Category Archives: Submarines

Character Analysis — Pierre Aronnax

Having analyzed Conseil and Ned Land in recent blogposts, I’ll turn my attention today to the narrator of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Pierre Aronnax.

First, don’t forget to submit your best short story to the upcoming anthology 20,000 Leagues Remembered, my tribute to Verne’s undersea masterpiece on its sesquicentennial. I’m co-editing this book, along with editor and award-winning author Kelly A. Harmon of Pole to Pole Publishing. We’ll officially close for submissions on April 30, but I encourage you to submit well before then. We accept stories as we go, and every previous anthology from this publisher has filled up before its closing date. See this site for guidelines and to submit your story.

Pierre Aronnax, forty years of age, was an Assistant Professor at the Paris Museum of Natural History. He’d written a definitive book on sea creatures, titled The Mysteries of the Great Ocean Depths. Aronnax had been visiting the Nebraska Badlands and was in New York when he received an invitation to join the crew of the frigate USS Abraham Lincoln on its mission to hunt down the reported ‘sea monster.’

Of the three men taken aboard the Nautilus, only Aronnax is given a tour and introduced to most of the wonders aboard. Captain Nemo treats him as an approximate equal, a gentleman, while he treats the rest of his crew, and both Conseil and Ned Land, as lower-class commoners. To our modern sensibilities, this sounds absurd, but to Verne’s class-conscious readers it must have seemed understandable, even natural.

Some have theorized Verne was playing with the word ‘arrogant’ in giving the Professor his surname, but I disagree. I don’t believe Verne thought of Aronnax as arrogant or intended him to appear that way to readers. The Professor was a Nineteenth Century gentleman-scholar and behaved that way. Though he may seem arrogant to us, it is unlikely Verne would have foreseen our modern sensibilities and named his character accordingly.

I’ve mentioned before that Conseil served as the imaginative voice of Verne. I think Aronnax and Nemo together represent what Verne aspired to be. Verne would have loved to be a scientific scholar like Aronnax and an engineer like Nemo.

That said, Aronnax is a disappointing character. He enjoys being free to examine undersea life from within a submarine, while ignoring that he’s trapped aboard. He admires the scientific and engineering genius of Nemo while choosing to ignore warning signs of the Captain’s insanity. Aronnax knows he must someday try to leave the submarine, but would prefer that date be well in the future. In short, he’s there to observe and to marvel for us, not to act in any daring way.

Modern writers can understand Verne’s dilemma. To pull off his undersea novel with all its various travels and adventures, Verne needed at least one character who was content to remain in an iron prison for the duration. Aronnax is that character, but he comes off as too trusting and too slow to act. He is carried along by events rather than causing things to happen. These aren’t traits we like to see in a main character.

In a way, we can think of Verne’s Aronnax as an unreliable narrator. The Professor gives us accurate information on the Nautilus, Nemo’s scientific and engineering prowess, and the many fish they see and places they visit. But he ignores and then rejects Ned Land’s opinion about Nemo and the Canadian’s plans for escape. Only in the end do we (and Aronnax) see that Ned was right all along.

I suppose you can guess the next 20,000 Leagues character to be analyzed by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 19, 2020Permalink

Welcome Aboard the Nautilus

The submarine in Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is one of the most amazing settings in all of literature. Let’s explore it.   

Before we do, I’ll invite you to write and submit a short story to an anthology I’m co-editing along with the esteemed Kelly A. Harmon of Pole to Pole Publishing. Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered is intended for release on June 20, 2020, the 150th anniversary of Verne’s masterwork. Click here for details about submitting your story.

As a degreed naval architect and former submariner, I could write many posts about the design of the Nautilus. You can read this book or this one, or peruse this website for more information like that. My purpose today is to explore this submarine as a literary setting.

Before the publication of Verne’s novel, submarines were tiny and dangerous; they could only stay submerged a short time. In the public’s mind they were curiosities, odd little experimental toys. Moreover, electricity was new—a phenomenon with known, but unrealized potential.

