Harry Turtledove is a prolific SF author, with both time travel and alternate history series. Now he gives his fans a story of first contact with aliens - "Three Miles Down" on the ocean floor!

We meet the lead, UCLA marine biology grad student Jerry Stieglitz in 1974. He makes a bit extra by selling SF short stories, and is about to marry his fiancée. His plans are suddenly interrupted, when various agencies pressure him to join Project Azorian in the north Pacific Ocean. They also offer a large cash carrot.

There are cover stories within cover stories, but the bottom line - at the bottom of the ocean - is a dead Russian sub and an alien spacecraft. Of course, all the experts (CIA, RAND scientists etc.) are at a loss and it's the student storyteller who figures out what to do. And, as always, the author brings the era to life.

At the height of the Cold War and on the brink of the 1974 Watergate scandal, the US discovers a sunken Soviet submarine…and something they didn’t expect. Something they want to keep even more secret. Under the guise of harvesting undersea manganese nodules, they recruit a team of experts, including marine biology grad student and aspiring science fiction author, Jerry Stieglitz. After being sworn to secrecy, Jerry learns the secret-inside-the-secret: the Soviet sub is sitting on top of an alien spaceship. They want Jerry not only to bolster their disguise when Soviet warships come to check them out but to use his writerly imagination in interacting with the ship and its inhabitants, both dead and in suspended animation. His insight (derived from the scene at the doors of Moria, “speak friend and enter”) opens the door to the ship, for example. Of course, all does not go swimmingly. These are the days of anticommunist paranoia, an increasingly embattled POTUS, and paranoid intelligence agencies. The stakes for Jerry are not just being kicked off a lucrative and historic mission, but survival itself.

Turtledove is a terrific writer, combining sfnal First Contact elements, humor, the unfolding domestic political drama, and human interactions, whether it’s Jerry’s friendships with the others on his alien-spaceship team or his difficulties with his fiancée when he goes missing for months. All this is highly enjoyable, fast reading, but what I found most delightful were the many homage-to-science-fiction touches, like a love letter to fans. There’s even a guest appearance by a well-known hard science fiction author (I won’t divulge who!) that had me laughing out loud at how brilliant the portrayal was. (I’d met the guest-appearance author and yet, that’s exactly what they’d say!)

This latest novel from the master of alternate history is part amusing, part terrifying, and mostly frustrating.

Let's begin with the events that are part of real life:

On March 8, 1968, the Soviet submarine K-129 sank with 98 crew members in the middle of the North Pacific. The Soviet Navy made several attempts to find it, without success. In August of the same year, the American submarine Halibut located the site of the wreck and took photographs of it. As a result, President Nixon authorized a secret CIA mission to bring the submarine to the United States in order to seize its nuclear weapons and cryptography manuals. For that purpose, a specially modified ship, the Hughes Glomar Explorer, was built to resemble a drilling ship, but it actually carried an extendable claw that would grab the K-129 and pull it up to the surface. In 1974, the ship was sent to the Pacific, while businessman Howard Hughes, under CIA instructions, gave the press the cover story that the operation was merely about mining manganese in the ocean floor. As it turned out, the hull of the submarine was broken and only a small part of it could be recovered. To this day, the exact location of the wreck and what was found in it are classified information. In fact, the heated controversy that erupted when the operation was made publicly known led the CIA to invent its trademark "can neither confirm nor deny" response.

And here's where alternate history writer Harry Turtledove inserts the fictional hook: What if the K-129 was sunk by aliens? What if the CIA mission wasn't so much interested in finding the submarine as in getting to the crashed spaceship before the Soviets did? And what would such a technological treasure trove in American hands mean for the course of the Cold War?

Turtledove's novel Three Miles Down is advertised as a first contact story, but, at the risk of spoiling the last sentence of the last chapter, I must warn the reader that that description depends on a generous definition of "contact." The bulk of the novel is concerned with a fictional marine biologist/aspiring science fiction writer, Jerry Stieglitz, who is suddenly recruited to participate in the submarine recovery mission as a junior scientific advisor. Although his rank in the mission is rather low, he becomes instrumental in figuring out the secrets of the alien spaceship and designing protocols for first contact.

