I guess I read the earlier 1953 edition. T^his is an alien invasion novel and adequate entertainment. The beasties do come from off-planet, but find us aboriginals inconvenient. Of course, once they come to our attention, we do them in. The American title was "Out of the Depths. ( )

Book 128 so we shall stick to
John Wyndham.
Kraken wakes.
"The novel describes escalating phases of what appears to be an invasion of Earth by aliens, as told through the eyes of Mike Watson, who works for the English Broadcasting Company (EBC) with his wife and co-reporter Phyllis"
Nick Wannan ( )

As a teenager I read "Triffids" and absolutely loved it - which lead me on a Wyndham reading spree. One of which was "Kraken" - which as a teenager really bored me. Having a yen to revisit some of these and many either available as audio via the library or free on Audible, I listened to this to see if my initial opinion remained the same. I certainly enjoyed it more this time but it's pacing is off. It only really gets exciting in the final third. The buildup is too long and the end is very reminiscent of how Triffids ends. ( )

The ending is arguably lame, or weak, or deus ex machina. The climax is probably somewhere around page 2. It's dated in spots, with no satellites in orbit, the Russian menace, and newspapers front and centre.

And yet, in spite of all that, I almost rated it a four.

It's an apocalypse novel. I won't say much about the plot line because it was the mystery of it that sucked me in. This one is all about the journey, and how they got from the start to the end. The end itself it turns out doesn't matter that much.

Read it, you'll like it. ( )

Aliens invade the Earth and take up residence in the deepest parts of the oceans, where we can't bomb the crap out of them, then they try to exterminate us. This was entertaining, if a little talky and dated. The unseen aliens were an effective unknowable menace, especially the invading "sea tanks" with their jellyfish-like tentacles, and the depiction of our response to a slow-rising threat was depressingly spot-on. The ending particularly resonates for those of us looking down the barrel of climate change now. Sometimes didactic, particularly in the lectures about governments not letting people defend themselves (bullets were no good against the sea tanks, anyway), and references to people who were not white and Western were cringe-worthy, but putting those things aside, it's a solid and unusual alien-invasion story. ( )