At a stroke, Verne astounded readers with a submarine like they’d never imagined. He gave them a glimpse through the veil of the future. The Nautilus was far bigger than any real submarine to date, nearly as big as the naval ironclad surface ships of the time. With a maximum speed of fifty knots, the Nautilus could outrace anything at sea. Moreover, it could dive into any deep-sea trench and only needed to surface once a day for air.

At a time when people lit their homes with whale oil, cooked with wood, and powered ships with coal, Verne sparked their imaginations by giving them an all-electric vessel. “Electricity” was then still almost magical, and Nemo had tamed it for lighting, cooking, and propelling his vessel.

Verne alarmed his readers with a horrible new weapon of war. No longer would the seas be safe when an unseen danger could rise from the depths and cleave ships in two. It’s how the book began, with mariners terrified of a ‘sea monster’ that struck without warning.

Yet the Nautilus had another side, as Pierre Aronnax learned. It was a civilized vessel, with a vast library and a relaxing parlor or salon with paintings, busts, and display cases. Yes, even a pipe organ. Large portals opened to provide a window to the sea, making this submarine a vessel of exploration, too.

But Verne’s surprises didn’t end there. For the sailors of the Nautilus, the sea wasn’t merely their workplace. It was home. Unlike all previous humans, they lived their lives in the ocean, never making land, eating only seafood, and being buried in the depths.

For Conseil, Pierre Aronnax, and especially Ned Land, the Nautilus was also an iron prison from which escape seemed impossible. Before the phrase ‘gilded cage’ came in vogue, Verne trapped his characters within one. The scenes played out between metal bulkheads with characters caught in an odd dichotomy. Freer than anyone else to explore the vast oceans, they could not pass beyond the Nautilus’ steel hull. Were they guests, or prisoners, or both?

The Nautilus was, and remains, unique. Some literary scholars consider it a character in its own right. I don’t go that far, but this submarine makes for a remarkable setting. Many novels since have been set aboard submarines, but we must measure all fictional subs against the standard of the Nautilus.

That concludes our tour. Watch your step on the ladder and don’t hit your head on the hatchway. Please exit quickly; if Captain Nemo found out I’d brought you aboard, I’m not sure what he’d do to—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 8, 2019Permalink

A Few Leagues Short of 20,000

My favorite novel is Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Still, the book is not free of literary flaws. Let’s examine them.

Before diving into those, allow me to remind you I’ll be co-editing an anthology paying tribute to Verne’s novel. Along with award-winning author and editor Kelly A. Harmon, I’ll be launching Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered on June 20, 2020, the sesquicentennial of the classic submarine tale. Click here for details on when and how you can contribute a short story to this anthology.

Regarding the weaknesses of 20,000 Leagues, I know it’s unfair to judge a Nineteenth Century French novel by the standards of Twenty First Century America. Still, it is a classic, and therefore it must explore universal and enduring facets of the human condition. It does so, as I discussed here, but some aspects of the work have not stood up well by modern standards.

Submarine

Verne devotes two whole chapters to a tour of the Nautilus and a discussion of its features and capabilities. No modern writer would risk boring readers that way. In truth, some of us like these chapters, and I credit them with inspiring me to major in Naval Architecture at college, but for most readers these tedious details are unnecessary.

Women

No significant female characters appear in the work, a glaring defect by modern standards. The only mentions of women are a brief reference to Ned Land’s former fiancée, Kate Tender (Really? Kate Tender?) and a moment when Pierre Aronnax spies Captain Nemo kneeling and crying before a portrait of a woman—presumably Nemo’s former wife—and two children. Few of Verne’s novels feature female characters, and he might have found it difficult to write one into this story, had he been so inclined. Film versions of the novel often include women, though.

Protagonist

Any well-written novel has a clear protagonist. Who is the protagonist in 20,000 Leagues? Before you answer, recall a protagonist is at the center of a story, propels the plot forward, makes key decisions, faces the obstacles, and endures the consequences.

You could make a case that Captain Nemo is the protagonist, making all the novel’s key decisions and driving the plot along. The consequence of his mounting hatred against oppressive nations is that he goes mad at the end.

