Kind of a crap ending. However, Brunner does a good job of making the horrible really horrific. The story is a little off-paced, but its OK because it is still good storytelling. Alien-monsters who remain mysterious and extremely destructive often make for great novels. Its not a perfect novel, but if readers are looking for that old-school, big monster, humans-band-together story, this suits. ( )

review of
John Brunner's The Atlantic Abomination
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 3, 2014

After writing a huge review of OPEN SPACE 15/16 ( https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/357236-this-review-is-not-elegant?chapter=1 ) it's a relief to read something that I don't have much to say about. Brunner's been my 'new' favorite SF writer for awhile now so I don't mind considering one of his works to be borderline mediocre since all in all I like his work immensely. THIS is possibly the 'worst' thing I've read by him yet. It's pretty much a generic potboiler: monster-from-outer-space-lurking-in-hibernation discovered-by-scientists-wakes-up-&-threatens-humanity. That sort of thing.

That sd, I'll mostly ignore the plot from now on & concentrate on more ephemeral things that interest me. The Atlantic Abomination has a "Cast of Characters" near the beginning. This was published in 1960 by Ace Books, Brunner's The Rites of Ohe (1963) was also published by Ace & also has a "Cast" list. See my review of that one here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7215530-the-rites-of-ohe-castaways-world . I assume the Cast was imposed by Ace on these bks. That's probably of little interest to just about anyone but me but I find such formal devices vaguely important as cultural dating signs.

My "potboiler" accusation is exemplified by this type of prose: "How many times had the weaklings of this world fled cowering before the wrath of Ruagh and others of his kind? It was of no comfort to recall and count such occasions. Now he, Ruagh—the unquestioned master of thousands—was himself in flight, before the terrible and not-to-be-withstood anger of blind nature. . . ." (p 5)

& to get ephemeral again:

""And who," asked Peter of the trees around the little lodge, "gets up early on their honeymoon?"

""Queen Victoria and Prince Albert," said Mary mysteriously, coming out of the door on to the sun porch with a plate of pancakes.

""What?"

"" 'S fact," she nodded, portioning out maple syrup. "I read somewhere that they got up early on the first morning after their wedding, and the lord chamberlain or some bigwig wrote disapprovingly in his diary that this was no way to ensure an heir to the throne."

"Their eyes met across the table. For a moment they kept straight faces, but at length they burst into helpless laughter.

""Poor Victoria!" Mary said when at last she could speak.

""Poor Albert, don't you mean?" Peter contradicted. "Or maybe not. He always seemed like a straightlaced kind of prig to me. Say, these are delicious."" - pp 57-58

I don't know if Brunner was practicing any tongue-in-cheek humor here but the Victorian Era in England saw substantial population growth & one of the most common penis piercings is called the "Prince Albert" (wch may or may not have anything to do w/ the actual prince & wch may or may not've been known as such at the time of the writing of this bk). At any rate, there was also a London-based underground sex magazine called "The Pearl" (July 1879-December 1880) during the Victorian era that's pretty spicy.

One of the more interesting things about this novel for me is that there's a near future in wch nuclear bombs are tightly controlled by international agreement - something that Brunner, as an anti-war activist, wd've certainly endorsed:

""I'm not going to authorize the construction of a nuclear missile without UN approval," the president said bluntly. "It took us years of squabbling to get rid of the damnable things, and I for one hope there'll never be another made on this planet! How about conventional missiles? Is there any way of pinpointing the exact location of the monster?"" (pp 80-81) ""Yes, I still want UN permission to build that nuclear missile." (p 97)

One of the largely unexplained reasons for this nuclear deproliferation perhaps having something to do w/ this bit of casually thrown in background: "There were no cars or trucks moving in Jacksonville. The wide streets, laid out anew after the great disaster of '65, when a missile from the coastal defense base fell during practice firings and wrecked the heart of town". (p 84) This "great disaster of '65" wd've been set by Brunner a mere 5 yrs after the publication of The Atlantic Abomination - showing Brunner's concern that such a disaster really might be imminent.

The political situation of this future is further hinted at:

""What's the President doing?"

""He's in Minnesota somewhere at an emergency hideout left over from the Cold War. Reports are he will broadcast to the nations this evening."" - pp 94-95

Note that this is post Cold War, more wishful thinking, it seems, on Brunner's part since the Cold War was in full bloom at the time of this bk's writing & the threat of nuclear war between the USA & the USSR was enuf to scare many people into thinking that the full-blown annihilation of most humans as a result of some sort of imbecility on politicians &/or the military was all too possible.

"Men had done this to each other, too. Feeling the habit of marching taking over from his conscious volition, Peter had visions of other armies of history. They had thought men were finished with such cruel stupidity. Perhaps this last time was going to set the seal of guarantee on the hope." - p 95

"They had thought men were finished with such cruel stupidity"!! Now,there's a future I'd like to live to see! I don't expect it, tho. I almost feel nostalgic for the animosity between the USSR & the USA these days where the conflict of State Terrorism vs Religious Terrorism is so horrifying.

As a widely read 60 yr old who was only born 8 yrs after the end of WWII, some aspects of this bk are understandable in ways to me that might not be to a younger reader: "What had made the master single these out? Peter wondered. Perhaps he could not in fact control the whole population of the world. Perhaps he intended to train a corps of collaborators, Quislings, who would make his authority effective." (p 88) "Some of the others he's picked are genuine bastards. There's an old-time prison governor from Alabama who was here on vacation, and a genuine sadist like I never saw before. There's a first-class Quisling-type woman." (p 89)

A "Quisling"? A British reader in 1960 wd've likely known this term given that it was purportedly coined by a British newspaper in 1940 to mean a collaborator w/ a foreign invader. The term refers to the Norwegian WWII era leader who cooperated w/ the invading nazis so that he cd rule the collaborationist Norwegian government. It seems to me that such a term might be dying out.

But what about something like this?:

""That's up to you, general, I'm afraid. Or rather, to the technical experts. By the way, I told Vassiliev about this, out at the Atlantic site, and from what he said I think we can expect something rather special in the way of Soviet electron-amplifiers shortly. That might be the answer to getting usable pictures from a super-fast missile." - p 99

The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) existed from 1922 to 1991. To someone of my age, it was a major force in world politics & the above passage showing the US & the USSR working together reeks of utopian fantasy - but what about to someone born in, say, 1992? The word "Soviet" might already be just a vague referent. How long before it, too, disappears along w/ Quisling as something understandable to the general population?!

"Even the last chance, the sowing of a curtain of blazing napalm across their path, brought such hideous results" (p 107) - "napalm"?: again, anyone of my generation will probably remember napalm vividly, in some way or another, after seeing the famous photograph of a young naked Vietnamese child (purportedly named "Phan Thi Kim Phuc") running screaming down a road, badly burned by napalm, on June 8, 1972. This was another heinous invention brought to the world by Americans (at Harvard, no less).

"Men change their gods, and when they have changed them often enough they cease to fear their power." ( )

In short: I was disappointed.
From the gloriously pulpy cover to the great introduction, the novel's substance just does not live up to the hype it makes for itself.
I read in another review some speculation that The Atlantic Abomination was John Brunner's gambit for a movie script - and I wouldn't be surprised. The ending is so abrupt and explosion-filled, I wouldn't be surprised to find an adaptation coming out next summer with Michael Bay's name plastered all over it. ( )

Pulpy, but truly vivid nightmare of the human race being enslaved by a monstrous telepathic alien awakened from it's deep sea hibernation after crashing on earth eons ago.
Unnerving alien monster story. ( )