Customer Reviews

Drowning Towers

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4 star:		(3)
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George Turner has an extraordinary way with characters and situations in a human culture rapidly on its way down. This novel is an enthralling snapshot before it hits bottom.

No aliens, no hard sci-fi, just an appalling vision of a degraded society reduced to "sweets" and "swill". Turner requires few words to paint a dense and intense reality peopled with unlovable but heroic and respectable individuals.

The story is told in the several voices of its players, a well employed technique that permits insight into the otherwise obscure internal worlds of the actors.

The main plot is concerned with a relatively brief incident that becomes a fulcrum on which are balanced and revealed remarkable revelations of the past that led to this extremity and of the possible futures that inaction and lack of forethought might well bring.

A most thought provoking and worrying novel, an intense good read, a plea for wisdom and more than just being.

Read this book!!!

Drowning Towers is the first George Turner novel I've read and I certainly plan to correct that problem from now on. I was immensely impressed with the well-developed characters, the feasible futuristic world and how the plot itself kept moving and evolving right to the end. The novel was set in Australia but it could well have been set in any developed country. Though Turner's imagination delves into the politics, economics and technology of this future world it mainly is a human story. Its shows the possible results of how the communities and countries of the present could bring the future generations close to extinction. The main part of the novel revolves around 1 futuristic family and other individuals connected with it and their fight for survival and quality of life in a world that is spiralling into self-destruction. The switch between narrators gives the characters dimension and mortality. Turner's chapters, even his sentences, are rounded out and stand so well on their own - so many are poignant - but you don't get the feeling he was trying to show off...the wordiness works for him. By the end of the novel I felt attached to the characters and prompted to consider what seems to be a very realistic and well thought-out view of the future, hence, essential Sci-Fi and a very good read.

Drowning Towers was published back in 1987 and won an Arthur C. Clarke award. It was written by the Australian writer George Turner, who was in his 70s at the time and is now deceased.

It's an exceptional and prescient book about the potential effects of global warming, which now seems more timely than ever. Think of it as a portrait of humanity under pressure.

DT and "Brain Child" (1991) are Turner's masterpieces (I've read most of his other SF novels and those two are his best by far).

It's a shame this is out of print. Sometimes, quality alone isn't enough...

As this book is set in my home suburb, I feel close to the 'action' in a way. The book deals with overpopulation and how this will affect both the economic and social fabric of our society. It deals with the collapse of society due to population/global warming/lack of ANY contingency plans for economic collapse, through the eyes of a not particularly likeable family. It should make the reader think (which is always a good thing) about our political system which can see no further than the next election.

The author of this book invokes the future with realism and intrigue. The book is about human overpopulation and how culture interacts more than the melting of the polar caps and the rising of Earth's oceans. The characters were realistic to the point of being frightful. I hope that as a race we realize that we do have control over our future. If you want a book that makes you think, this is it