Science fiction writers love sticking people in tiny metal cans and hurling them into environments where everything is trying to kill them, so it’s no surprise that some great SF books take place deep underwater, where exposure to the pressure kills people much faster than exposure to the vacuum of space.
An unexpected pattern: many of the books below focus on the psychology of their characters more than typical science fiction. This may be because in underwater science fiction stories, the protagonists are generally more isolated, since there are no new planets to arrive at, and spend a lot of time with each other in their little bubble of air, squabbling with their shipmates and their own personal demons.
These books are sorted by popularity, based on star ratings and number of reviews on amazon.com.
Crichton says he started writing the novel in 1967 as a companion piece to The Andromeda Strain. He began with American scientists discovering a spaceship underwater that had been there for 300 years but with stenciled markings in English. However, after that beginning, Crichton realized, “I didn’t know where to go with it,” and put off completing the book for twenty years until he decided what an alien should be.
As with most Crichton novels, Sphere is gripping and thoughtful until it unravels into a somewhat disappointing ending.
Highly acclaimed when released and even now, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is regarded as one of the premiere adventure novels in literature and one of Verne’s greatest works, along with Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Verne himself has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979, between the English-language writers Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare.
While most classics can be something of a pain to slog through, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea holds up quite well.
Written by a self-described author of “weird fiction,” The Scar is a dark, depressing, wildly inventive anti-epic with a floating pirate city and multiple underwater civilizations. The beginning is a little bumpy: as one reviewer notes, “All through the first 40 pages or so you can hear the grunts of a writer straining too hard for effect,” but “[o]nce the novel settles down after its ill-judged beginning, Miéville begins to construct an intriguing plot of espionage and deceit.”
It’s also not for someone looking for a Windex-clean universe like Star Trek. The Scar is the second book in the Bas-Lag universe (the first was Perdido Street Station), and another reviewer notes that while The Scar is “less gruesome and nihilistic,” than the first book, it is “still refreshingly far from sentimental.”
Brin’s tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being “uplifted” by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved: who uplifted humankind?
The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed in the uncharted water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic history. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles an armed rebellion and the whole hostile planet to safeguard her secret—the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars.
Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, Startide Rising is the second book in the Uplift series (there’s a total of six), but popular opinion has it that the first book, Sundiver, can be safely skipped.
Whales begin sinking ships. Toxic, eyeless crabs poison Long Island’s water supply. The North Sea shelf collapses, killing thousands in Europe. Around the world, countries are beginning to feel the effects of the ocean’s revenge as the seas and their inhabitants begin a violent revolution against mankind.
Some of science in The Swarm is undoubtedly due to Thomas Orthmann, a German marine biologist and journalist, who claims that dozens of passages in The Swarm have been lifted word for word from his writings. Currently, he is demanding compensation from Schätzing, who refuses to pay. He has, however, agreed to acknowledge Dr. Orthmann in the next edition of The Swarm.
Most reviewers agree that despite its flaws of thin characterization, pages upon pages of scientific explanations, and strong anti-U.S. sentiment, The Swarm is a thrilling read.
An artifact is discovered off the coast of Samoa, buried deep beneath the ocean floor. The mysterious find attracts immortal alien beings, a “changeling” and a “chameleon”, who seek each other for different reasons: one harbors good intentions toward humanity, while the other is extremely hostile.
Kirkus Reviews says, “Well-constructed and intriguingly set up, but ultimately a disagreeable surprise: the story slips away, and you’re left holding an empty coat.”
Other reviewers seem to agree with Kirkus, so if you read this tersely-written alien-encounter procedural, lower your expectations for the ending.
Emotionally damaged people are sent to work next to a giant rift in the ocean floor, harvesting energy for surface dwellers. The workers are a bio-engineered crew—people who have been altered to withstand the pressure and breathe the seawater to work in this weird, fertile undersea darkness.
This book taught me that you can make a protagonist as crazy as you want, as long as what she’s battling against is even crazier.
Brilliant, twisted fun by an ex-marine biologist. Go read it.
In the near future, oil has become the ultimate prize, and nuclear-powered subtugs brave enemy waters to tap into hidden oil reserves beneath the East’s continental shelf. But the crews from the last twenty missions have never returned. Have sleeper agents infiltrated the elite submarine service, or are the crews simply cracking under the pressure?
One reviewer says it is “a dramatically fascinating story,” while another claims “[t]here are no real people in it, only psychological types and syndromes walking around on legs.”
So feel free to dive in, but since this was written nine years earlier, don’t expect a wet Dune.
The Kraken Wakes is about an alien invasion—from the sea.
John Wyndham (pseud. for John Beynon Harris) is best known for his classic Day of the Triffids. Like that book, this one posits an intelligent species with needs and aims unimaginably different from our own, and describes the escalating phases of what appears to be an invasion of Earth by never-seen aliens.
Reviews are generally excellent, but some people on Goodreads were put off by the decidedly non-feminist treatment of female characters.
In total, The Kraken Wakes is a good read that’s showing its age a bit.
