imprisoned by the race of pygmies that inhabit this strange world of caves and tunnels, and will discover they are not the only prisoners…

This was Wyndham’s first novel, originally published under one of his pen-names, John Beynon. As that little blurb suggests, it’s pretty derivative of earlier science fiction writers, and of the many lost world stories in the genre. It doesn’t have anything like the depth of his better-known work, but it does show promise of his later talent.

First published in 1935 and set in 1964, one of the enjoyable aspects is seeing how his imagined future compares with reality. For a start, the Second World War didn’t happen, and there is no mention of the fascism that was presumably already on the rise while he was writing it. Instead, the political world seems to have remained static, in that the European powers still have their Empires. So France is the country flooding the Sahara in its North African colonies. And, of course, the British still rule the world – in their minds, at least. The downside of this is that the attitudes and language feel curiously outdated, certainly for 1964, but even for 1935, I feel. It reads more like Haggard’s African adventures than James Bond. Plenty of racist language and, unfortunately, some actual racism too. He is trying to present a more modern attitude to the interactions of the Brits and Americans with other races – he just doesn’t always quite succeed.

The Sun Bird made me laugh. Officially named the Strato-Plane (could it be any more Boys’ Own?), it sounds more like the kind of rocket we send into space than something you’d do little local hops in. Margaret is hesitant about flying in it, which is the first sign of the good sense she will show throughout the novel. Mark, being a man, has no sense when it comes to machinery that makes a lot of noise and shoots fire out of its rear.

The ‘pygmies’ are distantly related to the pygmy tribes that had been discovered in Africa, but having lived underground for thousands of years they have lost their skin pigmentation and are white – Gollum white, rather than European. They are not unlike the Eloi in Wells’ The Time Machine – their race is in decline and they are losing the skills their ancestors once possessed. And now a new danger threatens their world – their tunnels are suddenly being flooded by water and they don’t know where it’s coming from. They can block up each breach, but as they do their world gets smaller and smaller. And when Mark tells the prisoners about the New Sea, they realise they have to escape as a matter of urgency…

One of the prisoners is a kind of anthropologist, used as a device to explore the pygmy tribe’s customs, which appear to borrow quite heavily from the belief system of the Ancient Egyptians. There are far too many contradictions in these explanations for them to have any kind of credibility – later Wyndham would have done a much better job with this. However, it just about holds together, although these discussions tend to slow the action too much in the middle of the book, before it all ramps up for a thriller ending.

My main criticism of it is that there is too much nasty violence for this genre. Generally nothing horrible happens to the adventurers in this kind of novel – they are in peril, but they survive relatively unscathed, or at the very worst die whilst carrying out an act of heroism that saves the others. In this one there are a couple of very unpleasant scenes – one of torture and one of animal cruelty – that I felt were out of place. Plus, while avoiding spoilers, I have to say that the way it ended left a real stench of the kind of racial superiority that I felt unfortunately underpinned the whole story. Had it been written in the 1890s, I might not even have noticed, but I think of Wyndham as ‘modern’, and this book shows that at this stage of his life he still had some evolving to do.

So in summary, it doesn’t have the depth or the quality of his later books and is rather too derivative of earlier lost world stories, not adding much in terms of originality. But I enjoyed it enough to feel the read was worthwhile, mainly because of the interest in seeing how his writing career began. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.

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[Paul Darcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

by John Wyndham, published in 1935.

I love to read author’s first novels and this, “The Secret People”, is indeed John Wyndham’s first. And I have to say right off that despite it having been written so long ago it reads pretty much like a more modern novel and not like its contemporaries.

And for whatever reason he published it under the pseudonym; John Beynon. If my first novel was this good I would stick with my first published name and run with it from there on.

Which gets me to the meat of the book itself - or should that be Portobelo mushroom steak? Let me explain.

The gist of the novel is that a secret society of pygmies lives deep underground below the Sahara Desert. No, really. And two, for the times anyhow, cool concepts were being explored and kudos to Wyndham for coming up with them when he did though he is likely not the first, but I don’t really know for sure.

