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Drowning Towers

George Turner

3.88 · Rating details · 798 ratings · 102 reviews

Francis Conway is Swill - one of the millions in the year 2041 who must subsist on the inadequate charities of the state. Life, already difficult, is rapidly becoming impossible for Francis and others like him, as government corruption, official blindness and nature have conspired to turn Swill homes into watery tombs. And now the young boy must find a way to escape the ap ...more

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Paperback, 387 pages

Published December 7th 1996 by Avon Books (first published 1987)

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May 27, 2013 S.B. Wright rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The novel has been out of print for some time, indeed I tried to find a copy a couple of years ago and couldn’t. Thankfully Gollanz have seen fit to reprint it as part of their masterworks series.

So how, after 25 years, does the book hold up?

Remarkably well is the short answer. Apart from a couple of historical errors that have crept in with the relentless march of time, it’s a book that fans of Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker series and Anna North’s America Pacifica would enjoy.

It’s a story wit The novel has been out of print for some time, indeed I tried to find a copy a couple of years ago and couldn’t. Thankfully Gollanz have seen fit to reprint it as part of their masterworks series.

So how, after 25 years, does the book hold up?

Remarkably well is the short answer. Apart from a couple of historical errors that have crept in with the relentless march of time, it’s a book that fans of Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker series and Anna North’s America Pacifica would enjoy.

It’s a story within a story – the survivors of an a slow apocalypse looking back at the end of the Greenhouse culture.

We are introduced to an archeologist taking a playwright around the crumbling monoliths of the Greenhouse culture. Vast city towers that held 70,000 plus people each. These are the autumn people living in the age where the earth is rapidly cooling toward another ice age. The Archeologist has written a novel that makes a narrative from her discoveries and thus the reader is drawn into the tale of a group of pivotal personalities that see out the beginning of the downfall of our culture, the Greenhouse culture.

A didactic novel written in the mode of science fiction realism, in literary terms, its tone feels very similar to English works like Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, its bleak forecast and representation of the poor reminded me a little of A Clockwork Orange. The Sea and Summer is undeniably Australian though and really should be on the reading list of every Australian science fiction writer.

Turner does note in his afterword that:

Nobody can foretell the future.In a world of disparate aims, philosophies and physical conditions the possible permutations are endless; few guesses aimed beyond a decade from today are likely to be correct, even by accident.

The comment above me made me smile because I think Turner got a lot right in The Sea and Summer, maybe it was pure luck, maybe it was a well rounded knowledge of trends or just an understanding of human nature, but his 2040’s has the rich with large flat screen entertainment terminals that sound a lot like the Smart TV’s that you can buy now (if you happen to be lucky enough to live where you can get suitable internet service). The broadening gap between the rich and the poor (or Sweet and Swill as they are termed in the book) is happening. Even the conspiracy at the heart of the novel was apparently voiced by one of Australia’s richest business women yesterday.

The books central message, observation, warning on climate change goes largely ignored today. Our next likely Prime Minister for example seems confused by the reality of the situation. The Sea and Summer is not depressing though, realistic in its observation of humans and the disasters we can bring upon ourselves, but also hopeful.
The Sea and Summer won the Arthur C Clark award in 1988 the second year the Award had run. Turner had earlier won the Miles Franklin for his mainstream work The Cupboard Under the Stairs. Some awarded books fade from our consciousness, some we can look back on and wonder what the voters and juries of yester year were smoking. Not so with The Sea and Summer, this book deserves its award nomination and deserves to be read. I’d recommend it as a school text if I didn’t think that forcing teens to read it might result in an aversion to it by virtue of it being a prescribed text.

This book was provided by the publisher. ...more

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Oct 11, 2021 Deborah Ideiosepius rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, award-winners, dystopian, marine-and-oceanic, social-commentary, australian-authors, 2021-reading-challenge

This was a brilliant book! As speculative science fiction goes it was exceptionally well put together and it is amazing that it was first published in 1987, because it feels so very contemporary.