However, most reviewers consider Pierre Aronnax the protagonist. He’s the narrator through whose eyes we see all the action. He faces a significant conflict—whether to stay aboard with Nemo the Ultimate Marine Biologist, or escape from Nemo the Insane Pirate. Still, Aronnax is a weak protagonist, more of an observer of events, a scientist studying Nemo’s decisions.

Motivation

In modern literature, no antagonist can be purely evil without a reason. In our post-Freud world, we must know the backstory behind the ‘bad guy.’ As an antagonist (if he is one), Captain Nemo seems driven by forces kept obscure and never revealed. We’re left to wonder why someone would gather a crew, construct a submarine, shun all inhabited land, and sail around the world attacking ships from certain nations. In this novel, readers see a few vague hints about Nemo’s motives and background. Only in Verne’s later novel, The Mysterious Island, do we come to understand what made Nemo tick.

Fish

Among the major turn-offs for modern readers are the long, tiresome descriptions of fish. To give his work credibility, Verne wrote on and on about the fish seen by his characters. Long paragraphs with lists and details litter the work. While acceptable, and even standard for novels of his time, these extensive descriptive paragraphs would be recommended for deletion by any editor today. As if knowing he might bore some readers, Verne structured these descriptions such that a reader could skip to the next paragraph without missing anything.

Please forgive me for taking these unfair swipes against a literary classic. If I point out the tiny blemishes making this novel less than perfect for modern readers, I do so out of love, and with full recognition of the glorious masterpiece it is. Writing a novel half as good as 20,000 Leagues remains a dream cherished by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 24, 2019Permalink

Was 20,000 Leagues Inspired by a Woman?

Did one of Jules Verne’s female fans inspire history’s most famous undersea adventure novel, a work that includes not a single female character?

First, readers of my posts will note I’ve been writing a lot about 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea lately. That’s because I’ve teamed up with editor par excellence Kelly A. Harmon of Pole to Pole Publishing to develop 20,000 Leagues Remembered, an anthology filled with short stories paying tribute to Verne’s submarine masterpiece. It’s scheduled to launch on June 20, 2020, the sesquicentennial of the famous novel. Write your own story now, and submit to this site.

Let’s set the scene. It’s 1865, early in Jules Verne’s career. He has contracted with the famous editor Pierre-Jules Hetzel, and two of his novels have already achieved fame in Paris and across France: Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864). Another novel, From the Earth to the Moon, will soon be released.

Sometime during that year, Verne receives a letter from a woman. After she praises both Five Weeks and Journey, she writes “Soon I hope you’ll take us into the ocean depths, your characters traveling in diving equipment perfected by your science and your imagination.”

Within a few years after that, Verne sails on the ship Great Eastern to visit America, and acquires his own sailboat, the Saint-Michel. Writing aboard his boat, he boasts to his publisher that he’s writing a new novel with an oceanic setting unlike anything written before. It will be “superb, yes superb!” By March 1869, the first chapters of 20,000 Leagues begin appearing in Hetzel’s magazine.

What can we conclude? Did Verne get the idea for 20,000 Leagues from a fan letter? Had she not written to him, would Verne have begun such a novel?

First, who was this mysterious woman? She was none other than George Sand, the pen name of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin. By 1865, Sand had achieved fame in her own right, having written numerous popular novels and plays. Her publisher was the same Pierre-Jules Hetzel who published Verne’s works. When she wrote to Verne, she would have been about 61, and he about 37.

No doubt Sand had noted Verne’s talent and observed the success of what would come to be known as Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires. She had a keen sense of what would catch on with the French reading audience of the time.

So, was Sand’s letter truly the spark that led to Captain Nemo and the Nautilus? We may never know for sure. I’ve seen no evidence that Verne wrote back to Sand or admitted to anyone that the idea had originated with her.

We know, too, that Verne visited the Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in Paris in 1867 and saw a model of a primitive (and unsuccessful) submarine, Plongeur. He also saw demonstrations of electrical apparatus there. Could these exhibits have inspired 20,000 Leagues instead?

It’s impossible to say with any certainty whether George Sand provided the true impetus for Verne’s novel. It’s fun—and a bit ironic—to think she did, for there are only a few minor mentions of women in the novel.