First off he has a rocket powered airplane. Remember this was published in 1935. Cutting edge technology for the times. Also the Sahara Desert is being turned into a huge inland sea which leads to troubles as you can imagine. And what would a science fiction tale be without cool big concepts into which you toss a handful of characters.

Which is pretty much what happens. You see, the rocket plane crashes into this growing sea while the pilot (Mark) is trying to impress a female friend (Margaret). Some things are just universal aren’t they.

Well the plane with Mark and Margaret inside gets sucked down a whirlpool and underground into the lands of the pygmies. They are separated and Mark ends up in a prison colony in a deep layer of the caverns where he meets many others who have been there as much as ten or more years. It seems that once the pygmies catch you in their lands, they never let you leave and so their society has indeed remained secret for all these hundreds of years.

But their world is threatened now by flooding as the Sahara keeps getting pumped with more and more water and more and more cave ins occur which will eventually flood their homes.

Oh, and one other cool concept I almost forgot - the pygmies have developed cold light. Think a kind of bioluminescence coupled with fluorescent light and you have the glow globes of the underground. Again, this is 1935 we are talking about, so cool light is very cutting edge tech. I’m impressed.

The novel overall is pretty exciting with escape plans to make Papion blush and several skirmishes with pygmies and evil double crossing humans - oh and romance, cat worship and some other surprising twists.

So, if you ever wondered what the creator of “Day of the Triffids” and “Midwich Cuckoos” first novel was like - find a copy of this, “The Secret People” and give it a go.

While reading this novel I was mostly reminded of “Journey to the Center of the Earth” by Jules Verne, so if you liked that you will like this.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Secret People was one of science fiction author, John Wyndham's first books, written under the pen-name, John Benyon in 1935. Wyndham is one of my favourite science fiction writers. His books, The Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids and The Kraken Wakes are amongst my favourite books in the genre.
So, it was quite a pleasant surprise when I found The Secret People while I was leafing through one of my used book store's shelves.
Was The Secret People at the same level of Wyndham's classics? Not by a long shot. However, it was still an entertaining adventure, somewhat in the same vein as Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, and maybe more so, HG Wells' Land that Time Forgot books.
The Secret People is set in Africa, in the Sahara Desert. The French and Italians have begun a project to flood the desert by piping up water from under the desert to make a huge sea. An English adventurer, Mark Sunnet, in his new jet plane, is visiting Africa, just to see new lands and to try out his plane. He meets the lovely Margaret in a stopover in Algiers and takes her for a flight to see this new sea. Unfortunately, an accident lands them, floating, in the middle of the sea.
Caught in a whirlpool, the are sucked beneath the surface into a world of tunnels and caves under the desert. It's peopled by a pygmy people who are desperate to remain undiscovered. It turns out that there are many people who have by various accidents been made prisoners below the surface.
Thus begins an adventure to escape from below the desert before a major disaster occurs (I'll leave that part for you find out about). It's an entertaining story, sometimes encumbered with philosophical discussions, but all in all fun to read and a nice intro to the future works of Wyndham. I hope that I can find his other earlier works. (3 stars)

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

In The Secret People we are drawn down a sinkhole into a series of subterranean caverns in which live a strange tribe of people, descendants perhaps of people who once walked the face of the African continent. Captured and imprisoned,our heroes Mark and Margaret must survive as they strive to escape the doomed caverns.

John Wyndham was one of my parents favorite sci-fi authors so I read a lot of his growing up, I was amazed to find one I had not read. The story telling, writing and world crafting are every good as I remembered them to be and I thoroughly enjoyed this story.

It could be argued that it has not dated well; written in 1935, the setting is in some ways very true to it's era and in that way very dated; the men and women are 30's people through and through, appearances, social gender and imperialism and all, I found that quite fascinating but I am not sure it would be every modern readers cup of tea.

The futures Wyndham predicted did not eventuate. Rocket ships zooming through the atmosphere under the hands of private pilots were not a thing in 1964 (but if he can called it a 'concord' would it have worked?) and rocket propelled craft had a very limited trialing in the 2000's. Italy and France did not combine forces to flood the Sahara desert and create an inland sea - on the other hand apparently the idea was discussed at one stage.

While reading this story I kept getting reminders of other old but brilliant stories; Edgar Rice Burroughs Pellucidar adventures, H. G. Wells' marvelous adventures and of course Jules Verne's Journey to the center of the earth.

