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The Bathysphere Book
Cover of The Bathysphere Book
The Bathysphere Book
Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths – the genre-defying book about the first submarine expeditions into the deep
by Brad Fox
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'Hypnotic... raises questions of exploration and wonder, of nature and humanity' New York Times Book Review 'Exquisite and shocking... just as any exploration of the deep should be' Helen Scales, author of The Brilliant Abyss '[A] rich, strange book' China Miéville, author of The City & the City ____________ 11 June, 1930. On a ship floating near the Atlantic island of Nonsuch, a curious steel ball is lowered 3000 feet into the sea. Crumpled up inside, gazing through three-inch thick quartz windows, sits the famed zoologist William Beebe. With uncontrollable excitement, he watches as bizarre, never-before-seen creatures flit out of the inky blackness, illuminated by explosions of bioluminescence. He is the first person to witness this alien world. Beebe's dives take place against the backdrop of a transforming and paradoxical America, home to ground-breaking scientists, eccentric adventurers, and eugenicist billionaires. Yet under the ocean's crushing pressure, scientific expectations disintegrate; the colour spectrum shatters into new dimensions; outlandish organisms thrive where no one expected them. The Bathysphere Book blends research, storytelling, and poetic experiments, traveling through entangled histories of scientific discovery into the bottomless magic of the deep unknown. ____________ Further praise for The Bathysphere Book 'The life work of an explorer-scientist becomes a thing of rich poetry' Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep Time 'A breathtaking book, full of suspense, revelation, and beauty' Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus 'An exhilarating read... shiveringly exciting, important, and new' Martin MacInnes, author of In Ascension 'An impressionistic work of art depicting one of the greatest moments of discovery in human history... tantalizing glimpses of deep-sea life' Edith Widder, author of Below the Edge of Darkness: Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea 'A genre-deying book about oceans that is imbued with intelligence, curiosity and wonder' Joanna Pocock, author of Surrender 'A brilliant work of literary art... a time-bending, gem-laden constellation' Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Ultramarine
'Hypnotic... raises questions of exploration and wonder, of nature and humanity' New York Times Book Review 'Exquisite and shocking... just as any exploration of the deep should be' Helen Scales, author of The Brilliant Abyss '[A] rich, strange book' China Miéville, author of The City & the City ____________ 11 June, 1930. On a ship floating near the Atlantic island of Nonsuch, a curious steel ball is lowered 3000 feet into the sea. Crumpled up inside, gazing through three-inch thick quartz windows, sits the famed zoologist William Beebe. With uncontrollable excitement, he watches as bizarre, never-before-seen creatures flit out of the inky blackness, illuminated by explosions of bioluminescence. He is the first person to witness this alien world. Beebe's dives take place against the backdrop of a transforming and paradoxical America, home to ground-breaking scientists, eccentric adventurers, and eugenicist billionaires. Yet under the ocean's crushing pressure, scientific expectations disintegrate; the colour spectrum shatters into new dimensions; outlandish organisms thrive where no one expected them. The Bathysphere Book blends research, storytelling, and poetic experiments, traveling through entangled histories of scientific discovery into the bottomless magic of the deep unknown. ____________ Further praise for The Bathysphere Book 'The life work of an explorer-scientist becomes a thing of rich poetry' Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep Time 'A breathtaking book, full of suspense, revelation, and beauty' Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus 'An exhilarating read... shiveringly exciting, important, and new' Martin MacInnes, author of In Ascension 'An impressionistic work of art depicting one of the greatest moments of discovery in human history... tantalizing glimpses of deep-sea life' Edith Widder, author of Below the Edge of Darkness: Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea 'A genre-deying book about oceans that is imbued with intelligence, curiosity and wonder' Joanna Pocock, author of Surrender 'A brilliant work of literary art... a time-bending, gem-laden constellation' Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Ultramarine
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  • Publisher's Weekly

    Starred review from March 20, 2023
    In this mesmerizing history, novelist Fox (To Remain Nameless) draws on research notes from a trio of pioneering deep-sea explorers to offer a lyrical meditation on the mysteries of the ocean. In the late 1920s, engineer Otis Barton and “protoecologist” William Beebe developed the bathysphere, a “four-and-a-half foot steel ball... fitted with two three-inch quartz windows” that could carry them thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean. In a series of dives off the coast of Bermuda, they partnered with scientist Gloria Hollister, who recorded their observations via telephone line. (Hollister also made her own record-setting dives in the bathysphere.) Among other insights, Beebe took note of how the sunlight receded the further he dove, until the bathysphere was surrounded by “the deepest black-blue imaginable,” and described bizarre, bioluminescent creatures, including siphonophores, which appear “to be a single organism” but are in reality “a colony of smaller animals—polyps and other beings called zooids.” Photographs were impossible, so Beebe worked with artists to visually recreate his observations; Fox includes many of those striking images. Some of the species Beebe described have never been seen again, giving credence to Barton’s assertion that the two were on an “oxygen jag” during certain dives. Original and often profound, this is a moving testament to the wonders of exploration. Illus.

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The Bathysphere Book
The Bathysphere Book
Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths – the genre-defying book about the first submarine expeditions into the deep
Brad Fox
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