Out of the Deeps

By John Wyndham

Earth is invaded by alien spaceships that land in the deepest parts of the oceans. At first nothing happens but then gradually ships start disappearing until all shipping is shut down except for non-motorized sailing ships. The next thing is strange vessels rising out of the deep waters off the shores. These vessels launch forth huge sticky tentacles that grab onto people and haul them, willy nilly, into the vessels, often tearing them into pieces as they go. At first these attacks are widespread and sporadic but then nearly every sea shore is besieged. Of course, counter measures are taken and are largely successful. The vessels withdraw and people begin to think the crisis is over.
But the next attack is not against humanity but against the polar ice caps. Somehow the aliens have managed to get the ice caps melting. As the sea levels rise, the main problem is no longer dealing with the aliens, it is mere survival. As populations are crowded into smaller and smaller areas, strife and disease break out and millions perish. And again the aliens send their tentacles to take their cruel harvest but still people manage to fight back, crowded and diminished and starved though they may be.
This story centers on two British documentary broadcasters who are in on it from the beginning, being among the first to get footage of the aliens tentacles in action. It follows them as the crisis worsens and as London becomes flooded and dangerous. Still they and their fellow broadcasters manage to stay on the air until civil disorder sends the British government into retreat.

This was a pretty boring story. At first the aliens were kind of scary and intriguing but then the story turns away from them to center on the effect of the flooding on society, especially on the British Isles and to chronicle its disintegration. At times, the story read more like a newspaper report and became very tedious. The two main characters are safe in their broadcasting tower and never experience for themselves much of the trauma that has affected their fellow countrymen. The story takes a very detached tone, especially towards the end when we find out that 41 million British citizens have died from exposure, civil strife, hunger and disease. But that's OK, we are told, because 5 million have survived, a cold-blooded way of looking at it, it seems to me. But never mind the cold and indifferent tone of the story, what really sucks about it is that the reader never finds out exactly what or who the aliens were and exactly what they wanted as communications are never received or established nor are any alien bodies ever recovered. Turns out they are merely a plot device used to put mainly the British Isles through the wringer.

Re-birth

By John Wyndham

Hundreds of years or more after a devastating nuclear war, humans are struggling to survive, living on the fringes of land far enough from the blast sites to maintain life.
A quaint religion has sprung up among these people, a religion based on Christianity but twisted. For these people the greatest sin is to be different, to be a mutant. So mutated crops, farm animals, even humans re dealt with harshly. The animals and crops are destroyed by fire and the human mutants are sterilized and cast out to live in the marginal land bordering the badlands where life is a struggle just to survive. For these people living right means having no mutant crops, no mutant animals, and especially no mutant children. For the woman who three times bears a mutant baby is, like her offspring, sterilized and cast out. Any deviation from the standard is looked upon as sin.
Into this straight-laced society are born several children who look perfectly normal. But they are different. They are telepathic. They can't hear normal people but they can hear each other and communicate over long distances.
Even from the time they are little, they know they must keep their ability hidden. But eventually, inevitably, their secret is exposed and some of them are forced to flee. The situation looks hopeless. But among their number is a young girl who is such a strong telepath she is able to summon help from halfway around the world.

This was an interesting story at the beginning as the main character David, who at the start of the story is just a little boy, learns to cope with his gift and keep himself and his friends safe from their enemies and especially from his own implacable and self-righteous parents. The story got to be less interesting once the character of the powerful telepath is introduced and it often degenerated into a lecture about the stupidity of ordinary humans and the inevitability of their replacement by a better breed of humans, namely the telepaths.