George Turner (1916 - 1997) was an Australian author who published a number of scf-fi novels during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Many of these novels featured eco-catastrophe themes. 'Drowning' is the first Turner novel I've ever read.
I'm going to state up front: this book isn't very good. It was a chore to finish.
First published in the UK in 1987, titled The Sea and Summer, this U.S. paperback version (387 pp.) was issued by AvoNova in December 1996.
'Drowning' starts off on an awkward note by having an overly complicated narrative structure. It opens with a prologue set some 1,000 years in the future, a prologue intended to frame the main narrative (which is set in the mid-21st century). The prologue deals with the efforts of an actor named Andra to comprehend the lives of the residents of a since-submerged 'Towers' district of the city formerly known as Melbourne. Andra has ambitions to write, and perform in, a play based on the experiences of one particular Towers family.
Andra consults with an archeologist named Lenna, who in turn provides him with the draft of a novel she has written, a novel based on her retrieval of artifacts from said Towers. Andra and Lenna have philosophical discussions about the Fate of the Earth and the Role of Man in damaging the environment. Howevermuch author Turner intended these passages to adumbrate the major themes and concepts of the main narrative, they come across as overwritten and superfluous.
The narrative then moves to the primary plot, which relates the adventures of a group of Melbourne residents in AD 2041 (these are the people whose 'real life' records Lenna has used to compose her draft novel, which Andra is in turn using to write his play.......got it ?). We are introduced to the Conway family: Dad (his first name is never disclosed); Mum Alison; older son Teddy; and younger son Francis.
Global Warming has brought with it a rise in the sea levels and economic and ecological disaster. Australian society has been divided into two classes, the Haves (referred to as the 'Sweet') and the Have-Nots (the 'Swill'). The Sweet enjoy lives much like those of the middle class in the late 20th century, while the Swill are housed in 70-storey buildings - the Towers of the book's title - that make Chicago's infamous Cabrini-Green public housing projects look like paradise. The precarious socioeconomic structure of this dystopian Melbourne is governed by a secretive cabal of Sweet bureaucrats.
While the Conways have the good fortune to live as Sweet, fate is unkind, and soon they are forced to leave their comfortable existence among the Sweet and relocate to the Fringe, a slum district adjoining the Towers. There, they are forced into a partnership with one Billy Kovacs, the conniving, ruthless 'Boss' of Tower Twenty-three.
While the description of the downfall of the Conway family and their adjustment to their Reduced Circumstances has an engaging, Dickensian quality to it, the narrative then drops into stasis, and the novel transitions into a labored recounting of the maturation of Teddy and Francis and their efforts to reintegrate themselves into Sweet society. Additional characters and introduced, and their emotional and psychological interactions with the Conways are related using awkward descriptive prose and wooden dialogue.
Layered onto these interactions are additional dialogue passages through which author Turner delivers lectures on the willful ignorance and arrogance of 20th century Man, and his role in bringing about the collapse of the ecosystem and thus, the cruel existence of the Swill.
In the novel's closing chapters, the narrative finally resurfaces with the introduction of a Conspiracy against the Swill and the need for hard decisions on the part of Teddy, Francis, and their contacts among the bureaucracy of the Sweet. However, these closing chapters are just as overwritten as the preceding content, and I found the novel's denouement underwhelming.
The verdict ? In my opinion, the 'Drowning Towers' tries, but ultimately fails, in its intention to be an engaging eco-catastrophe novel. The plodding quality of its character-driven narrative requires too much patience on the part of the reader. The truth is, other writers have done this sub-genre of sf better, such as Trevor Hoyle with his 1983 novel 'The Last Gasp'.
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