On the whole, I enjoyed this book throughly!

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a massive fan of Wyndham's later classic novels, in particular THE KRAKEN WAKES and, of course, THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS, I'm always eager to read other works from the author. This one's his first published science fiction novel and it came out in 1935 under the pseudonym John Benyon. It's much more old-fashioned than his 1950s work, particularly after the high-tech plane opening; it quickly turns into one of those once-popular 'lost world' stories so beloved of Burroughs and Verne.

You can tell Wyndham is writing because a lot of the story contains digressions on society, albeit a particularly alien, pygmy-style society not dissimilar to the Morlocks in the Wells classic THE TIME MACHINE. Plant life also plays a big part in the story, this time around fungus getting plenty of wordage. The fantastic aspects of the tale are well described and the characters likeable enough; after a lull in the middle part, things pick up for a lengthy climax which is full of action and spectacle, which works well. Just when things threaten to get a little juvenile, the author throws in some stark violence and rumination on mankind, so I'd recommend this overall to Wyndham fans.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Came to this having read and loved the books that Wyndham is better known for, and while the main concept is interesting, this novel has aged pretty badly. A relatively diverse group of characters provides him with the opportunity for quite a lot of racism.

Stick with The Day Of The Triffids, The Chrysalids, The Kraken Wakes, etc.

[Antonio Fanelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non male; più che fantascienza, si tratta di avventura esotica alla Haggard con tutti i pregi e i difetti di quel genere.
Non entusiasma, il finale è scontato ed ha una sua tragica bellezza; si legge con piacere, ma nulla più.

[Iris Bratton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic sci-fi story that is simplistic but delivers in entertainment value.

*Reduced one star for racial slurs

This was such a fun book! I loved some of John Wyndham's other books, so I thought I would try reading his first. I was happy I did!

The story is linear and predictable with not much character development, but the plot kept me engaged despite it all. Wyndham's books are more about the journey rather than the destination, and that's why I enjoy his stories so much.

If you liked The Chrysalids , you'll enjoy this too.

[jessica]

I won’t be rating this, but easily my least favourite out of all the Wyndham novels I’ve read and by far the most dated. The ending actually made me quite angry.

It started off promising and earlier conversations between the two main protagonists, Mark and Margaret, could even have been read as a condemning commentary on colonialism, but alas, not only did the story get boring pretty quickly but it soon made for literal flinch inducing, uncomfortable reading.

Racial slurs used throughout, not just by the ‘baddies’, but by characters we are meant to root for. This book was written in 1935, so yes, we can say it’s ‘of its time’ and that may be enough of an excuse to write it off for some readers, but for me, any potential enjoyment diminishes when this sentiment of white supremacy washes over the whole narrative.

Spoiler alert, but only a handful of people make it out alive - all white, plus a cat, whereas every single character of colour and the whole race of the ‘secret people’ are presumed to be wiped out. Also, one of the characters steals a light created by this hidden people and in the final lines is discussing how he plans to patent it and we can be sure he’ll become disgustingly rich from it. The survivors are not even going to bother sharing their experiences with the outside world any longer - too much faff, I guess, and not much point when the entire society has been erased right? Oh and Mark and Margaret are getting married now, so way more important things to be worrying about… Can you tell how increasingly annoyed I got whilst writing this review?

For some inexplicable reason, prior to this, I really liked John Wyndham. I don’t read many male writers, especially from this period, and I don’t read much sci-fi, but there’s just something about his books that usually grip me. In stark contrast, this one was just deeply disappointing on so many levels. This was the last Wyndham on my physical TBR after reading and enjoying most of his other works, but I believe it’s actually his first novel; so perhaps in time I can just pretend it doesn’t exist? But for now, it’s pretty depressing to have this one as my lasting impression of his, it being highly unlikely I’ll ever return to this author now. Boo!

[Charity · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Secret People is one of the first (or THE first...I can't recall) books written by John Wyndham (and originally published under the name John Beynon). I thought it was very good overall, but it didn't engage me as much as The Midwich Cuckoos and The Day of the Triffids did.