George Turner has created a future world, with plenty of dystopia elements from before dystopia was a very mainstream thing. He was also ahead of his time in writing solid science fiction relating to climate change at a time when climate change was not yet a common concern. Finally, with the future predi This was a brilliant book! As speculative science fiction goes it was exceptionally well put together and it is amazing that it was first published in 1987, because it feels so very contemporary.

George Turner has created a future world, with plenty of dystopia elements from before dystopia was a very mainstream thing. He was also ahead of his time in writing solid science fiction relating to climate change at a time when climate change was not yet a common concern. Finally, with the future predictions, and the greenhouse climate change and the sea level rising it is a spectacularly strong and evolved social commentary.

There are two different time frames for this book, one is the Autumn people set centuries ahead of the 21st. The sea level has risen and swallowed Melbourne which is now a sunken city within the Yarra delta. Broken semi-destroyed high-rises poke up from the chill waters. They are chill, because the Ice age is coming. In this world (which is a minor part of the book, merely putting the story in context) a scholar takes an actor to see the reconstruction of the far past which takes us to the bulk of the novel.

2040's - 2060's the era that the Autumn people know as the Greenhouse era. Society is rigidly demarcated between Sweet and Swill. The Sweet have jobs, respectability education and a life style that, while it seems minimal to us, is adequate. The Swill have no jobs, live on subsistence in high rise towers and are thoroughly demonised by the Sweet, who have mostly never met any Swill.

The story follows the fortunes of the Conway family, mother Alison, two son's Teddy and Francis and their father who is a 'lower level Sweet' until the day he is retrenched and the family has to move to the fringes. A complete social structure somewhere between the Sweet and the Swill.

The scope of the social construction and commentary in the novel is amazing. In Australia we can see a slow dividing of the rich and poor, as well as the social scorn the rich feel justified in levelling against the poor; the notion of 'dole bludgers ' being the first step to the subsistence living that Turner has mapped out so evocatively. The way the evolved slang is handled, too, is pretty genius as is the analysis of the outcome of climate change denial.

But essentially, it is an excellent story. We have Teddy taken into an advanced education program, who leaves behind his family entirely, feeling betrayed by their decent toward poverty. We have his younger brother Francis, who has a freak mathematical talent which gives him a chance at something better than a mere decent into Swill. When you think back on it, few of these characters are particularly ethical or likable, but they are interesting, exceptionally well written and living in a world that makes for an amazing adventure.

An amazing prophetic adventure. I don't know how far away we are from sea level rise, but I am not sure that Turner was all that pessimistic about the time line. Great story, well written - beautifully written in fact and a thoroughly flawless reading experience.

...more

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Aug 31, 2015 Martina rated it liked it

Shelves: sf

Drowning Towers is yet another good entry in the science/speculative fiction genre. The title ruins the first impression, though, because it sets the tone of doom and gloom way too early. For that reason, the title given to the novel inside the novel - The sea and summer - works much better. The sea and summer is very innocent and is very much in contrast with the world the author portrays.

Turner's vision of the future is grim and dreary; it might not be as extreme as Harrison's Make room! Make Drowning Towers is yet another good entry in the science/speculative fiction genre. The title ruins the first impression, though, because it sets the tone of doom and gloom way too early. For that reason, the title given to the novel inside the novel - The sea and summer - works much better. The sea and summer is very innocent and is very much in contrast with the world the author portrays.

Turner's vision of the future is grim and dreary; it might not be as extreme as Harrison's Make room! Make room!, but it still packs a punch. The climate changes, the overpopulation and lack of resources are a focal point of the novel, for a job in the goverment means the difference between life (living in a normal house) and death (living in an overcrowded "tower"). Or that's the way Francis, one of the protagonists, views life - as getting back into the Sweet regardless of the price.

