The Dragon in the Sea

Author	Frank Herbert
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Psychological thriller
Publisher	Street & Smith Publications, Inc.; Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Released	1955
Media Type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	192 pp (1956; S&S edition)
ISBN	OCLC: 10816217 (no ISBN for S&S edition); ISBN 0-45005-461-6 (Hodder & Stoughton General Division March 1, 1989 edition)

The Dragon in the Sea (also known as Under Pressure from its serialization) is a novel by Frank Herbert. It was first serialized in Astounding magazine December 1955- February 1966, then reworked[1] and published as a book in 1956. It won an International Fantasy Award.[2] It is usually classified as a psychological novel^[1] Image File history File links Dragon-in-the-sea-del-rey-cover. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The thriller is a broad genre of literature, film, and television that includes numerous, often-overlapping sub-genres. ... Street & Smith book department in 1906 Street & Smith was a New York City publisher specializing in inexpensive paperbacks and magazines refered to as pulp fiction and dime novels. ... For other uses of the name Doubleday, see Doubleday (disambiguation). ... A hardcover (or hardback or hardbound) book is bound with rigid protective covers (typically of cardboard covered with cloth or heavy paper) and a stitched spine. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Frank Herbert (1920 - 1986) Frank Patrick Herbert (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. ... Astounding Stories was a seminal science fiction magazine founded in 1930. ... The International Fantasy Awards were given out in 1951--1955 and in 1957. ... The psychological novel is a type of novel supposed to have originated with Giovanni Boccaccio in 1344 CE, in La Fiammetta. ...

Plot introduction

Set in a near-future earth, the west and the east have been at war for more than a decade, and resources are running thin. The west is stealing oil from the east with specialized nuclear submarines ("subtugs") that sneak into the underwater oil fields of the east to secretly pump out the oil and bring it back. With a crew of four, these submarines undertake the most hazardous, stressful mission conceivable, and of late, the missions have been failing, with the last twenty submarines simply disappearing.

Plot summary

The east has been very successful in planting sleepers in the west's military and command structures, and the suspicion is that sleepers are sabotaging the subs or revealing their positions once at sea. John Ramsey, a young psychologist from the Bureau of Psychology (BuPsych), is trained as an electronics operator and sent on the next mission, replacing the previous officer who went insane. His secret mission is to find the sleeper, or figure out why the crews are going crazy.

Typically for Herbert, psychology and religion (the title comes from a quote from the Book of Revelation) play a large role in the narrative, as Johnny comes to understand the nature of the subtug crews and how they carry out their missions. God is victorious! Visions of John of Patmos, as depicted in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. ...

The technology described in the books, of the submarines towing large bags filled with the surreptitiously pumped oil presaged, and may even have been an inspiration for, the invention - whose development started in the year following Herbert's serial - which is now known as Dracones[3] (note that dracone means "dragon").

References

1. ^ "The book showcased his interest in human psychology, especially as applied to power and leadership, and it also predicted, by two decades, the political ramifications of oil dependency and production." "Frank Herbert"

Further reading

• The stability of a towed flexible tube (with W.R. Hawthorne and P. Swinnerton-Dyer, Dracone Development Limited, Report No. 7, 1957.

External links

• Dracones
• The "Under Pressure" chapter from Timothy O'Reilly's critical study of Frank Herbert, Frank Herbert
• Review