However, what little we get of actual "contact" isn't enough to compensate for the interminable political discussions that fill the book. In real life, the secret mission coincided with the final weeks of the Watergate crisis, and Turtledove takes advantage of every available chance to tell the reader what each character thinks of Nixon. A disconnect in worldviews quickly becomes evident: Jerry is the poster image of the '70s liberal hippie, but his positions sound jarringly retrograde to the 21st-century reader. During his preparation for first contact, he reflects on human history and concludes that "The settlement of the New World seemed about as close to contact with aliens as people had ever really come."

Yikes.

Three Miles Down is written in a longwinded style, pausing on each step of each small movement to describe it in full, painstaking, laborious, minutiose, detail. Even the simple action of staying in place gets the circumlocutionary transmogrification: instead of writing "The ship kept its position," Turtledove writes "She got there and she stayed there and nowhere else." This habit gets even more irritating when added to the book's penchant for the unprompted digression. Two characters may be discussing the structural stability of a piece of machiner, and if the reader blinks, they'll have switched to movie awards for adaptations of conspiracy theory literature. Another conversation starts with the bodies of dead sailors found under the sea and somehow swerves to fun facts on genre fiction market trends.

With a more compelling protagonist, these authorial quirks might be more palatable. However, Jerry Stieglitz is not easy to get used to. He thinks almost entirely in terms of pop culture references that he's always proud to assume other people don't know. Too often, he jumps to think of a science fiction story he's read so he can compare it with the situation he's in, which only contributes tiny moments of flavor to the novel at the cost of hearing Turtledove discreetly coughing in the background, pointing at his personal library. Whenever Jerry has an original idea, the rest of the characters congratulate him on having the unconventional creativity of a science fiction writer, which, in a book written by a science fiction writer, can't help but sound cringeworthily self-serving. And when he's not thinking of science fiction, his mind goes to a less savory place: at one point he looks at the spaceship "with an avidity he hadn't known since the very first time he opened a Playboy to the centerfold." Between making off-color remarks about women, coming up with private inside jokes about everything, and playing petty power games with his fiancée, Jerry comes off as a status-obsessed patriarch wannabe.

More than the narration of an adventure, Three Miles Down can be taken as a portrait of a pivotal era in Cold War tensions, in gender relations, and in the science fiction scene. There's almost as much plot dedicated to Jerry's newlywed domestic hurdles as to his dip into international spy secrets. The big promised moment is delayed for so long that the story comes very close to not even counting as alternate history. The reader who expects to see how alien contact will change the world will be sorely disappointed by this book. Its actual focus is on how alien contact changes one guy. If you can stomach the guy's personality, then you'll find something to enjoy here.


The Math

Baseline Assessment: 6/10.

Bonuses: +1 for a rigorous handling of its timeline.

Penalties: −1 for outdated gender politics, −1 because the ending leaves the reader feeling cheated.

Nerd Coefficient: 5/10.

Harry Turtledove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Turtledove is the author of more than 100 novels. Three Miles Down was published in 2022.

I categorize this novel as G. The novel is set in the early 1970s. The primary character is Jerry Stieglitz, a marine biology graduate student at UCLA and part-time science fiction author. He is approached by the CIA to take part in a secret mission. A Soviet submarine had been lost and then discovered by the US. He is told that he will be part of a marine biology cover story for a ship attempting to recover the sub. He jumps at the chance for a well-paying summer stipend and the opportunity to gather research data.

He finds out that the real mission is the retrieval of what appears to be an alien spacecraft. A specially built ocean research ship travels to the North Pacific to find the spacecraft. The crew struggles to retrieve the vessel and find themselves faced with a first-contact situation.

Their ship is surveilled on and off by a Russian vessel, causing tensions to rise. Stieglitz is not always comfortable with the secrecy around the project or the longer-term goals of the CIA.

I enjoyed the 10+ hours I spent reading this 279-page alternate history novel. I have been a fan of books by Mr. Turtledove for many years. Among his recent novels that I have read are The House of Daniel, Bombs Away, Fallout, and Through Darkest Europe. This story is a bit slow but very engaging. I hope to see a sequel in the near future. The chosen covert is very eye-catching. I give this novel a rating of 4.5 (rounded to 5) out of 5.

You can access more of my book reviews on my Blog ( https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/).

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Published by Tor Books on July 26, 2022

Harry Turtledove often writes alternate histories. Three Miles Down might fit within that classification, or it might be taken as a previously unknown historical episode. The novel makes no dramatic changes in the world’s history, save for the discovery of alien life. If that discovery has an impact on the world, it isn’t explored. While the story involves first contact with aliens, most of the plot revolves around politics and the Cold War at the end of Nixon’s presidency and early in Ford’s.