Contrary to the blurb, Francis is not the main character of The sea and summer. There are several narrators in the book - Francis' brother Teddy and mother Alison, the rich businesswoman Nola Parks, Teddy's superior in the law enforcement "Nick" Nikopoulos... I suppose Turner wanted to explore how bad conditions in the society can erode the family unit and even destroy it. But I was glad that we had a multitude of narrators, simply because I needed a change of pace. The characters were mostly unlikeable, especially Francis. His behavior as a child was somewhat understandable, but as an adult he was downright loathsome. If there were more parts where Francis was directly involved, I would throw in the towel very, very soon into the novel.

But interesting enough, despite the near ecological disaster on one side and the difficulties a family that had fallen on hard times experiences in a cruel world on the other, and the author manages to convey a glimmer of hope. You see, the depressing The sea and summer is a novel done by a scholar who lives in the distant future - one of the Autumn people. They are living in Earth's autumn, anticipating the new ice age, but - they are still there. They are still living and trying to make sense of the Greenhouse culture, and I suppose, living much more thrifty and economical lives. One can only hope the same for humanity.
...more

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Mar 11, 2008 Mark rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

Technically a science fiction title, it is more just near futuristic – and hauntingly plausible. In the coming decades, class stratification leads to sharp division between Sweet (those with jobs and a tenuous grasp at some sense of instable stability, roughly analogous to our present-day middle class) and Swill, the despised underclass forced to contend with sea levels rising around their high-rise towers, massive unemployment and no sense of hope. Billy Kovacs, a tower boss, keeps his world af ...more

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Jun 10, 2011 Sjancourtz rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: anyone who likes grim future predictions

Recommended to Sjancourtz by: no one

One of the all-time best science fiction books ever! Takes place in Australia, in a world where global warming and rising sea levels and a collapsed economy divide people into two groups: the "sweet"--those who have jobs--and the "swill"--those who live on a meager public assistance program in decrepit public housing, scrabbling to survive. This is your future, America. Wake up and do something before it's too late. ...more

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Jul 12, 2018 Cheryl rated it liked it · review of another edition

1987 Australian SF novel about a world-wide dystopia caused by global warming, overpopulation and the automation of most jobs. Good, but it could've been better without the story-within-a-story framework. ...more

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Oct 22, 2008 Tripp rated it really liked it

Me oh my oh, the Australians know how to show the slow slide into apocalypse. Mad Max shows a world not too different from our own, but terrible in its changes. In that movie, the changes are never really discussed, but they are the subtext of the film. Australian author George Turner's Arthur C Clarke Award winning Drowning Towers (known as the Sea and Summer in the UK) tells a similarly bleak tale of life after the decline of civilization.

The book is framed by a story of the Autumn people (so ...more

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Jun 09, 2009 Catherine Siemann rated it really liked it

Recommended to Catherine by: Judith

This book was recommended to me when I was looking for a novel about ecocastrophe to teach; it's very much a pity that it is out of print. It was published in 1987 and the concerns it reflects are still very much in the forefront, particularly economic collapse and ecological catastrophe.

In mid-21st century Australia, there is 90% unemployment, the small and tenuous middle class (the Sweet) are in constant fear of losing their jobs, but buck themselves up with their scorn of the Swill, who live ...more

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Aug 28, 2019 Landon Shimpa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Wow. This book had strong "Enders Game" vibes for me, though I didn't think it's story wrapped in a way that was quite as compelling. George Turner excels, however, at building a horrific future that I can see our current times heading right for. Using climate change as a catalyst for the new world order was fascinating, and I believe quite successful. Would recommend pretty heavily for most lovers of science fiction. ...more

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Feb 09, 2015 Alistair rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: australian-fiction, speculative-fiction

An incredibly prescient novel (published in 1987) set in a 21st century Melbourne that is drowning, literally, as the Greenhouse Effect has made chaos of the weather and food production. Only the tallest towers and the Dandenongs remain above water as the haves and the have-nots battle for survival.