Still, in case George Sand did inspire Verne to write 20,000 Leagues, she deserves this sincere thank-you, sent back through time, from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 27, 2019Permalink

20,000 Mistranslations Under the Sea

If you’re a really good author, your book’s reputation can survive even a botched translation. As evidence, I offer the first English language translation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Before we get to that, I’ll remind you of an upcoming anthology I’m co-editing, along with the talented and creative Kelly A. Harmon. We both encourage you to contribute a short story to 20,000 Leagues Remembered, our sesquicentennial tribute to Verne’s novel. You can find more information about that here.

The success of Verne’s undersea masterpiece in France prompted its translation into several other languages. As bad luck would have it, the first translation into English got rendered in 1872 by Lewis Page Mercier, a Protestant Reverend in London.

Among his many translation errors are the following:

  • Sea or Seas? Mercier should have translated the novel’s title as “…Under the Seas” (plural). Note how that one little ‘s’ could have spared countless mix-ups between vertical depth and horizontal distance. You can’t go 20,000 leagues (43,000 miles) deep into one sea, but a plural ‘seas’ clarifies the meaning.
  • Disagreeable Territory. Verne knew his geography and wrote about his character Pierre Arronax returning from the Badlands of Nebraska. In one of his worst howlers, Mercier rendered the Badlands as “the disagreeable territory of Nebraska.” In other words, the phrase survived the English-to-French translation, but couldn’t quite make it back the other way.
  • Lightweight Steel. Mercier translated some dialogue of Captain Nemo as “These two hulls are composed of steel plates, whose density is from .7 to .8 that of water.” If Nemo had discovered a type of steel that could float like wood, it would be worth more than that casual mention. Of course, Verne wrote “whose density is 7.8 times that of water.”
  • Cork Jackets. When the (Mercier-translated) Nemo asked Arronax if he’d like to don his cork jacket, he didn’t mean a garment woven in Cork, Ireland nor a coat made from tree bark. Verne’s words should have come out as ‘diving suit.’
  • From Where to Where? Mercier translated the title of Part II, Chapter XX as “From Latitude 47° 24′ to Longitude 17° 28′.” Wait…from a latitude to a longitude? For all its numerical precision, that title tells you nothing about the path of the Nautilus. A competent translator would have rendered it as “In Latitude…and Longitude…”

These are only a few of the atrocities Mercier committed against Verne’s text. For example, he left 20-25% of the novel untranslated. Perhaps these were the parts he considered the dullest.

Perpetuating Mercier’s many errors, subsequent English editions of the novel used his translation. Up until the 1970s, his was the most widely available. When I first read 20,000 Leagues, I read a Mercier.  

As pathetic a hatchet-job as Mercier’s translation was, the innate greatness of Verne still shone through. When a bad version is all you have, you pause only a second to wonder at the odd phrasings and logic flaws, then read on. I wish I knew French and could read the novel in its original tongue.

Fortunately, today’s English readers have several good translations from which to choose, including the following:

Translator: Anthony Bonner; Publisher: Bantam Press (1985)

Translator: Imanuel J. Mickel; Publisher: Indiana University Press (1992)

Translators: Walter James Miller and Frederick Paul Walter; Publisher: Naval Institute Press (1993)

Translator: Ron Miller; Publisher: Penguin Books (1998)

Translator: Frederick Paul Walter; Publisher: SeaWolf Press (2018)

Translator: William Butcher; Publisher: Oxford University Press (2019)

While writing your own story inspired by Verne’s classic and preparing it for submission to 20,000 Leagues Remembered, consider re-reading the original work. Avoid any version translated by Mercier, and read one of the newer ones recommended by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 13, 2019Permalink

Twenty Thousand Leagues of Film

What’s the best film adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Let’s discuss them all.

By now you’ve heard I’m co-editing an upcoming anthology called 20,000 Leagues Remembered, a collection of short stories intended to honor the original novel on its sesquicentennial. I’m really looking forward to reading the submissions. (Click here for more information.)

