Breakaway Books

Authored by John Wyndham; Published 1953; Science Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️

My husband has chided me for never reading books more than a few years old—and The Kraken Wakes made me understand why this could be a problem. I loved hearing this 1950s rendering of a firsthand encounter with an alien species.

In The Kraken Wakes, journalist Mike and documentarian Phyllis recount their observations as an alien species comes to earth and settles in the deep sea before beginning an assault on the human race. The two recount how nation states and ordinary people react to the attacks perpetrated by the aliens and the eventual degradation of society. Eventually, even Mike and Phyllis are forced out of London to take shelter in their Cornwall cottage, with no guarantee of return or survival.

This novel felt like it was in the philosophical vein of The Three Body Problem—a wide-lens look at how society and governments would react to an encounter with a hostile alien species. It’s definitely more contained than Three Body, spanning less than a lifetime and told from only one point of view, but in some ways, that made it easier for me to enjoy. The alien species in the novel was particularly fascinating for me: Humans never see them in their true form, nor do they communicate with them, but the weapons that they leverage against humanity are deadly and innovative. There is even overlap between the aliens’ assault tactics and the destruction that climate change brings, which seems prescient for the time of publication. Adding to the disturbing nature of the alien invasion, the author draws together two areas that are largely mysterious to us still, the deep sea and space, as the natural environment of the aliens, completing the mysterious shroud surrounding the species.

But what initially drew me into the novel was the framing around the narrative, the banter between Mike and Phyllis. Framing the storyline as a conversation between a husband and wife, remembering and arguing over events, injects much needed humor into the novel, and it makes both Mike and Phyllis so likeable. The amount of praise heaped upon Phyllis and her sheer competence delighted me. This format also allowed for insight into the emotional reactions of a few individuals to the alien invasion, rather than focusing solely on the geopolitical wrangling it causes, which in turn increased my emotional investment in the story as a whole. I felt much more connected to Phyllis after observing her extreme emotional distress at some of the more brutal alien assaults, knowing that my reaction would have been quite similar. 

Don’t dismiss The Kraken Wakes because of its age—over seventy years later, it is still just as enjoyable!