"...given two intelligent species with differing requirements on one planet, it is inevitable that, sooner or later, one will exterminate the other."

The Kraken Wakes was John Wyndham's second major novel, first published in 1953. (It is also known as Out of the Deeps in some countries.) On the whole it is one of his most conventional books, but as a new take on the old theme of alien invasion it is very innovative indeed.

Synopsis

The central characters are Mike and Phyllis Watson, radio journalists and scriptwriters. While on their honeymoon cruise they see a number of large, reddish-orange fireballs fall into the ocean, something which attracts a good deal of media attention. The fireball phenomenon repeats itself around the globe, always with the same basic pattern: a variable number of the objects are sighted, always falling into the ocean well offshore.

The Navy decides to investigate one of the deep parts of the ocean where this has been happening, and the Watsons are part of the press party invited along to observe. A diving bell is lowered and sights something moving, several miles down - then contact is lost and when the cable is winched in, it has been melted through...

A US navy ship proceeds with a similar operation but this time the whole ship is electrified and explodes after a massive power surge is sent up the cable. This happens again elsewhere and the major world powers begin dropping atomic depth charges into the Deeps - although some fail to detonate, and others that do, do so many miles from and days after their release.

Meanwhile, the Watsons meet Bocker, an eminent geographer who has a theory to explain what is happening: an alien intelligence from a planet with a far denser atmosphere (and which is thus able to survive the pressure five miles down) has come to Earth in the fireballs and has colonised the Deeps. There are arguably signs of mining operations in process on the sea bed.

All across the world shipping begins to incur losses for no apparent reason - the Deeps Intelligences are defending their territory. A further campaign of depth-bombing is aborted after two ships on a bombing mission are destroyed, the bomb being carried detonating prematurely as a result. Defensive measures are put in place to defend against further raids on shipping and are initially successful, but casualties begin to creep up again.

While this is happening, there are odd reports of the populations of remote islands vanishing en masse, with only strange tracks on the beaches and a dried jelly-like substance left as evidence. Bocker organises a team to visit a group of similar islands and wait for the phenomenon to recur, and the Watsons are included. When the attack eventually comes it is by strange chitinous 'sea-tanks' that crawl up the beaches into coastal towns and release gelatinous, adhesive masses of tissue that snare human beings and drag them into the sea. The Watsons nearly die in the raid; Bocker is injured and other members of the team are killed.

Mike suffers a mild nervous breakdown after this traumatic experience and when he emerges from his recuperative retreat, he finds the sea-tanks have begun to attack European shores - first Spain, then Ireland. Gradually defences against them are developed and the raids cease. But the human race has won only a battle, not the war.

Vast fogbanks appear over the polar regions and small but measurable increases in sea level are detected. The Deeps Intelligences are melting the icecaps in an attempt to destroy land-based civilisation, and this time there can be no defence. The Watsons stay in London as part of an attempt to keep the broadcast media going as the city slowly floods - but the government collapses and with it any ordered society. They make their way to their home in Cornwall where they have a cache of supplies. As these run low and the waters continue to rise, they prepare to head south to a friendlier climate, but news reaches them - the Japanese have found a way of projecting lethal ultrasonics into the Deeps and are gradually eradicating the intelligences there. The world is a much-changed place, but humanity has survived.

"In war, you have at least a rough idea of the way your enemy must be thinking so you can put up appropriate countermeasures, but with these brutes it's nearly always some slant we haven't explored... We've only got the weapons we know - and they're not the right ones for the job. Always the same fundamental trouble - how the hell do you find out what is going on five miles down?"

Analysis

Like its immediate forebear, The Kraken Wakes has aged remarkably well. Its concluding vision of a world devastated by rising sea-levels must have seemed fantastical in 1953 but in today's post-Kyoto world it is rather too plausible for comfort. Similarly, the monsters which the Xenobathites unleash against humanity seem a little closer to reality in a genome-mapped, genetically modified world like the one we live in.

Stylistically, there is no mistaking this as a Wyndham novel. The narrator is not only not a traditional hero, but he reports many of the most important events second- or third-hand (a device Wyndham gets away with by framing the story as an account of Watson's memories of the alien invasion). In the character of Bocker, we have the first major example of one of Wyndham's sages - Bocker goes from being considered a crank, to commanding the reconstruction at the novel's conclusion.

What's particularly interesting is the way in which a very unconventional SF writer like John Wyndham adapts his style to handle the done-to-death concept of an alien invasion. This is an invasion story, true - but we don't see a single alien, or learn where they're from, what their culture is, or really very much about them at all. This maintenance of the mysterious nature of the Xenobathite threat is one of The Kraken Wakes major successes. The conflict itself is explained in familiar Wyndhamish terms - it is biologically inevitable that competing species, no matter how civilised they may pretend to be, will eventually clash violently in this way. Any disbelief a mainstream reader might have about the out-of-the-pulps nature of the novel is rapidly soothed away by a matter-of-fact narrative steeped in the political and social realities of the period.

The fact remains that this is not amongst the very best of Wyndham's work. The Kraken Wakes was published after The Day of the Triffids and it's almost as if the author was requested to write another book in the same style but make it rather more mainstream. Three distinguishing features of The Day of the Triffids are that there isn't much humour or romance, there are several disquieting moral questions for the reader to comtemplate, and there famously isn't a happy ending. In The Kraken Wakes all three of these 'flaws' have been tackled and the results are what limit its success.

The Watsons, for example, are a happily married couple and engage in light, romantic banter at regular intervals throughout the novel. This seems rather quaint and mannered at best, and at worst jars badly with the overall tone and theme of the novel. In Wyndham's defence, he handles the other aspects of the relationship far more skilfully. Both characters are well-drawn - unusually, Phyllis is clearly presented as the brains of the outfit, and in many ways as a stronger character than her husband - and their responses to the events of the novel are its' core.

There's virtually no exploration of morality or social ideas in The Kraken Wakes, which makes it pretty much unique for a post-1951 Wyndham novel. There is a brief discussion of the possibility of co-existence as the alien presence becomes clear, but this is quickly discounted by both characters and author as the inevitability of violent conflict becomes clear. Ironically enough, this gives the book a shallowness compared to the best Wyndham novels.

And there's a happy ending. Well, most of the world's population has died and the surface has changed beyond all recognition, but the Xenobathites are being exterminated and Bocker is now running the country. The upbeat conclusion of The Kraken Wakes is so outrageously contrived and unconvincing that one wonders if it was in Wyndham's plans from the beginning, or a late addition to them in order to avoid too many comparisons with Day of the Triffids. It's undoubtedly the book's biggest flaw and just doesn't ring true.

Perhaps it would be best describing The Kraken Wakes as 'Wyndham-lite'. It lacks the depth and consistency of his best novels, but shares their power and imagination. It certainly ranks alongside the best traditional 'alien invasion' novels in the English language.