In the meantime, I figured I’d offer a brief discussion of the film versions. In doing this, I’m only considering live-action (not animated) versions, and only those sharing the title of Verne’s novel. Therefore, I’m not including Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969), the TV miniseries Kapitan Nemo (1975),  The Amazing Captain Nemo (1978), or 30,000 Leagues Under the Sea (2007).

1907 – Star Film Company

First on our list is a silent black and white movie from 1907. It was really a loose parody of the novel, featuring a fisherman who dreamed of traveling by submarine and encountered a Fairy of the Ocean and her dancing coterie of naiads. He’s attacked by large fish, a crab, and an octopus. For the audiences of the early 1900s, it must have been very exciting. Directed by the amazing George Méliès, the film is just eighteen minutes long and you can watch it here.

1916 – Universal Film Manufacturing Company

Nine years later, The Universal Film Manufacturing Company (now Universal Pictures) put out another silent black and white version, but this was much closer to the novel. Directed by Stuart Paton, the movie starred Allen Holubar as Captain Nemo, Curtis Benton as Ned Land, Dan Hanlon as Professor Aronnax, and Edna Pendleton as Aronnax’s Daughter. This was the first motion picture filmed underwater, though they used a vertical tube with mirrors lowered from a boat rather than using underwater cameras. The film includes some very long sequences showing nothing but fish and coral. To make the movie, they built a full-size mock-up of the surfaced Nautilus, which could be driven and steered. The movie’s plotline deviated considerably from the novel and incorporated elements of Verne’s The Mysterious Island. At 105 minutes in length, you can watch it here without paying the 25¢ fare they charged in 1916.

1954 – Walt Disney Productions

This is the most famous version. Produced by Walt Disney Productions and directed by Richard Fleischer, the film starred Kirk Douglas as Ned Land, James Mason as Captain Nemo, Paul Lukas as Professor Arronax, and Peter Lorre as Conseil. Of all the film versions, this one adhered most closely to the novel, but the character Ned Land was more prominent than in the book. Still, it was James Mason’s performance as an internally tortured Nemo that truly shined. The fanciful, steampunk Nautilus used in the movie has become iconic, and the attack of the giant animatronic squid was the film’s highlight. The movie is 127 minutes in length, and you can watch the trailer here.

1997 – Hallmark Entertainment

A curious thing happened in 1997. Two made-for-TV versions came out within months of each other. The first to air was produced by Hallmark and aired on CBS on March 23rd. Directed by Michael Anderson, it starred Richard Crenna as Professor Aronnax, Ben Cross as Captain Nemo, Paul Gross as Ned Land, and Julie Cox as Sophie Aronnax, the Professor’s daughter. This movie, as well as the 1916 version, featured submarines whose exterior shape most closely matched the novel’s descriptions. Deviations from the novel included the substitution of Sophie for the Conseil character; the presence of women among Nemo’s crew; the addition of a love triangle between Nemo, Ned, and Sophie; and the substitution of a strange sea monster for the giant squid. The movie was 95 minutes long and you can watch the trailer here.

1997 – Village Roadshow Pictures

The second of the two 1997 versions was produced by Village Roadshow and aired on ABC on May 11th and 12th. Directed by Rod Hardy, this one starred Michael Caine as Captain Nemo, Patrick Dempsey as Pierre Arronax, Mia Sara as Mara (Nemo’s daughter), Bryan Brown as Ned Land, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Cabe Attucks (a crewman on the USS Abraham Lincoln). The Nautilus in this film was menacing, wide, and shaped like a spiky crab. The movie contained numerous deviations from the novel, including a mechanical hand for Captain Nemo, a motivation for Nemo that involved preventing earthquakes long-term by triggering some in the short-term, an Oedipus complex for a young Professor Arronax, and a menacing version of Ned Land. At 158 minutes, it was the longest film adaptation of the novel.

Which version is best? Each one had strengths and weaknesses. Each one deviated from the novel to cater to contemporary audiences and to distinguish it from earlier versions. But overall, the 1954 Disney version best satisfied—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 29, 2019Permalink

Anthology Submission Call—Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered

On June 20, 1870, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was published, giving the world a new type of vessel, and a new type of pirate.