However, the part where evolution was discussed with regard to the pygmies was extremely impressive...especially considering this book was written in 1935 before all the tenets of modern evolutionary synthesis were fully realized. Wow!

Oh! And the book is set in (the future) 1964 and Wyndham identifies Queen Elizabeth II as the reigning monarch of Great Britain...BUUUUUUUT, when the book was published, in 1935, she wasn't in the direct line of succession. How freaky-deaky is that!!??

So, while I do believe that John Wyndham's writing definitely improved over time, I can now see that his ideas have always been rather revolutionary. Kudos, Mr. Wyndham!

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es gibt Ideen, die können einfach nur aus bestimmten Zeitaltern stammen. Ein Meer in die Wüste zu machen, zum Beispiel. Während man heute über die praktische Nutzung von Sonnenstunden ohne Ende nachdenkt - und dabei die Energieversorgung im Auge hat - waren die geistigen Projektoren von Science-Fiction-Autoren auf viel profanere Einfälle gerichtet. Profan im Sinne von "nicht besonders hilfreich". Und was ist unnötiger als noch ein weiteres Meer, um das wir uns nicht kümmern?

Sei es, wie es sei. Die riesigen Pumpen, die das "neue Meer" erschaffen sollen, verrichten jedenfalls ihren Dienst, als der Pilot eines Düsenjets samt seiner Freundin (nebst Katze) just über diesem künstlichen Gewässer abstürzt. Sehr zu seinem Glück geht zwar der Flieger selbst zu Bruch, ihre Knochen bleiben aber größtenteils heil. Nachdem man sich vom ersten Schock ganz gut erholt hat, folgt sofort der Zweite: Während eines Versuchs sich von einer kleinen, aufgeschütteten (oder vielmehr: noch nicht untergegangenen) Insel aufs Festland treiben zu lassen, werden die drei hinab gesogen in ein bis dahin völlig unbekanntes Höhlensystem. Und dort geht gleich von Anfang an alles schief - die hiesigen Bewohner (totenbleiche Pygmäen) leben von Pilzen, Götterkulten und Langeweile. Die einzige Abwechslung in deren Leben scheint es jedenfalls zu sein, unglückliche Neuankömmlinge zu unglücklichen älteren Ankömmlingen zu sperren. So werden unser Pilot und seine Freundin (noch immer nebst Katze) zu Gefangenen unter Tage; bewaffnet einzig mit der Hoffnung das Tageslicht irgendwann einmal wiederzusehen.

Wem das nicht Anfang-zwanzigstes-Jahrhundert genug ist, dem kann man nicht mehr helfen. Das Tolle daran ist aber, dass wir einen weiteren, sensationellen Einblick in die Köpfe dieser Zeit erhalten. Wyndham verbindet klassische Science Fiction bester Tradition mit mit genau jener Sorte Zukunftsvisionen, die eigentlich auch dem Größenwahn jenes Zeitalters entsprechen, in dem "Das Versteckte Volk" geschrieben wurde. 1935 klang die Erschaffung eines künstlichen Meeres vielleicht nicht nur wie eine großartige Leistung - sondern auch wie eine großartige Idee.

In Sachen Stil hat sich Wyndham tatsächlich viel von anderen Meistern abgeschaut. Beim Lesen erhält man den Eindruck nicht das kreativste Werk aller Zeiten vor Augen zu haben, dafür aber mit soliden Erläuterungen und Herleitungen ausgestattete Upper-Class-Ware. Es machte durchaus Spaß jenen Bogen gemeinsam mit seinen Figuren zu spannen, den diese von Kinderbüchern über Wichtel und Gnome hin zu einem vergessenen Pygmäen-Volk zogen.

Ich würde die (kurze) Lektüre sicherlich jenen Empfehlen, die gerne einmal etwas von Wyndham lesen wollen, weil er sicherlich ein bedeutender Schriftsteller auf seinem Gebiet war. Zwar habe ich das Buch nicht deshalb ausgewählt - ich hätte es aber durchaus deshalb tun können. Was man vorab aber vielleicht wissen sollte ist, dass die Übersetzungen nur mäßig angepasst wurden. Das eine oder andere heute geächtete Wort ist darin jedenfalls vorhanden. Und obwohl ich mich in dieser Hinsicht gerne recht unempfindlich gebe muss ich durchaus zugeben, dass es auch mich kurz gebeutelt hat, als ich das erste Mal "Neger" gelesen habe.

