Old-fashioned young adult in the Winston Juvenile series. The strength of the Winston series was using real SF writers, so the science fiction was typically more than decoration, and there was usually a foreword emphasizing the science bits.. The weakness was the hero had to be a teen, which probably worked for the target audience but made the stories pretty implausible for adults. This is a very typical entry, about a new form of nuclear submarine that runs afoul of an offshoot of humanity that lives in special bubbles at bottom of the ocean floor. The first half with the submarine repeatedly being trapped by the Atlanteans is above average. The second half, where the crew is captured and taken to the underground city is much weaker. On the plus side, it's made clear that they're not from the legendary Atlantis. Del Rey tries to work out a scheme by which a fairly backwards city could have such a sophisticated technology. But on the minus side, the plot to escape and prevent the surface world falling into nuclear war over the loss of the submarine is completely unconvincing, especially when it eventually depends on the Atlanteans thinking the dog -- an implausibility for a submarine story to begin with -- is a god.

Only completists would want to read this. ( )

I absolutely loved the first half of the book. Science, danger, mystery. It was all very refreshing and intriguing. But then when they actually got to Atlantis, I got disinterested. It all just steadily went downhill from there. It still wasn't awful, it just wasn't as good as I was hoping. It all ended surprisingly neat and happy. ( )

In August I was strolling in Cascais to buy my usual Santini Ice-Cream, when I went into the Galileu Bookshop, which specializes in vintage book of all kinds. In a bookstand outside the bookshop there were lots of SF books asking to be browsed. Among lots of crap, there was this rarity (also crap but read on).

I've got almost of the books beloging to the Del Rey/Ballantine bookline, bought a long time ago. This one was missing in my Del Rey collection. For 2.20 euros it was quickly ratified LOL.

I've read almost all of Lester Del Rey books. Unfortunatelly this one is one of the worst, being "Runaway Robot" and "Marooned on Mars" probably two of the best in my mind.

This one is an over the top novel that left no room for believability. I won't dwell on the writing itself. It'd be out of context with today's writings standards. For me the pay-off came from a different direction: I like reading Vintage SF... Enough said." ( )