After narrowly escaping death in a forest fire, Angie Dinsman finds herself under the control of the World Life Company. They promptly equip her with webbed hands and gills, creating a half-fish, half-woman. Her mission is to uncover secret research files on the waterworld of Lesaat. But first she has to undergo the terrifying process of learning to breathe underwater. After mastering the basics of survival, she faces an insurmountable challenge: finding the information that could end starvation on Earth while sabotaging the Company’s evil plans.
Carol Severance comes by her knowledge of Polynesian culture and mythology honestly: she served with the Peace Corps from 1966-1968 and later assisted in anthropological fieldwork in the remote coral atolls of Truk, Micronesia. Eventually, she moved to the Big Island of Hawaii and worked as a journalist.
Reefsong isn’t well known, but it definitely has a cult following—all of its reviews have five stars. A typical example:
“A nice blend of fantasy (mostly) with a little sci-fi thrown in–a fast-moving, thought-provoking story in a gorgeous other-worldly Pacific-Islandesque setting with a strong, smart heroine at its center.”
This is probably the least science-fictiony of the lot, so depending on your mood, you might be ready for a tropical planet story.
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I would add “Dome” (Michael Reaves) to this list.
Google Book link:
http://books.google.com/books/about/Dome.html?id=t3Sl7kZFll4C
I have been trying to remember the name of the book “Starfish” for almost ten years now! I read it when it first came out, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember the title when I wanted to re-read it several years later. So excited that this list jogged my memory!
I’ve been trying to find a novel I read a while ago. It takes place underwater and the main character is the first kid born in this underwater settlement. I know it’s not a lot to go on but does anyone have any idea what the heck it is?
Kind of late to the game but I think DarkLife is the book you are thinking of.
I’m also trying to find this book, I thought it was called Riptide, but I searched it and couldn’t find it on google
im lookin for the same book, i feel you
I believe the book you are looking for is “Dark Life” by Kat falls. The sequel is called “Riptide.”
no OCEAN SPACE by Allen Steele … ok (to light)
no BLUEHEART by Alison Sinclair … ok (not so easy)
but no OCEAN UNDER THE ICE (in the Rocheworld serie) by Robert L Forward ? it’s a classic , a must read for all sf addict
many thanks for your BEST SCI FI BOOKS blog I a happy man with new lists of books to read soon
Definitely should add Blue World by Jack Vance to this list.
The Long Range by Arthur C. Clarke
It’s actually Deep Range by Arthur C Clarke
I’m after a book about an amphibian race, a guy found a creature, there was a scientist involved, the thing learnt English and lives in an advance civilisation under the earth that can be accessed through a cave under the sea. Something about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and down there you press a button on a machine that makes a pill that tastes like the food you wish for or something like that my memory is fuzzy I read this cover less book when I was 9 (it was like .50c from a thrift store) and I think it was 60’s or 70’s maybe earlier again not sure. Any help would be awesome as I am now 30 and this search is never ending in my mind.
This is not ,,City in the Sea” by Wilson Tucker ? I think that is underwater science fiction novel ,while i never read this book.
Oh ,i checked it .This is postapocaliptic science fiction .
Abby ive been searching forever to find this book also! Good news is i finally solved the mystery lol its called “abduction” by Robin Cook!
I’m looking for a book about a guy who finds himself in an underwater city/civilization. Don’t remember how he got there. There is a museum there with human artifacts that have been found sunken in the ocean. He finds weapons there and there is a car. That’s all I remember. It’s driving me crazy.
this is the same book I am looking for as well. They are scientist who find humans from millions of years ago living under the sea. They imprint their minds on babies instead of having new people.
the book ends with some of them being transported back in time to old boston.
What is the Title?
My people! LOL seriously though like many here I’ve forgotten the title of probably the best book I ever read, wherein a ragtag group walks across the ocean floor. Any ideas anyone what this one is called? Thanks!
A new book just out, The Galathea Legacy by John Quentin should be on the list. I finished it and thought that it was one of those rare works of fiction that might influence real science, as well as a lot of consciences. Its’s set in the deep ocean and it imagines how a bioengineered solution to the problem of ocean plastic pollution might work. Or not. It’s not like most science fiction, which these days seems like implausible fantasy, it’s more like fiction with science. I’ve read most of the books on the list and this is a better read because it’s so well informed and credible.
So this story involves divers who find people in an underwater chasm and their diving bell goes inside their craft,they control seawater and end up being sent back to shore in the 1400s.?
The book is Abduction by Robin Cook
I have been looking for a science fiction book published years ago . The story concerns deep sea nodule mining that brings up a strange disease that clots all the blood in the infected victim’s body. Have you ever heard of a plot like that? I read it a very long time ago and can’t remember the title or author. Any help would be appreciated.
Looking for a book I read in the late 1960s-early 1970s. Part of the plot involved individuals scuba diving or snorkeling with manta rays. Any ideas?
The Girl of the Sea of Cortez by Peter Benchley involves a lot of swimming with Manta Rays. Lovely book.
I came here in hopes of identifying a book I read in the 1970s, whose plot was something along the lines of a navy sailor who walked along the ocean floor for months after having gills surgically implanted. The only other plot detail I can remember was that the protagonist was nearly swallowed by a sunfish or a grouper.
Ring any bells?