The Deep Range

3.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Walter Franklin has been given special treatment on the path to training as an ocean warden, caring for the world government's cetacean livestock. Despite some initial hiccoughs, he deserves it, moving up through the ranks while still able to recognize his own weaknesses.

Review
I've somehow always ignored what I think of as Clarke's ‘elemental' books – The Deep Range, Glide Path, and Richter 10. I liked SFF, and these didn't sound like that. While I was a big fan of Clarke's writing, these books still never tempted me. When I reacquired his books as e-books, I did pick the elemental books up as well, and I've finally decided to dig into them.

The Deep Range, at least, is not about space, but it's certainly SF, so I've been unfair to it all these years. And it does have Clarke's signature clear writing and credible, engaging characters. It's dated, certainly, in its treatment of women, but not more so than many other books of the time. The main woman here, Indra, is highly accomplished and intelligent, but primarily serves as a love interest and support for the older male protagonist. She gives up her career to have children. Again, not surprising for a mid-'50s book. A bit more surprising is that, due to circumstances, he has to part from his earlier wife and children, and does so with seemingly little effort.

What troubled me more, as a committed vegan, was the approach and concept. The book centers around whales – not as intelligent, sapient, sentient beings, but as livestock, raised and bred for food (meat, milk, oil). It's jarring, and I think a bit out of step even for its time. To his credit [spoiler], Clarke does turn things around toward the end. It's a little facile and quick, but it does show that he wasn't ignoring the key issues of speciesism, etc. – just showing the bulk of the book from the other perspective. There's a bit too much (‘of course we can't all be vegetarian' – why not?) for my taste, but it does rescue the book from the fairly unsympathetic and unappealing perspective that dominates its bulk. I wish that Clark had invested more in the turnaround at the end, but it still ends up as an interesting, fairly well-written book, if not one of his classics.