Difficult, given the pitch, not thinking about the scenario of the famous film by James Cameron: Abyss, which occurred three decades later. The short novel Wul, written in 1957, from an original premise: What if the threat of a conquering intelligent breed was not from space, but ... unknown depths of our oceans? Compelling idea, which actually summarizes the only reading interest. For the rest, the novel has aged terribly. But not like certain wines, whose dress includes all the delicate nuances of its flavor with age. No. Rather like an open bottle of Orangina and adulterated for too long. Characters pasteboard, as inconsistent as stereotyped: the main hero, beautiful muscular and virile engineer, former champion "polyparcours" (read swimming), blond (sounds like Ken) that ends in the middle of history by belong to the secret army, and in a flaming happy ending, is actively involved in saving the world from its programmed destruction. A female character always so back (a constant in most writer's novels), still superficial and tasteless, which passes only for the stooges of the hero, so figure imposed by the conventions of the genre. The absolute lightness of the background, the background: the Afrance is rich. More misery. People are happy. Science has overcome most of the problems inherent to the human condition: hunger, thirst, poverty are relegated to stage bad memories ... presumptuousness of optimism seen in the context of writing: the end 50 years is rich in hope. The attractive modernity becomes a form of religion. The Russians sent Sputnik into space in 1957 and ... in the aftermath, the dog Laika. Reaching for the stars is launched. Materialism gradually invades the homes, with the gradual emancipation of a whole bunch of social locks. Yet over the same period, Stefan Wul - Pierre Pairault his real surname - wrote novels to much darker and disturbing tone: "Go back to 0", "Niourk" ... "The giant fear," set comparison, still lags least its intrinsic weaknesses, except that famous idea of pleasing start, no incentive to reading the indulgent nature or great nostalgic. It has the famous scene of the tidal wave that is attended, ringside but helpless, parked our protagonists in height in a Helitaxi (P41-47). There has this description of a city discovered by Bruno tropèdes Daix into the abyss of the ocean (P149-152), hallucinatory vision, attempt to describe the indescribable which is reminiscent of the setting strobe pictures the descent of the capsule of Bowman on Jupiter in a famous "2001: A Space Odyssey," Kubrick. But beyond those few scenes, especially the memory registers baroque and unhappy associations terms stamped SF "plastic bridges", "tracksuit conditioned" buildings evoking "polystyrene cliffs", now cordially lend to smile. And this is obviously not the psychology of the characters - nonexistent - that will make up for any ...
Short. "The Giant Fear" clearly classified as a novel food of the author that will be forgotten soon to return with more enthusiasm to other fundamental stimulants otherwise signed by him: "Niourk", "Oms in series "," The temple of the past "...
