Menu
shadow
SF CORE Best Lists
SF ERA Best Lists
SF GENRE Best Lists
OTHER Best Lists

Deluge

Author: S. Fowler Wright

The idea of a drowned England had been a commonplace in British scientific romances since at least After London by Richard Jeffries, but it received its finest expression in Fowler Wright's Deluge. In this novel earth tremors inundate the entire country, leaving only a few parts of the Midlands as isolated islands. Here a lawyer, Martin, and his wife both survive, but are separated. Martin takes up with an athletic young woman, Claire, and when his wife reappears on the scene the two women decide to share the man. It is this sexual liberty, I suspect, that is one of the secrets of the success of this novel. Fowler Wright is gleeful about sweeping away the dull trappings of conventional society (there is only one footnote in the book, a complaint about the iniquity of speeding fines); though his novel is filled with class consciousness. Martin's natural superiority makes him the inevitable leader of a group of middle class survivors; while all the working class characters we meet are villains intent on serial rape. But for all its peculiarities, this is probably the most significant work of scientific romance published between the wars. Why it's on the list: Deluge was a massive success when first published, rescuing Fowler Wright from bankruptcy, and though he was never able to duplicate the success, it was an incredibly influential work. Later novels from J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World to Richard Cowper's The Road to Corlay and Christopher Priest's A Dream of Wessex all owe a direct debt to Deluge.

Buy on Amazon

Similar Recommendations