Jerry Stieglitz is a grad student in oceanography. He’s writing a dissertation on the sounds made by whales. He also dabbles in writing science fiction. He’s about to get married but wonders if the downside of living with a woman is likely to be offset by the upside of regular sex. He also wonders how he will respond to the need for marital compromise, but that concern might be academic as his future wife seems intent on running the show.

Jerry is offered a good chunk of money to join a crew on a vessel engaged in undersea mining. He is required to keep the ship’s true mission secret, under penalty of death. He believes the vessel will be raising a Russian nuclear submarine from the ocean floor. While that was its mission at one point, the mission changed when the search for the sub discovered another vessel on the ocean floor. This one seems to be an alien spaceship.

Jerry is recruited because (1) he speaks some Russian, (2) he knows something about oceans, (3) he’s given some thought to how whales communicate (which might facilitate communication with aliens), and (4) he writes science fiction and therefore has greater insight into space aliens than the CIA agents and technicians who seem to be the mining ship’s primary crew. There are probably hundreds of people more qualified than Jerry to make first contact, but the reader needs to buy into the premise to enjoy the story.

After the spaceship is lifted, Jerry uses his knowledge of Lord of the Rings to gain entry. Jerry and a friend poke around for a while, object to the CIA’s attempt to chisel material from the hull, and are booted out of the project. The rest of the book follows Jerry as he tries to avoid assassination by the CIA. That was easier before surveillance cameras lurked on every corner.

Jerry’s references to Heinlein and other classic figures of science fiction are fun, as is the CIA’s decision to replace Jerry (who is something of a hippy and therefore unreliable in the CIA’s view) with Jerry Pournelle, a classic sf author whose politics were quite far to the right. Pournelle died a few years ago, so it’s impossible to know whether he would have been honored by his inclusion in the story. He seems to have had a big ego so I’m guessing he would be secretly pleased while finding something to gripe about.

A reader might question whether Jerry’s choices are smart, but Turtledove keeps the story moving. His prose is straightforward. While the narrative isn’t particularly suspenseful, it at least left me wondering what would happen next. The ending only resolves part of the story and might leave room for a sequel. Jerry is a likable guy, although he seems a bit flighty. His comments about his soon-to-be wife ring true for the early 1970s but might be seen as less than PC by current standards. I thought they were moderately entertaining, regardless. I had the same reaction to the book as a whole.

RECOMMENDED

"Three Miles Down" by Harry Turtledove is a suspenseful, entertaining, and humorous account of the life of a grad student in oceanography who gets pulled into an the world of international intrigue and ominous three letter organizations. Turtledove fills the novel with numerous inside jokes that appear to SF fans, anyone who has ever been a grad student, been in a relationship, ridden a boat, lived in LA, been Christian or Jewish, driven an old car, or been alive during either the unfortunate Nixon or Trump eras.

I really enjoyed this book, and look forward to reading more of Turtledove's works. I thank Harry Turtledove and Tor Books for kindly providing a temporary electronic review copy of this book. Thanks!

Without a doubt, one of my Best Books of 2022, and not just of this year! Harry Turtledove is an exceptionally talented author, thinker, imaginer, science-oriented, and historian. What he does with the concept of First Contact in THREE MILES DOWN is beyond belief and "out of this world." Couched in the rampant political paranoia of the mid-1970's, as Nixon and Watergate polarized the Vietnam War-divided American populace even further, Mr. Turtledove also manages to peel his characters like onions and riff on Academia, father-son conflicts, friendship, marriage, World War II, Stalin...and the CIA. Jerry Stieglitz immediately rose to the small pantheon of my favorite fictional characters--he is at all times a delight--and the Ending! Mind-boggling and so thought-provokingly unforgettable. I am now racing off to read the entire Turtledove Oeuvre as soon as possible.

First thing you need to know: This book is light on the actual aliens, heavy on the political and moral implications of the possibility of aliens. That said, I did like the book! But if you are looking for a focus on first contact itself, this probably isn't it. In Three Days Down, we're introduced to Jerry. He's a grad student in the 1970s, moonlighting as a sci-fi writer. He's pretty comfortable in his life, has a fiancé, steady job, a modest apartment.