The novel’s original cover

150 years later, on June 20, 2020, Pole to Pole Publishing will launch Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered, a sesquicentennial tribute to Verne’s masterwork. The kind folks at Pole to Pole have asked me to co-edit this anthology along with Kelly A. Harmon, and I’m honored to do so. Here’s the submission call.

But we’ll need stories, people! What’s your take on this novel? What story can you write?

You’ve got a few months until we open the antho to receive submissions, but Pole to Pole accepts stories as they go, and they’ve always filled their previous anthologies before the closing deadline.

Watch this space for more news about this upcoming anthology. For now, all the details are here.

In the meantime, let your imagination voyage as freely as Captain Nemo did within the Nautilus. Write your story. Eagerly waiting to read your submissions, I’m the co-editor—

                                                            Poseidon’s Scribe

September 22, 2019Permalink

When Submarines Were New

Ever wonder what it must have been like to serve on a submarine in World War I? You can’t visit or tour one, since there are no U.S. subs from that war on display. You may have seen and walked through a WW II sub in a museum, or seen one in a movie, but the earlier WW I subs are a mystery to most of us.

Recently, one of my wife’s relatives loaned me the journal of her grandfather, a submariner in WW I. I eagerly read it, and now offer you the following description.

Submarine L-10 (SS-50)

Chief Machinist’s Mate Frank Laugel served aboard the submarine USS L-10 (SS-50). (Back then, they didn’t give submarines names, only alphanumeric designations.) His journal covers the period from Monday, December 3, 1917 to Saturday, February 1, 1919.

The book itself is a U.S. Navy ledger book with lined pages; the cover is brown with purple trim. The binding is covered and protected with gray duct tape. Laugel began writing on page 1 and ended on 106 of 200. His cursive writing is quite legible, and I rarely had to pause to decipher a word. There are oil or grease stains on some pages.

The journal begins by chronicling the sub’s departure from Newport, Rhode Island on December 4, 1917 in the company of other submarines and the submarine tender USS Bushnell (AS-2), the crossing of the Atlantic and arrival at Port Delgado on Sao Miguel Island in the Azores on December 19.

They left Sao Miguel on December 30 to continue the crossing. The crew lost a man overboard, a gunner’s mate, on January 24, 1918. They arrived in Bantry Bay, Ireland on January 26, 1918.

The L-10 and its crew spent the war operating in and around Bantry Bay, going out for short excursions and returning to tie up alongside USS Bushnell. They saw little war action. They rarely sighted an enemy and never sunk anything.

The submarine left Ireland on Friday, January 3, 1919 and arrived at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on Saturday, February 1, the date of the final journal entry.

When the sub is at sea, Laugel’s entries carefully record the weather, the time of day the ship dives and surfaces, the depths they reach, and the number of engines running at any time. He identifies the other ships they sighted.

Laugel’s in-port journal entries state when other ships, both U.S. and allied, arrive and leave. He details the equipment that breaks aboard the sub and it seems he spends most of his days in port fixing things or cleaning the boat.

L-10 moored with her sister boats in British waters in 1918. The “A” (for “American”) was added to avoid confusion with British L-class submarines.

Journals are personal logs, begun for various personal reasons. A journal writer never intends for others to read his words, and therefore excludes things with which he’s intimately aware and feels no need to describe.

That’s true with Laugel’s journal. His entries are extremely impersonal. Except for a few brief mentions of the captain, he never mentions the names of any fellow crewmen, including the one lost overboard. Absent is any description of the submarine itself, or what life aboard was like.

Perhaps some of that is due to security restrictions, but then why did he feel free to note the submarine’s depth and the sightings of other vessels? Moreover, there would be nothing classified about his liberty time ashore, yet these entries contain equally sparse descriptions of this time, with brief mentions that he “went out to dinner…went to a dance…went to a movie…”

The closest Laugel gets to anything personal is in noting the receipt of every letter from Frieda, his girlfriend. He also mentions the occasional chances he gets to talk to Walter, presumably a relative or friend assigned to a different ship.