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Apr 05, 2015 Steen Ledet rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: apocalypse, science-fiction, dystopia, heavy-weather

Wonderful, thought provoking science fiction from an author I've never heard of. A multi-pov novel that uses two separate futures to comment on the inability of representing the whole throug the part, but also the inability of doing anything else. The calm, measured unfolding of almost inevitable events builds into a terrifying intensity at the end of the novel. ...more

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Dec 18, 2013 Liz Barr rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: not-recommended, australian, science-fiction, short-fiction

I’ve never been an advocate of the idea that you must be familiar with certain writers and works in order to call yourself a science fiction fan, but sometimes I find a gap in my reading that’s frankly embarrassing.

So it was with George Turner, the Australian, Melburnian author of acclaimed SF and literary novels. Until The Sea and Summer was quoted in Sophie Cunningham’s Melbourne, I had never heard of him.

Born in 1916, he was already an accomplished critic and novelist (winner of the Miles Fra ...more

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Feb 27, 2019 David Fonteyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An early example of a growing number of Climate Change Science Fiction novels (other examples include The Drowned World (1963) by J.G. Ballard, The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy,

Sixty Days and Counting (2007) by Kim Stanley Robinson, and The Year of the Flood (2009) by Margaret Atwood - not strictly a Climate Change novel but can be read as such), The Sea and Summer is an Australian novel that is highly acclaimed, having won the Arthur C. Clarke award and now placed in the "SF Masterworks Serie An early example of a growing number of Climate Change Science Fiction novels (other examples include The Drowned World (1963) by J.G. Ballard, The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy,

Sixty Days and Counting (2007) by Kim Stanley Robinson, and The Year of the Flood (2009) by Margaret Atwood - not strictly a Climate Change novel but can be read as such), The Sea and Summer is an Australian novel that is highly acclaimed, having won the Arthur C. Clarke award and now placed in the "SF Masterworks Series" of the greatest Science Fiction stories. It deserves its acclaim, although at times it seemed a little long and drawn out. Also, as with these other examples, Whiteness is in the background, and it is White privilege with the middle and working class cultures that go with it that can be seen as under threat.

Set in Melbourne during the middle of the 21st Century, around 2050s, Turner imagines a Greenhouse world in which sea levels have risen and are continuing to rise, the weather is hot and wet, population has expanded dramatically, automation has rendered 90% of the world unemployed, the system of money has collapsed, and the divide between Haves - those with a job - and Have Nots - the unemployed - (aka Sweet and Swill) is breathtaking. With the collapse of the economic system and the transformation of the climate and wide scale flooding, the problems of the 20th Century become magnified dramatically in this new era (although many of the situations depicted here exist in actuality in places throughout the world and in history). The police protect only the Sweet, while the Swill, who live in ghettoes that are easily cut off by the police from where the Sweet live, are left to their own rule - largely anarchy, although neighbourhood gang lords run their own system of law, as do the different communities that make up the Swill. The State that is run by the Sweet provides social welfare (the bare minimum) to keep the Swill alive and the system operates through fear of 'falling' from Sweet to Swill as all sense of morality is removed due to brute survival (although a middle class morality is maintained within a fantasy world of the Sweet amongst themselves and their families, while another type of morality based on survival operates in the ghettoes). Due to overpopulation, continuing to rapidly increase, the State considers the necessities of a Cull.

There are a number of interesting devices used to tell the story. The main narrative has a framing narrative, set in the 23rd Century during a new Ice Age or The Long Winter, where archaeologists and historians and scientists attempt to understand the events of the Greenhouse Century, with the story 'The Sea and Summer' written by a historian in the 23rd Century as a way of explaining it to a wider audience. Another device is the use of multiple first person narrators. The different main characters take turns in developing the story from their perspective - a little like a diary or journal. Numerous texts are referenced throughout, with Orwell's 1984 at the forefront, as well as Shakespeare and the modernist playwrights Ibsen and Brecht.