One day, Jerry gets a visit from some CIA fellows who'd like him to accept an opportunity. He doesn't know anything about it, but come on, who exactly would be able to turn down... whatever it is? Not Jerry, anyway. So he agrees, and finds out piece by piece what his mission will entail. He's going down in a submarine to basically fish for Soviets. Only when Jerry gets there, he finds out he's fishing less for Russians, and more for extraterrestrials.

The bulk of the story deals with Jerry's journey, both internally, and as it relates to the mission. The government is a giant mess, and no one can agree on how to proceed. Jerry's ideas are certainly the most appropriate and humane, yet Jerry wields very little power for decision making. Even so, Jerry's ideas clearly have value to the program, and he's got to make some very serious decisions. How far will he be willing to go to get the answers he craves? Will he be able to change the minds of any of the hardheads he's dealing with? Will their decisions doom humanity?

The story is certainly thought provoking, as you can't help but wonder what you would do in a similar position as Jerry. In addition, Jerry is dealing with his own mundane life stuff, that certainly many of us can relate to. I will say, it did feel a bit like this would have a sequel- or if it wasn't intended to, we're really not going to know how the alien storyline plays out, so be warned. That was probably my major complaint, that would lessen a bit if I knew if this was to be a series or a standalone. As it stands now, it is a story mostly dealing with the lead up to alien relationships, and contemplating the moral ramifications of such contact. Interesting and thought provoking no doubt, but also without answering the question.

Bottom Line: Provided a lot of introspection on what would happen if aliens were found, and the political ramifications of such an event, and look into how one man's life would change, and the choices he'd have to make.

Amid the country learning the details of Watergate, marine biology grad student and sci-fi writer Jerry Stieglitz is learning about an even bigger American secret. A space ship sunk a Russian submarine, and the CIA has a plan to raise the space ship from where it lies 3 miles under water. This novel is part sci-fi and part political intrigue. I enjoyed how grounded it was in history; although, some of the comparisons between now and the events of the 70s were a little hard to read.

This wasn’t for me. Absolutely nothing happened that the protagonist, Jerry, contributed to or took part in in a meaningful fashion. He was merely an observer in his book, with endless conversations about politics and other things that didn’t drive the plot, with people who were as bland and boring as he was. I kept hoping for a counter-factual twist where Nixon doesn’t resign, or something new apart from the alien ship that took forever to make an appearance, but absolutely nothing interesting happened by the time I stopped reading around mid-point, and nothing compelled me to continue.

Early seventies apparently has nothing to distinguish itself outside Nixon and the Vietnam war, and while the few details were amusing, they weren’t enough to make this interesting. But if you like slow stories from a point of view of a clueless outsider thrown into events he has no control over, this is for you. And who knows, maybe the latter half makes a difference.

Harry Turtledove was dubbed “the master of alternate history” in Publisher’s Weekly way back in 2008. He’s been a published author since 1979, writing under various pseudonyms as well as under his real name. He’s dabbled in science fiction, historical fiction, and mysteries as well as alternate history. Turtledove may be best known for his Southern Victory and WorldWar series, alternate histories of the Civil War and World War II.

In Three Miles Down Turtledove gives us an alternate history story about alien first contact, set in the America of the early 1970s.

First contact story lines vary wildly. There are the evil alien invaders intent on destroying or subjugating the human race as seen from HG Wells’ War of the Worlds of the 1890s to the 1996 film Independence Day, and many more before and since.

At the other end of the spectrum are the aliens who “come in peace”, or at least mean us no harm. Like ET. All he wanted to do was phone home. Or, like the Vulcans of Star Trek: First Contact, who came to greet humanity after Zefram Cochrane’s successful development of warp drive technology.

Three Miles Down falls somewhere in the middle. The aliens here don't reveal themselves to be world conquerors nor friendly ambassadors. They may be passersby in the spirit of ET, but it’s hard to say because in fact we only get a glimpse of them. If I could compare this book to any other First Contact work I’d have to say that it shares a lot with the 1977 movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As in that movie, the focus here is much more on the impact on a handful of common people when extraterrestrials are confirmed to visit earth.