[Amy Lambert · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book took me so long to read because it was not very enjoyable.

After getting half way through the book I realised that this was John Wyndham’s first novel and you can tell. It doesn’t have the weird, wonderful and complexing ideas that you expect from his fiction. It's a predictable story line with one dimensional characters.

The Secret People, which was published in 1935, has not aged very well. Racist and outdated views. Stay away from this book, stick with Wyndhams later works.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great Wyndham book! (Terrible jacket art. The "secret people" are supposed to be grey, and why are there mushrooms on their heads? Weird.) Still liked "Day of the Triffids" "The Chrysalids," and "The Midwich Cuckoos" better. This was a little bit Jules Vern-ey. Good characters, cool scenario... a fun read.

[HW · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't get me wrong, I think Wyndham is a great writer, but his convoluted descriptions are a bit too much for me-- fanciful and elaborate as they may be, they distance me from the story instead of drawing me in because I just don't know what he's going on about. This book's political allegory was also lost on me because I was ignorant of the references made to things like "comic-military reactions of Germany (which in 1935 was under Nazi rule) towards potential violations of their airspace by the protagonist's descending rocket plane" and 'the Piltdown Man' (Yes I got these off Wikipedia). But I enjoyed reading about how the different individuals reacted to bring trapped in the caves and he illustrates well just what humans are capable of when driven to desperation. I think the implicit commentary on how humans have impeded on flora and fauna for their own (selfish) benefit is worth dwelling upon.

(At first, I did think that the people consuming mushrooms were a reference to drugs and that implied the story was going to be a whole hallucinatory process lol)

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having loved everything else I've read of John Wyndham, I went in with high expectations! Sadly, this didn't quite match up to them - mainly came across to me as an early work; there are passages that reminded me of Wyndham I enjoy, but also quite a lot that I didn't (including some difficult to read passages describing the non-white characters). The plot that felt oddly paced - some plot points and passages that raced through, but also the whole "retelling through the other main characters view" felt to me a little clumsy at points.

Sad to give it 2 stars, but just too much I didn't like in this one.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit I am a sucker for lost world/lost race novels, and this is a very good one indeed. It was written in the 1930s but takes place in the far future of the 1960s -- so in that respect, it is dated. Still, it's an engaging story about a man and his girlfriend flying in a newly designed rocket plane over the New Sea (actually a portion of the Sahara Desert that was intentionally flooded). They get sucked into a whirlpool and end up in a land under the desert, populated by a race of people whose existence nobody knew about -- and also by other land dwellers who accidentally ended up there over the years and are being held prisoner. A great read!

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the story and the writing style, an underground kingdom of mushrooms inhabited by creatures who worship Egyptian gods and keep any humans who stumble across them as prisoners. Dealing with the threat of the 'modern' world coming crashing down on them in the form of a man made sea in the Sahara desert.
Let down by the use of derogatory/ignorant language, again written in 1930s but it isn't nice to read.

[Wahyu Novian · Rating 3 out of 5]

As it’s Wyndham’s first published novel, I didn’t feel it’s as enthralling as his next novel. But he definitely had his own style from the beginning. It’s still enjoyable too. And don’t forget the tea.

[Otherwyrld · Rating 3 out of 5]

This, the first published novel by John Wyndham in 1935, is a story that looks both to the future and the the past. The future is represented by the private jet plane that protagonist Mark flies over the newly created Sahara Sea; the past is the ripping yarn presented here that could easily have come from the pen of the likes of H G Wells or Jules Verne, as Mark and his partner Margaret are sucked underground into a world of Bast-worshipping pygmies. While their eventual escape is inevitable, their adventures along the way make for an exciting read.