While the subject matter is bleak, The Sea and Summer retains hope: one of the characters upholds morality by maintaining a principle and accepting the price - falling into the Swill. And another way is presented instead of accepting this state of affairs and one's fate - the New Men [sic] developed through education; its essence - "do what you can instead of sitting on [your] arses waiting for time to roll over [you]". And the 23rd Century is no longer in the dire situation of the Greenhouse Centuries with a kind of Utopia set up where there is no rich and poor, employed and unemployed, presumably emerging from the New Men [sic] (and a smaller population). However, Darwinian evolutionary discourse underlies the narrative through which this New Men emerge. Regardless, it is a frightening future that is depicted.

While Turner argues in his Postscript that the novel is not written as "a dire warning", nor as "prophetic", it does fit into that genre and, like Margaret Atwood has argued regarding her dystopian futures, Turner sees its function as to focus the mind of the readers on these future possibilities so that they do not eventuate. Whether this is a successful tactic is debatable. The use of science fiction may have the effect of keeping it in the reader's mind in the distant future and hence safe. Similarly, catastrophe narratives may serve to increase apathy - either it's too big a problem or it's too fantastical that it couldn't happen. At the same time, it presents serious subject matter that is now common public discourse. Its scope of detail in presenting this future scenario, and how it got to that, is impressive, and avenues out are available. Well worth the read. ...more

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Sep 16, 2021 Rojo Dave rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A sci-fi (speculative) must. Very enjoyable, well written and absolutely premonitory. Fantastic world building. Climate change? Yup.

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Dec 06, 2013 Brant rated it liked it · review of another edition

This was a good book, but it was missing….something. The population - and the planet - are ravaged by climate change and changing technology. The people are fractured into several groups: the low-class, jobless Swill, living off of the Government in cramped high-rise towers; the elite Sweet, living in mansions and doing their best to forget about the Swill, and the Fringers, the poor souls on their way from Sweetdom to Swilldom.

The story focuses on a particular Fringe family, the Conways; the tw ...more

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Apr 05, 2017 Marcus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, australian-author, aus-sff-novel

Probably only really 4, maybe 4.5 stars for the story itself (it lags somewhat in the middle, but does finish strongly), but I'm giving this 5 stars for three main reasons:

1. It's set in Melbourne, and at one point two of the characters visit the "old public library" which is my current place of occupation (I'm especially fond of the passage wherein the mere intimation that the books are "not worth a glance, much less the reverent handling by library staff" brings "a curl to the antiquarian lip" ...more

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May 19, 2014 Bill rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone

Shelves: science-fiction, fiction-classics, horror-occult-dark-fiction, favorite-books-re-read, fiction-literary, clifi-ecofiction

Nearly 3 decades ago the author said this book is not prophetic or a dire warning. He was wrong. It, like 1984, is both. It is perhaps the scariest novel I have read since. Scary because the science, politics and social effects of climate change he shows are all coming true.

This is done using elegant characterization. Billy Kovacs, Teddie Kovacs... will be part of my life from here on—as will the stink of humans.

Turner reveals truths and obvious secrets that today would likely deem him 'terror ...more

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Aug 28, 2008 Julie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: all my friends, who'll listen

Recommended to Julie by: Janeen Webb

Shelves: dystopias, australian, speculative-fiction, post-apocalyptic, urban-fantasy, avert-the-apocalypse

A must-read for anyone who is not yet concerned about the devastation we are causing to the environment. And it's set in right here in Melbourne. Mainly in Newport, actually... Close to home. A well-deserved winner of the Arthur C Clark award. RIP George. ...more

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Nov 18, 2007 Paul rated it it was amazing

Shelves: re-read-able, scifi-canon, iconic

sci-fi: using an alternative/future view of science and reality to paint your picture or build the world that makes us question our own (cf. Drowning Towers) ...more

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Apr 28, 2014 Mark rated it liked it

Extremely pessimistic science fiction about young boy navigating through waterlogged home in dire warning of climate change. Hard enough to read, much less deal with impending reality.

