In this section we see the ropes of becoming a warden: diving along the reef, observing the ocean life, the difficulty of romance on a small island where they are based. He’s assigned to train Walter Franklin, a man with a mysterious past, to become a warden, and the suspense of this first part of the novel is the background of the reticent Franklin. Part One concerns Don Burley, a ‘warden’ for the World Food Organization and living on an island in the Great Barrier Reef, who responds to problems with the herding of whales, such as attacks from killer whales or breaks in the electronic ‘fences’ that keep the whales out of the plankton farms.The novel is rather episodic, and breaks into three parts, with the middle section into three parts of its own. So the descriptions here of diving, of exploring the coral reefs, are likely drawn from first-hand experience. There are countries that still harvest whales, of course, but they do so to the condemnation of many other nations.Ĭlarke was of course an avid diver and had moved to Sri Lanka in 1956 (according to Science Fiction Encyclopedia), a year before this novel was published. I think the theme of harvesting whales for their meat would make the novel awkward to reprint today, but I see there have been editions from Warner Aspect in 2001 and from Gollancz as recently as 2011. This is Clarke’s major novel of the ocean, set in a future that herds whales and farms plankton for consumption by humans.
(The 11 counts both Against the Fall of Night and the revised version The City and the Stars, and includes his non-SF novel Glide Path.) The Deep Range was the 8th of 11 novels of Clarke’s early period, which I’ll define as everything before 2001 in 1968. Here’s a relatively quick take on a 1950s novel I reread this past week - not as long or as polished as my other Black Gate reviews have been.
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