If I have any criticism of the story, beyond the typical racism of the story which is not unusual for it's era, it is that our two protagonists are separated early on. The result of this is that Margaret disappears for over half the book and possibly it might have read a little better if their stories had been covered in alternate chapters. Margaret is a fascinating character - a strong independent woman (Mark calls her a "brick" at one point - an old fashioned English term for a reliable and dependable person), but when she finally reappears her story seems a little boring compared to Marks, as she finds herself the handmaiden to the cat who accompanied them and who is worshiped as a god by the pygmies. Mark on the other hand has a boys own struggle to survive in the caves, which is probably the best part of the story.

The pygmy society is well fleshed out, though the author seems to sometimes vacillate between admiring them and denigrating them, sometimes making out that they inspired the ancient Egyptians, and other times just blindly imitating them. Still, it is often surprisingly sympathetic to the lifestyle that they have forged for themselves below ground.

This is a book I don't remember reading as a child, unlike most of the author's other books. While it is somewhat dated, it is a fascinating story and a good sign of things to come with subsequent novels.

[Erin B · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, that was … not good.

[Haruined_me · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75*

[Isabel Jesson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best ending to a Wyndham yet and I’ve read at least 5

[Jacob Spencer · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's not the worst thing I've ever read, but it's pretty bad. It's very racist, even with me trying hard to give it a big helping of "this was written in the 1930s" generosity. The racism is prevalent both with the 'pygmies' - a degraded sub-race of humans, specifically suggested to have been out-competed and driven underground by 'superior' humans from Europe, hundreds of thousands of years ago - and also with every non-white character in the book, not that there are many: there's a swarthy and somewhat untrustworthy Arab, there's an African man speaking only in broken English and casually getting referred to with the N-word by even the most heroic and sympathetic characters, and I think that might be it for named non-white people (I'm not 100% clear on Miguel, although I'm pretty certain that he's actually Spanish - it's almost interesting that he seems to get tarred with all the traits that we would associate with stereotypical Latin American villains these days). This is to say nothing of the details of the setting: France and Italy have decided to turn the Sahara into a sea, for some reason, and the Arabs living in the land that they're drowning are supposedly too stupid to understand what's happening until they literally start to drown, at which point the narration makes sure to mock them for, well, demanding assistance from the nations who are literally destroying their homes.

At the risk of sounding like Britta, I could probably still rate the book higher if it was compelling or fun to read, but it's not. The premise doesn't make a whole lot of sense, something which is acknowledged by several characters in the middle of trying to explain it, but in a way which makes the holes in logic feel worse rather than better. A lot of the action in Part Two revolves around the near-certainty that the tunnel being dug through solid rock, which has been worked on for literally countless years, quite possibly millennia, will reach the outside any day now - this is based on nothing, the characters agree it's based on nothing, but it turns out to be true. All the characters act rock dumb during the whole confrontation with the pygmies, from being stunned that the pygmies are able to use their own tactics against them, to apparently being unable to grasp that the pygmies are directly attacking the wall they've built and just expecting them to try climbing over it. Wyndham also apparently didn't feel like writing a proper conclusion to this, or to lots of bits of the story, as it's all relayed afterwards in dialogue. He similarly either wouldn't or couldn't explain things like "what are the prisoners using to dig through the solid rock?" or "how is it so easy to start fires with no wood?" or "how exactly is it that this entire underground civilization is worshipping the ancient Egyptian gods?"

There's a nasty torture scene towards the end of the only female character which seems to only serve the purpose of making the 'villain', who hasn't actually been all that villainous from a neutral perspective, evil enough that it's a good thing when he gets killed at the climax. There's stuff at the end that really feels like Wyndham just trying to wrap things up hurriedly - Bast's unexplained survival quite literally being described as "I thought she was dead?" "Turns out she's not" is a prime example.

Gotta say - I think I can now state with confidence that Wyndham's post-WW2 output is what his career should be judged on, and these early novels should just be left as historical curiosities.

[George K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Αυτό είναι το πρώτο βιβλίο που έγραψε ο Τζον Γουίνταμ, το 1935 και τρίτο που διαβάζω εγώ. Παίρνει την δεύτερη θέση, αφού μου άρεσε λιγότερο από το Η ώρα των Τριφίδων και περισσότερο από το Λαθρεπιβάτης για τον Άρη. Και είναι στο ίδιο επίπεδο με την ιστορία Εξόριστοι στον Άσπερο που διάβασα τον Ιανουάριο.