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Jun 18, 2014 Torsten rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: environmental, science-fiction, int-fiction, ecological-fiction

Best example of climate fiction I've 25 yrs old but mostly feels prophetic rather than dated ...more

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Sep 22, 2019 Peter Longworth rated it liked it · review of another edition

The notable issue of this book is in its speculative position on the effects of climate change. The public did not know much about climate change and greenhouse gases in 1987, the year this Australian science fiction book was published.

I enjoyed the first 20-30 pages of this 366 page book. These pages set the backdrop of the novel by describing a history of how the earth’s atmosphere had changed because of the greenhouse effect. The author frames a future scene where people are trying to recrea The notable issue of this book is in its speculative position on the effects of climate change. The public did not know much about climate change and greenhouse gases in 1987, the year this Australian science fiction book was published.

I enjoyed the first 20-30 pages of this 366 page book. These pages set the backdrop of the novel by describing a history of how the earth’s atmosphere had changed because of the greenhouse effect. The author frames a future scene where people are trying to recreate the story of why the world drowned and the buildings were abandoned.

Those people living in the buildings of the past, constantly threatened by rising waters, are termed the Swills, they are in constant conflict with the Sweet. I did not like the main story describing this conflict, for the most part it was boring, with no strong female characters at all.

In a passage around 190-194 the author suggests ways the population can be controlled. One example here is the establishment of homosexual relationships which the author describes as disgusting. I wonder if this is the author’s personal opinion of gay people, or just the book’s. I was quite upset by this passage.

Overall, I didn’t really like the writing style of this book, it was fairly flat, preachy and far too long. I notice it won the Arthur C Clarke SF Award in 1988. There must have been weak contenders that year. I would only recommend this book if you wish to discover an early science fiction book on climate change, though I must acknowledge earlier books on this topic such as J.G Ballard’s “The Drowned World” (1962) and Brian Aldiss’s “Hothouse” (also 1962).Acknowledgment must be given to the author, George Turner’s description of the greenhouse effect, as for the most part it is close to accurate. There is also a heavy protest element to this book in which the writer protests quite validly that our great grandfathers did not do enough. While the timeframe for such calamities might be slightly out, the author’s message strongly parallels uncannily with those ordinary people, scientists and politicians of today seeking active measures to reduce greenhouse gases.

I will leave you with several memorable quotes:

“One day the polar ice cap will melt completely and all the coasts of the world will drown. Most of Melbourne will go under sixty metres of water” (Turner, George. “The Sea and Summer”, p26).

“Not in our time.” “The phrase haunts all our lives. It has been the cry of the people and of their politicians as well as of scientists who calculated the imminence of disaster and then sought reasons why it should not happen just yet. Refusal to believe is our surety that disaster cannot happen - at any rate, not today. And every time, it does” (Turner, George. pp.26-27)

“We can be sure only that enormous changes will take place in the next two of three generations, all of them caused by ourselves, and that we will not be ready for them. How can we be? We talk of leaving a better world to our children but in fact do little more than run along with day-today problems and hope that the longer-range catastrophes will never happen” (Turner, George. p364 - postscript). ...more

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Nov 16, 2019 Leif rated it really liked it · review of another edition

In many ways, this very stunning climate change dystopia is a product of its time - with positive and negative connotations - but it remains terribly, horribly relevant. I mean this not in the novel's specific concern of over-population and most certainly not in its very ugly arrogant masculinity, no. But instead, I say this because of Turner's clear-eyed attempt at understanding the collective failure of state collapse and societal disarray, where domino-like crises caused by ecological depreda In many ways, this very stunning climate change dystopia is a product of its time - with positive and negative connotations - but it remains terribly, horribly relevant. I mean this not in the novel's specific concern of over-population and most certainly not in its very ugly arrogant masculinity, no. But instead, I say this because of Turner's clear-eyed attempt at understanding the collective failure of state collapse and societal disarray, where domino-like crises caused by ecological depredation and economic disparities prevent any kind of concerted and organized attempt at implementing plans for a survivable, sustainable future.