If Laugel feared death due to enemy action or submarine malfunction, he didn’t feel a need to write about it. There is one brief mention about the risks of war, and his attitude about that is philosophical.

L-10 moored with sister boats at the Philadelphia Navy Yard soon after her 1 February 1919 return to the U.S.

A journal-writer is often so close to events that he cannot know what will be important to others. Laugel describes the initial crossing of the Atlantic as mostly routine, free of drama. Yet, according to the Wikipedia entry on USS L-10, the submarine’s captain, Lieutenant Commander James C. Van de Carr, received the Navy Cross for his distinguished service.

In part, that citation reads, “While en route from Newport to the Azores, the submarine which he commanded was separated from the escort and the other submarines of the squadron, leaving him without a rendezvous. He thereupon proceeded to destination successfully, assuming the great responsibility of starting a 1,700-mile Atlantic Ocean run in winter weather and in a submarine of a class that had never been considered reliable under such conditions.”

From the journal, I can infer some things about Laugel, but these are just suppositions. Assuming he took the same care with the sub’s engines that he did in penning his journal, he was in large part responsible for the sub’s successful ocean crossing. A strong sense of humility must have prevented him from taking credit for any significant repairs; he only mentions team efforts, that “we” did this or that. I also sense he was a practical and methodical man, reserving his strong emotions for Frieda alone.

I’m grateful for the chance to read Frank Laugel’s journal, and I shouldn’t criticize him for writing in such a dry style. He was a machinist’s mate scribbling in a journal for his own reasons. He wasn’t writing a novel or a movie script.

Frank Laugel, along with all U.S. submariners, has earned the unending admiration of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 11, 2018Permalink

The 7 Best Science Fiction Submarines

My recent experience moderating a panel on Science Fiction submarines at Chessiecon inspired this blog post. As a former submariner and current science fiction writer, I’m fascinated by the submarines of SF. Earth’s ocean, or oceans in general, are not common settings in SF, and I really enjoy such stories when I come across them.

Before I reveal the list of the seven best, here’s my chronologically ordered list of the more prominent submarines of science fiction. The list includes those from books, movies, TV shows, and some Anime. I included the Red October as a SF sub because of its advanced “caterpillar drive.”

Name Source (Book, Movie, TV, Anime) Year(s)
Nautilus (B,M,T) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 1870 (B)

1916, 1954 (M)

1997 (T)
Wonder (B) Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat 1910
Rocket Submarine (M) The Undersea Kingdom 1936
The Iron Fish (C) The Beano 1949
USS Triton (B) Attack From Atlantis 1953
Jetmarine (B) Tom Swift and His Jetmarine 1954
Diving Seacopter (B) Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter 1956
Fenian Ram S1881 (B) Under Pressure or The Dragon in the Sea 1956
Seaview (M,T) Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea 1961, 1964-1968
Flying Sub (FS-1) (T) Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea 1964-1968
Unnamed (M) Atlantis the Lost Continent 1961
Stingray (T) Stingray 1964
Gotengo (M) Atragon 1963
Proteus/Voyager (B,M) Fantastic Voyage 1966
Blue Sub 006 (A) Blue Submarine #6 1967,1997-2000
Dyna-4 Capsule (B) Tom Swift and His Dyna-4 Capsule 1969
<Unknown> (B) The Deep Range 1970
Rorqual Maru (B) The Godwhale 1974
S.S. Cetacean (T) The Man from Atlantis 1977-78
Sea Trench (B) Aquarius Mission 1978
Blue Noah (T) Thundersub 1979-80
Red October (B,M) The Hunt for Red October 1984 (B) 1990 (M)
Seaquest (T) Seaquest DSV 1993-96
Gungan Bongo Submarine (M) Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace 1999
Ulysses (M) Atlantis: The Lost Empire 2001
UX (A) Submarine 707R 2003
I-507 (M) Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean 2005
Vorpal Blade (B) Looking Glass series 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009
I-401 (A) Arpeggio of Blue Steel 2009-Present
Hydra MiniSub (M) Captain America: The First Avenger 2011

To choose the best of these, I considered these criteria:

  • Vividness. How detailed was the description, or how thoroughly was it depicted on screen? Did the audience form a clear mental picture of the sub?
  • Technological Advancement. How much more advanced was the submarine when compared to typical submarines of the era in which the work was produced (not necessarily the time of the story)?
  • Necessity to Plot. Did the plot of the story require a submarine at all, or would the story have worked if set aboard a different kind of vessel?
  • Coolness. Was the depiction of the submarine aesthetically pleasing?
  • Memorability. Does (or will) the submarine in this fiction work stand the test of time? Can you recall details of the submarine and the story years later?