Πως έχει η ιστορία: Η "Νέα Θάλασσα" είναι ένα μεγαλεπήβολο σχέδιο που σαν σκοπό έχει να γεμίσει με νερό ένα μεγάλο κομμάτι της Σαχάρας. Βέβαια οι δυσκολίες είναι πολλές, κυρίως λόγω των μεγάλων σπηλαίων που βρίσκονται κάτω από την Σαχάρα. Ο Μαρκ Σάνετ, ένας πλούσιος άντρας, που βρέθηκε σε κείνα τα μέρη με το ανεπτυγμένο τεχνολογικά αεροπλάνο του, ονόματι "Το πουλί του Ήλιου", και η όμορφη γυναίκα, ονόματι Μάργκαρετ Λόουν, που είχε για παρέα, πέφτουν θύματα ενός ατυχήματος, αφού το αεροπλάνο τους έπαθε κάποια ζημιά και έπεσε στα νερά της "Νέας Θάλασσας". Και μετά από λίγο, το αεροπλάνο βυθίστηκε στα νερά, λόγω μιας δίνης. Τέλος πάντων, μετά από διάφορες καταστάσεις, οι δυο τους φυλακίζονται από μια φυλή μικρών ανθρώπων, στα μεγαλειώδη τους σπήλαια, κάτω από την "Νέα Θάλασσα". Φυσικά υπάρχουν και άλλοι άνθρωποι εκεί, που είχαν πάθει και αυτοί διάφορα ατυχήματα σε εκείνες τις περιοχές. Άλλοι ήταν κλεισμένοι για μήνες και άλλοι για πολλά χρόνια. Με τα πολλά, σχεδιάζουν να ξεφύγουν, τόσο από τους μικρούς ανθρώπους, όσο και από τα νερά που είναι έτοιμα να τους πνίξουν.

Καλό σενάριο, αν και κάποια πράγματα είναι λίγο τραβηγμένα. Το βιβλίο ανήκει στην κατηγορία με τα βιβλία στα οποία υπάρχουν χαμένοι κόσμοι και πολιτισμοί και όπου οι άνθρωποι γνωρίζονται με αυτούς. Εννοείται πως είναι παλπ, καλής ποιότητας, με αξιόλογη γραφή, ενδιαφέρουσα ιστορία, γεμάτη με περιπέτεια και περίεργα τοπία. Οι χαρακτήρες είναι δίχως ιδιαίτερο βάθος, αλλά λίγη σημασία έχει. Φυσικά το τέλος είναι λίγο-πολύ αναμενόμενο, αλλά πιστεύω ότι το βιβλίο είναι ό,τι πρέπει για μια ξεκούραστη ανάγνωση που σε ταξιδεύει.

7/10

Στα ελληνικά από τις εκδόσεις Λυχνάρι, με τον τίτλο "Μονομαχία στο χάος".

[Marceline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Normally I enjoy John Wyndham's stuff to the point I own about half of his works. However, I didn't particularly enjoy this and I suspect it's largely due to it being one of his first novels. The writing itself is fairly well written and it was a fairly fast read.

The issue I had with it was I just couldn't connect to any of the characters. The lack of character development. And the part in the beginning where Margaret has known Mark for just a few minutes and he goes and tells her to change and she does... obediently. Yes. I get it. This was written in 1935. This was the expected behavior of women for the time. The question I ask is: why? No, seriously. Why? He was able to write brilliantly about interesting topics. Imagine sophisticated technology. He's written one of my favorite dystopian books. In many ways he was so ahead of his time in the sci-fi genre. But he couldn't add in a female character with a bit of gusto? A bit of stubbornness and independance? Sure, she *did* scream at the end. But only because she heard others.

The book itself is rather rough. It reads at too quick a pace at times, and sometimes I felt that he explained a lot, with little depth. It's something that is prevalent in some of his other novels that I've read but this has taken the longest to read out of any of his books I've read over the years because at times because it felt like more of a chore.

And so I'll recommend people read this if they want to see where he started at compared to what I consider his opus... The Chrysalids. If you're wanting to read this for anything else?? Buy it used. Or choose something else because I cannot recommend trying to find a new copy.