Stylistically, things are working well. Among the smartly layered narratives of the Autumn people, who are anticipating a "Long Winter", and those near-contemporaries who have split humanity into the "Sweet" and the "Swill", Turner articulates different moments of cascading collapse with humanity and at times brutal, dispassionate anger. Strikingly, he does so with a magician's trick for reversal and for revelation: focal characters reveal weakness and despair while other characters rise into prominence, with the total effect being a choral community of voices. The whole is his attempt to sound out despair and hope, and the layered conceit - that of a dramatist reading the novel called The Sea and Summer allowing him those good old postmodern reflections.

Sure, there are many things that stick in the teeth - some worse than others. I liked least the moments that grate with patronizing lectures; similarly, I found relatively unpalatable Turner's decision for his ambiguous characters to so frequently valorize the seduction of the "hard but necessary choice" with depressing regularity - perhaps it was his subtle heroization of these characters that soured me most here. And then there is the aggressive masculine focus that inexorably privileges male characters, turns female characters into cyphers for male desire, and (I would argue connectedly) reveal a toxic undercurrent of casual racism perhaps more common to Turner's time than now. So, reader be warned, this is a product of its time in many respects.

And yet, as I opened, that is also a beneficial reminder: as a product of its time, this climate change vision compellingly demonstrates that we have not only long-known about the future promised by ecocidal late capitalism, but also that the human ramifications of that future have also been worried over, and discussed, and worried over more. After more than 30 years since the novel was first published, the waters are still promising to rise. More chilling is that Turner paired the two drivers of collapse with some precision: financial capitalism and climate change. And while he thought the former would be more quickly destructive than it might prove to be, he underestimated the latter.

Make of it what you will, but I found The Sea and Summer striking, aggravating, and fascinating in equal measures.

postscript: for more, see this very good review in the Sydney Review of Books - right here ...more

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Jul 23, 2017 Mel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Published in 1987, The Sea and Summer (Drowning Towers in the USA), but for a few anachronistic omissions (for example, mobile phones), could have been written today.
The story, set in an imagined mid to late 21st century is told from a future perspective, by an archaeologist historian turned author. When I say imagined, it's not that much of a stretch!

The collapse of civilisation as we know it, has already occurred with population and global warming especially, cited as the main causes. We find ...more

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Oct 13, 2017 Notes of a Curious Mind rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

A few months ago I discovered George Turner. For someone who loves science- fiction, not to know George Turner is frankly embarrassing. My only excuse is that The Sea and the Summer does not feel like a science-fiction. It is so closely based on extrapolation of proven scientific facts that it is difficult to describe it as science fiction at all. The plot is not great but the structure of the story is interesting and complex. There is an intense human feeling throughout the book; the novel is c A few months ago I discovered George Turner. For someone who loves science- fiction, not to know George Turner is frankly embarrassing. My only excuse is that The Sea and the Summer does not feel like a science-fiction. It is so closely based on extrapolation of proven scientific facts that it is difficult to describe it as science fiction at all. The plot is not great but the structure of the story is interesting and complex. There is an intense human feeling throughout the book; the novel is character-driven rather than plot-driven.

Born in 1916, George Turner was already an accomplished novelist before he started writing science- fiction in the late ’70s. The Sea and the Summer first published 30 years ago, in 1987, but it still holds remarkably well. The story sets in mid-21st century Melbourne; global warming, rising temperatures and sea-levels (from the greenhouse effect) combined with automation and economic collapse has created a caste line system between those with jobs “the Sweet”, and the unemployed welfare takers “the Swill”. The Swill (90% of the total population) live in big towers, in enclosed overpopulated enclaves at the edges of the cities, with just enough to survive on. It is a vertical slum in the Greenhouse Years.

