The science fiction part is slowly creeping into the story and the climax is in the last chapter alone. More than half of it is more about boats and sailing and catching fish.

However, while it was interesting in a sociological way and good as a background for other activities, its slow pace might feel excruciating for the casual reader. It is also fun to read about people that think Venus is a large ocean planet, as is Jupiter, with a gravity four times that of Earth.

Compared with the modern culture of sharing half formed thoughts before they can constitute complete phrases, it is quite different. Written in 1961, it tells a story of people who, faced with extraordinary circumstances, first evade formulating a theory in their own head, for fear of contravening their own set view of the world, then - forced by events - they do allow themselves to formulate a theory, but keep it to themselves for fear of ridicule, even when they see other people considering the same things, then they proceed to test those theories by themselves and only then share them with others. The thing that made me continue listening to it was its way of depicting the mentality from back then. Lovecraft and one of those books about people drinking and falling in love on boats in South America. Another book that can easily be found in audio format on Librivox and YouTube, Creatures of the Abyss (also known as The Listeners), by Murray Leinster, is a slow mid 20th century sci-fi that reads as a cross between Jules Verne, H.

Creatures of the abyss murray leinster