The Ghost from the Grand Banks and the Deep Range [Paperback]

The Ghost from the Grand Banks: I'd never heard of this novel before finding it at the library, and I quickly found out why. It's a rather self-indulgent outing by the master, spending more time demonstrating his erudition than furthering the rather thin plot, which involves raising the Titanic. He has some successful predictions in here (the Y2K problem, though he misjudges both its impact and solutions), and some unsuccessful ones (the Mandelbrot set as a fashion object). All in all, this is an uncharacteristically forgettable outing.

The Deep Range: Now this is more like it. The first sentence - "There was a killer loose on the range" - grabbed me, bringing me back to the days when I first read this book as I was just getting into science fiction. Here we have a future world where food is becoming scarcer, and whales and plankton must be harvested to feed the teeming millions. Into this comes Franklin, a traumatized astronaut looking for a new career. We cover the problems he encounters, both personally and professionally, concluding with the moral one of eating whales at all.

Still something of a rambling tale, but it's out of the classic days of sf, and it brought back fond memories for me, and I enjoyed it, regardless.

DO NOT BUY THIS KINDLE EDITION OF THE GHOST FROM THE GRAND BANKS. Calling this an abridgment is too kind. I read this novel when it was first published, just before the wreck of the Titanic was found by Ballard. I chose to pay the overpriced $10.99 for this digital book because I knew it would be a good reading experience, but the original book and this Kindle edition are not the same. I had no idea the Kindle edition was an abridgment. The original book had much, much more story to it and as a result, was a much more satisfying, better novel. I'll try not to include any spoilers here: there was much more about "Colleen," who is only mentioned twice in this abridgment, and the ending to the story of actually raising the Titanic was completely cut from this Kindle edition. The Kindle edition skips right to the epilogue, occurring eons in the future. I know more story about many of the characters was cut, but this is what I remember most from the original novel that isn't in this bad edition.

I'm not going to read Deep Range, the second novel included in this Kindle edition. Goodness knows how it has been butchered.

Nowhere does Amazon tell its customers that this is an abridgment. Whose fault is this? The publishers? If a Kindle edition is not the same as the print version, customers must be told before making a purchase. Why else should a reader overpay for a digital edition? (I don't think any digital book is worth more than a few dollars - with less production and freight costs, authors can and should make even more than from the print version, if only the greedy publishers and retailers would let them.) It is irrelevant who sets the prices for Kindle editions and what that price may be - customers must be told when they are purchasing a digital book that contains less text/info/prose/whatever than the print version.

The publisher is The Hachette Book Group (quite aptly named, so it seems), one of the big six publishers. Is this what we can expect now, publishers abridging books and not telling readers?

Not only are readers cheated out of a good literary experience, but also the author is made to look as if he produced an inferior novel. I hold Amazon just as responsible as the publisher for this, because Amazon is big enough to force publishers to be honest about what they are selling.

THE GHOST FROM THE GRAND BANKS was written more than a decade ago, telling a tale of an attempt to raise the Titanic in the early 21st century. It was only a few years later that James Cameron's TITANIC caused enough stir in interest for the old ship's future fate that such attempts to raise the old tin pot now don't seem so outlandish at all. This novel, written in typical Clarkean style, is filled with science and technology fitted to a spare and efficient fromework of a plot. Diversions into the world of mathematics via the 'Mandelbrot set' makes for a fascinating counterpoint to the main story.

In 1957, the year the Space Age began, ACC penned THE DEEP RANGE--about near-future undersea farming and exploration of Earth's "inner space." The author's love of the sea and it's creatures was prominently shown in this evocative novel. In the decades since it was published, the world has undergone a true revolution in attitude toward marine mammals and their habitats. Whale song has been studied, protective covenants established to preserve endangered species, and exploration of the seas continues. A classic tale that sometimes rankles the contemporary mindset, but exposing all kinds of future possibilities.