There are also the people who live in “the Fringe”, a place between the two camps where the people who lose their jobs end up before being absorbed by “the Swill”. It is there, in the Fringe where the two brothers, Teddy and Francis Conway, end up after the death of their father. They react differently in this change; Teddy passes a special exam to join a special police force, and Francis uses his talent for numbers to join the back market working for a Sweet wealthy businesswoman.

George Turner examines several issues in this novel. Overpopulation, environmental destruction, economic collapse, and the inability of our societies to distribute resources and opportunities in a fair and equitable manner. There is also a second shorter story with the main story, that takes place in the distant future. Humanity has survived the Greenhouse Years, and is preparing to face another Ice Age

The Sea and Summer is not an entertaining story. It is a vivid, remarkable and uncomfortable account of life on the edge.

The novel won the second Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1988. ...more

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Apr 21, 2019 Ian Banks rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, i-need-a-gin

This novel, one of the earliest novels about climate change written with the knowledge of what we are doing to the planet as a theme, is a grim and dark tale of the near future (a future that is now closer to the present than the publication date). But it contains elements of hope and the idea that humanity as we sort of know it will continue.

It's the story of the Conway family who, following the death of breadwinner Fred are reduced socially from their status of Sweet (employed, socially mobile ...more

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Dec 11, 2016 Nicholas Whyte rated it really liked it · review of another edition

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2718954.html

I confess that I knew nothing of this book or of the writer, and had no expectations whatsoever; and I also confess that I really liked it. It's set in a dystopian Australia of the near future (though the story is told with a framing narrative of researchers from the not-quite-so-near future looking back and trying to work out what was going on, a device I usually love). Society is divided between the well-off Sweet and the proletarian Swill, and the cen ...more

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May 18, 2018 Eleanor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: arthur-c-clarke-award, sff

In his Clarke Award-winning novel, Turner imagines a not-too-distant future (2041) ravaged by climate change. In Australia, the social gap has widened into a chasm: on one side, the Sweet, who retain jobs where most employment has been taken over by automation, and on the other, the Swill, the 99.9% who mostly live crammed into tower blocks and at the mercy of the State. The plot, which is slightly too slow-moving for its own good, at least at the beginning, concerns a conspiracy to speed up pop ...more

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Oct 10, 2018 Kyle rated it really liked it

I read this as part of my project to read 1988 books throughout 2018 (even though, I know, this was published first in 1987--but it came out in my country, the U.S., in 1988, ok). And if part of that project's purpose is to get a sense of what the late 80s felt like, this book is the perfect entry point. I mean, Turner even ends with a postscript on "a number of possibilities that deserve urgent thought if some of them are not to come to pass in one form or another," like problems with populatio ...more

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Dec 17, 2020 Jon Cotton rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Futuristic world collapse due to extreme climate change. Socioeconomic classes are divided into as wide as the gap can get with the Sweet and Swill. There's a Fringe class of fallen Sweet that desperately try not to fall the last rung. That's the human focus of the inner frame story.

The book holds up in concept 30 years after publication. I found it slow going though. The framework story is really weak. The macro story explains the world as it is now, then it's complete inner story until the las ...more

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About George Turner

George Turner

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George Turner was born and educated in Melbourne. He served in the Australian Imperial Forces during the Second World War.

Prior to writing science fiction, he had a well established reputation as mainstream literary fiction writer, his most productive period being from 1959 to 1967, during which he published five novels. Over a decade after his previous publication of a full length work of fictio ...more

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“A whining voice at the back of my mind insisted that while the greedy ocean rose, year by year, the real catastrophe was yet to come. Behind that again was the cowardly whisper of humanity in all ages, ‘Please, not in my time.” — 0 likes

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