Mysterious events, aliens in the deepest most inaccessible parts of the ocean, ships go missing while ocean currents misbehave threatening the very existence of mankind. We are being replaced.

If you’ve read the “The Midwich Cuckoos” you’ll see a pattern. Officialdom is consistently slow to respond or even acknowledge the gravity of the problem until the effects are overwhelming and the book ends by only suggesting that finally a weapon to counter the unobserved ‘bathies’ has been developed. What really sets this apart is not just the inventive technology of the aliens, but the description of rising sea levels.

Before global warming (the book was published in 1953) Wyndham creates a nightmare of collapsing civilisation as Greenland and the ice caps melt. The political manoeuvring and unwillingness to prepare are all too clearly mirrored in todays climate debate.

Good solid writing that’s frighteningly prophetic.