Are there any novels that take place underneath the surface of earth’s oceans? They could be fantasy (about a fictional species down there), sci-fi (about humans living down there), or about a shark or a whale or something.
What I’m not looking for: any submarine fiction, including 20k LUS, or stories that go back and forth to the surface (like about scuba divers, for instance.)
Dome by Micheal Reaves is set in an undersea city; no one goes to the surface because it’s recently been rendered uninhabitable.
The Watch Below is set among a small group of shipwreck survivors who live underwater in a air containing section of their wreck for generations (they managed to set up a small near self sustaining ecosystem, almost like one of those sealed terrariums), and a fleet of water breathing aliens traveling to Earth.
Maybe The Deep Range by Arthur C. Clarke. It’s about undersea farming communities - mainly harvesting plankton and herding whales, iirc - but I don’t recall if any of it is set on land.
Peter Watt has some deep ocean sf novels, but I haven’t read them so maybe a lot is on the surface…
It is. More submarine and scuba than full living underwater. An awful long time since I read it but I certainly remember sequences on the surface - training orcas to heard whales comes to mind.
I’ve read the first one, Starfish. It’s set almost entirely at the bottom of the ocean, in a facility that’s harnessing geothermal power. The crew are a bunch of bio-engineered people with serious emotional issues. The theory is that living at the bottom of the ocean would drive anybody crazy, so rather than ruin good personnel, why not send down people that are already crazy to begin with?
The book is full of cool technology and interesting concepts, but I was lukewarm on the story.
If other planets are in, “Surface Tension” by James Blish takes place in a tide pool on some other planet. The protagonists are a handful of microns tall, IIRC. They do go to the surface, but in a specially-designed vehicle that lets them survive there.
“Under Pressure” by Frank Herbert (before Dune) takes place on a submarine towing oil. It’s been ages since I read it, but I seem to recall it totally or almost totally takes place when submerged.
I enjoyed the the novel version of The Deep. It was a lot more detailed, and when I was a kid I absolutely loved books, movies or documentaries about diving for treasure or finding sunken wrecks. Even today I always love when they have shows on wreck diving, or ROVs searching for shipwrecks. Used to love Treasure Hunters when it was on.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Maracot Deep is an exploration novel set almost entirely underwater.
Roger Zelazny’s novella, “The Eve of RUMOKO” in his collection My Name is Legion is mostly set in an underwater city.
I have not read this book but Profundis by Richard Cowper is apparently about a British submarine with a crew of 45000 , HMS Profundis, which is doomed by nuclear war to remain underwater for a hundred years. The last admiral comes to believe himself as Almighty God.
I read an excerpt in one of his collections. It was then titled The Dragon in the Sea. One part I remember was the concept of “vampire gauges”: small instruments permanently in the bloodstream that would monitor your medical status.