Here’s my list of the 7 best science fiction submarines:

  1. Fenian Ram S1881. This is the submarine from Frank Herbert’s 1956 novel The Dragon in the Sea (also published as Under Pressure). The novel is intense, and focuses on the psychologies of the characters, and how the submarine setting affects them. The Fenian Ram is a nuclear-powered “subtug” that sneaks into the underwater oil fields of enemy countries, pumps out the valuable oil, and tows it back home. Herbert took the name of his fictional vessel from the submarine built by John Holland for the Fenians in 1881.

 

  1. Proteus/Voyager. Most will recall the submarine from the 1966 film, and Isaac Asimov novel Fantastic Voyage. In the book and movie, the submarine was known as Proteus, but in the 1968-1970 cartoon it was known as Voyager. It didn’t go underwater, but was miniaturized and injected into a human body. You’ve got to love the many windows, and the bubble window on top. The movie version was designed by Harper Goff, a movie prop man I’ll mention again later.
  1. Sea Trench. Here is the submarine from the 1978 novel Aquarius Mission by Martin Caidin. The novel is not well-known, but I like that the book contained a foldout picture of the submarine, a complete side view depiction of its interior. This sub was huge, and well equipped for both exploration and military missions. Nuclear-powered, it had an observation deck with a window, an observation bubble that could be lowered, a mini-sub, torpedoes, nuclear missiles, and a handball court.

 

  1. FS-1.You’ll recognize the flying submarine from the 1964-1968 TV Show “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.” Nuclear-powered, it had windows, a manipulator arm, and room for two operators, plus perhaps a passenger. It launched from and returned to its mother sub, the Seaview. Oh yeah, and it could fly. It could land on water, on an aircraft carrier, or on a runway ashore.
  1. Seaview. Now we’ve come to the submarine from the 1961 movie “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” and the 1964-1968 TV show of the same name. In the movie, it was USOS Seaview, for United States Oceanographic Survey, but in the TV show it was S.S.R.N. Seaview, apparently to indicate it was part of the US submarine fleet, but still a research sub. Nuclear powered, it could deploy the Flying Sub, as mentioned. It had observation windows near the bow. The bow had a distinctive shape, reminiscent of a manta ray. The stern looked like the back end of a 1961 Cadillac.
  1. SeaQuest. The second-best SF submarine is from the 1993-1996 TV series “seaQuest DSV” (or “seaQuest 2032” in the final season). Measuring over 1000 feet long, the sub could move at 160 knots thanks to its twin fusion reactors. Its shape resembled a squid, and its hull had a bio-skin coating to repel sea organisms. It could dive to 29,000 feet. Seaquest travelled with a cloud of unmanned undersea vehicles, with sensors and other capabilities. Its armament included torpedoes, missiles, and lasers. One member of the crew was a genetically enhanced dolphin that moved throughout the sub in water-filled tubes.
  1. Nautilus. The best science fiction submarine could only be the Nautilus, from Jules Verne’s 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Verne also mentioned it in his 1874 novel, The Mysterious Island. The story has been depicted in at least six films and there have been several spin-off novels and films featuring the submarine. With a length of 230 feet and a maximum speed of 50 knots, the vessel used a bow ram as its weapon. It could deploy divers as well as a small rowboat. It had a large “living room” with a pipe organ. Despite Verne’s meticulous description, there have been numerous different depictions of what the Nautilus looked like. The best, in my view, is the version Harper Goff created for the 1954 Disney movie.

There they are, the 7 best science fiction submarines. Did I miss your favorite, or would you have put them in a different order? Leave a comment for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

December 18, 2016Permalink