Irving A. Greenfield

Waters of Death - Irving A Greenfield **

I quite like the SF story that is set in the future and there are a number of SF writers that I actively seek out. I came across Waters of Death and was a little sceptical but thought it was worth a try as it seemed fairly short, also there was only one other review on Amazon that gave the book a maximum rating.
The year is 2160 and the human race is facing a crisis, there is a major shortage of food and soon people will begin to starve. Society appears to be almost split into two factions, there are the people who live and work on dry land and the sea farmers. The farmer’s main job is to manage the oceans and grow food for the ever increasing population but lately the harvest has been a lot lower than expected and a scientist (Dr Robert Wilde) is sent to try and determine whether this is an ecological problem or sabotage. In general the sea farmers are looked down upon but everyone else, their wages are the lowest and are being reduced in line with production, amongst them there are rumblings of discontent but any criticism of the Government is frowned upon and they can find their minds being ‘altered’ as punishment/correction. The whole plot revolves around a corrupt government, downtrodden farmers and a sympathetic scientist... you can probably guess the rest.

I have read some crappy books over the years, but this has to be one of the worst. The only reason I upped the stars to 2 is that the basic idea must have been fairly original at the time of publication. There are no themes in any book that offend me, sexism, racism & extreme violence can all become part of a plot as long as they are justified. In this book though it seems that the author takes stereotyping to the next level, all women are just some kind of sex object, whether being ordered to sleep with men or working as prostitutes (they actually get rewarded for entering into the sex industry). As I said, this doesn’t really bother me, and I see the potential benefits... but it just made the book boring and wooden. The ‘twists’ in the narrative were more like a slight bend and could be seen coming a mile off. I haven’t read any of this authors works before and don’t think I will be reading any of his again.… (mere)