Title: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Author: Theodore Sturgeon
Cover artist: Jim Mitchell (credited, back cover)
Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $10-15
- I guess if your name's Sturgeon, writing about sea creatures is probably inevitable
- Love the design on the dragon-eel, and the sub, and the font. Peak midcentury fantasy design
- This was a movie, apparently. It was also a television show, which is streaming via Amazon Prime, which I discovered because who wouldn't be curious after seeing this book
- The writing in this book is superior. Sparkling and witty in a way I do not associate with novelizations of B movies. But that's what happens, I guess, when you get a legend to do the work, I guess. Sturgeon is something else
- AFIRE is a word I don't see that often, except in crosswords
- I really, really want Destiny to be the name of some aquatic femme fatale
- Here's the movie, free on youtube. The format is completely jacked, so I don't think I can bear watching it. Maybe if I ever get super-bored. I'm almost certain this book is infinitely superior to the movie
It was Emery, too, who wondered what had killed the whale. Even the ripped, tattered evidence of the 'cudas at work could not conceal that the whale had been riven, blasted, crushed. Someone aboard might certainly have thought of an answer if it had not been for the murder of O'Brien.Normal reader: "Whoa, what a vivid image of a mangled whale being feasted on by barracudas." Me: "Hmmm .... CUDAS ... I wonder if I should add that to my crossword wordlist ..."
~RP
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3 comments:
The book is most definitely infinitely superior to the movie. I mean, we're talking Ted Sturgeon vs. Irwin Allen here.
You're either a LOT younger than I thought (like under 40) or grew up in a relatively small TV market if you weren't familiar with the TV show. It's very reminiscent of that other Irwin Allen TV production Lost in Space. Just without the kid, the cringing, camp villain, the robot, or the chimp. You know, all the things that made it fun to watch. But, hey, flying sub!
Take a drink every time a panel explodes in a shower of sparks or Kowalski has a close encounter with a bulkhead, and you'll get really hammered.
Owned a copy of this book a long time ago. Was a fan of the movie, which I saw first run in a theater, and the TV show when it came on. A lot of the footage of the submarine in action, that was made for the movie, were reused on the series. The first few episodes were pretty good. I always like that Irwin Allen would take on projects like this and Lost in Space. But, he was always more interested in the bottom line, and the shows would suffer for it.
The sub has a multi-panel glass/plastic window in the nose, hence the name "Seaview"!
Why does the painting show the window aft of the conning tower and facing backward?
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