TITLE: Up from The Bottomless Pit
AUTHOR: Philip José Farmer
251 pages, Meteor House Press, ISBN 9781945427176 (paperback)
DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): Philip José Farmer’s Up from the Bottomless Pit, originally written in the late 1970s with the working title The Dragon’s Breath, is a near-mainstream novel about the ultimate ecological nightmare. Set in an alternate/near future 1970s, Up from the Bottomless Pit tells of a world so ravenous in its desire for oil that it has thrown caution to the wind. Using an experimental deep-water laser drill off the California coast, humankind burns a hole through the ocean floor only to unleash a deadly torrent that initially threatens the greater Los Angeles area, but quickly escalates to a catastrophe of worldwide proportions with the potential to wipe out all life on the planet. Published for the first time in an affordable standalone edition, Up from the Bottomless Pit does an amazing job predicting both the government’s and citizens’ reactions to large-scale crises such as Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Strap in for an edge-of-your-seat adventure.
MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5.
MY THOUGHTS: The back-cover text does not lie when it calls this book an edge-of-your-seat adventure. Had it been published in the 1970s, I can easily imagine it being filmed by Irwin Allen with an “all-star cast.” If it were to be filmed now, the lead character, James Cable, would likely be portrayed by Dwayne Johnson. It has everything such a movie needs: massive fires, riots, lots of gunshots.
But to describe Up from the Bottomless Pit as just an edge-of-your-seat adventure is to undercut the real marvel of the novel: that in the 1970s, Philip José Farmer didn’t just write a disaster novel but rather a novel which uses that disaster to comment on social strata, disaster relief, corporate greed, government overreach, and religious fanaticism. I would like to hope any movie adaptation would retain these headier, more introspective qualities. (But let’s be honest, I’d probably be wrong.)
James Cable is the project lead for a cutting-edge new oil drill that uses lasers and therefore can cut through the rock under the seabed faster: saving money for his employers, Cal-Pax, and getting oil to the masses faster. Just before the novel opens, there’s been an earthquake near the drill site that resulted in cracks releasing oil into the ocean. Cable’s team has capably stoppered those cracks, and the drilling continues. Cable, as much as he hates it, has been tasked with bringing a news crew out to the platform for a feature about the new technology and how safe it is.
Of course, just before they arrive, there’s a breach, followed by a massive gusher and the platform going up in flames. There are equal odds the disaster was an accident or that there was sabotage by a religious group called The Soldiers of Jehovah. Cable and the news crew make it back to Los Angeles, where Cable’s job becomes stopping the largest-ever on-going oil spill from decimating the Pacific Ocean. That task is complicated by government officials who want someone to blame, corporate over-seers who are upset at the bad PR and loss of money, and the Soldiers of Jehovah who know a chance to foment religious rebellion when they see one. With each bad decision by the government and corporate, with each new attack by the Soldiers of Jehovah, the stakes get higher and the odds for survival slimmer.
It’s no surprise that Farmer expertly drives those stakes, and the tension, up by alternating massive disaster scenes with quieter moments. In the middle of a veritable riot in downtown LA, with people climbing over cars and other people to get to safety, Cable stops to help an injured old man. But by the time Cable gets the water the man needs the man has died. It’s a small moment, almost blink-and-you-miss-it, but it drives home the human cost of this mass exodus in a way the crowd scenes almost can’t. There are several moments like this in the center of the book that took my breath away; I could feel the noise of the riot fall away, could feel the space between breaths while Cable debates who to help and who he needs to be to survive.
Since the story is told through a tight POV on Cable, it’s a good thing he’s a complex character. He disdains his needy ex-wife, misses his estranged daughter, genuinely seems to like the challenges of his job. He’s willing to make hard decisions but isn’t a total heartless bastard (see the old man above, and several such moments, including a real heartbreaking one towards the end of the mass exodus, which is not the end of the novel). He’s also prone to judgement and doesn’t set aside his formed opinions of people easily, which sets up several bad decisions but also a couple of good ones. And of course, because this is a 1970s disaster novel after all, he falls in love with the intrepid reporter tasked initially with interviewing him and later with documenting everything he does to try to stop the worsening spill and its aftermath. (This is about the only real “trope-y” moment in the novel, and I think Farmer can be forgiven for it; thanks to novels like The Lovers and A Feast Unknown, he was almost expected to include a sex scene in every book he wrote, and romance on top of that.)
That tight POV means that we don’t get as deep a look into the motivations and actions of The Soldiers of Jehovah or the various government officials calling the shots. This allows for some surprises in the narrative. I find it amazingly prescient that Farmer predicted the rise of not just a Christian religious fanaticism within the United States, but also a well-organized and armed such group. I felt the echoes of today’s “local militias” in the moments where we encounter members of the Soldiers, and where we see the fruits of their labors. Cable spends more of his time in the company of the greedy upper management of Cal-Pax and the government “liaisons” telling him what to do and watching every move he and his team make. Again, in a bit of incredible foresight Farmer gives us a roadmap for how a government could restrict civil liberties and do away with normal rule-of-law under the guise of responding to a national disaster. In the 70s, audiences might have called this aspect of the novel far-fetched, but is it really?
Also in typical Farmer style, the author doesn’t tie everything up in a neat “happy ever after, the world is saved!” bow. There’s a “we’re safe for now” type of ending, but lots of work for the characters to do. The Soldiers of Jehovah are not totally routed; the government overreach isn’t immediately scaled back. I’m not going to spoil exactly how the characters who survive get to where they are at book’s end, but I felt like I needed to warn readers who don’t like loose ends that there are some. And that I’m sure Farmer did this totally on purpose.
I could probably write several essays on this book, but this review is getting lengthy. So: tl;dr: Up from the Bottomless Pit is indeed action-packed, and massively thought-provoking. One wonders what Phil Farmer would be saying if he were still here to see how truly he forecast the world we’re living in now.