Jerry Stieglitz is a graduate student in marine biology at UCLA, who is an avid sci fi fan and sells short stories to science fiction magazines. Like many of his peers in the early 70s he wears his hair long and sports a beard. When we first meet him he’s wearing powder blue corduroy bell bottoms, and listening to humpback whale songs. He’s interrupted by a knock at his door. Opening the door he finds a couple of CIA men, and a man named Steve from the RAND Corporation. They are there to “invite” Jerry to accompany them on their mission aboard the Glomar Explorer, ostensibly a deep sea mining vessel owned by the mysterious Howard Hughes.

But, he's told, the Hughes story is just that - a cover story for a quest by the CIA to recover a sunken Soviet submarine. Yet Jerry finds, after he agrees to sign on the dotted line and join their mission, that the cover story hides another mission - the REAL mission - to haul up a submerged spaceship from three miles under the ocean. This is not a human spaceship.

Plenty of the reality of early 1970s America is spread through the book, as the Nixon presidency grinds to its historic end. Surprisingly, the Glomar Explorer, it’s mission to recover a Soviet sub, and the Hughes cover story are all real.

The focus remains on Stieglitz, and the growth and changes he goes through, along with his fiancée (and then wife) Anna, as the aliens are encountered and Cold War drama and skullduggery plays out. It’s actually kind of a sweet story of young love overcoming obstacles. That story, along with bits about Jerry’s sci-fi writing, and his encounters with some real life sci-fi writers and editors, is the heart of the book.

Which is why it’s so interesting that the book ends on a seeming cliffhanger as humans attempt to bring the aliens found aboard the sunken ship out of suspended animation. Whether this means that a sequel is on its way, or that the story Turtledove wanted to tell is done, and the aliens themselves aren't that central to it, I'm not entirely sure. But it's likely a safe bet that a sequel (and probably a series) is in the works.

For me, though, this book is complete in and of itself. The pace is a bit slow, but the characters, the story, and the dip back in time to the early 70s were all well done and made for an enjoyable read.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

There's a saying that often gets trotted out anytime a movie, TV show, or book spends all its time laying the groundwork for a sequel it never gets - never save your best ideas for the sequel. If you've got a good idea, use it now. It's a saying that could easily apply to any number of recent projects. And it's one that definitely applies to Harry Turtledove’s new novel, "Three Miles Down." Set during the 1970s, "Three Miles Down" is one-part political thriller and one-part First-Contact science fiction romp. Unfortunately, the book features very little political intrigue and even less “First Contact”. Instead, "Three Miles Down" reads like the prelude to an as-yet-unannounced sequel. And that's a pretty big bummer considering how solid the premise is.

It's 1974. The Cold War is on everyone's mind. And the Watergate scandal is nearing its climax. But unbeknownst to the American public, the US Navy has found something at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Something that might just be out of this world. At least that's what the CIA agents tell grad student Jerry Stieglitz when they convince him to join a clandestine mission to rescue the craft and uncover its secrets. What follows is something that Jerry couldn't have even begun to imagine in his most inventive stories. But naturally, the mission proves to be a political and bureaucratic nightmare. And in a political climate where no secret seems safe, is there any hope of any of the team keeping such a monumental discovery from leaking to an unsuspecting and unprepared public?

Combining the paranoia of the 1970s with the world of UFO conspiracies feels like a match made in heaven. And it would've been had the book followed through on that combination. Instead, Turtledove takes a surprisingly lackadaisical approach to the premise. The pacing itself isn't necessarily slow, per se. It's just that very little happens between major plot points. And this lack of action robs the book of the opportunity to build up any real tension. For example, much of the book's first third revolves around various characters endlessly talking about what they might or might not do once they've gotten the alien spacecraft onto the boat. And then the book breezes past the actual process of getting the spacecraft onto the boat, launching into a new set of questions all about what the best ways to approach First Contact are. And so on and so forth.

When all the interesting stuff happens off-page, or when it gets endlessly discussed by the characters, it's hard to feel like there's any urgency to what's going on. None of the characters seem all that worried about the idea of the aliens, the possibility of their existence leaking, or anything along those lines. So, subsequently, the reader doesn't feel like there's much to worry about either. And you'd think that a healthy dose of political intrigue might fix this, given that the Nixon impeachment and resignation literally occurs in the story's background.

But Turtledove decides to push most of that intrigue and paranoia towards the story’s outer edges. Sure, Jerry is a hardcore liberal, the kind of person these rank-and-file CIA agents might call a “commie”. But none of this amounts to much more than a character trait for Jerry. And the book waits until the last possible to moment to even consider combining Cold War tensions with First Contact ones. The climax is easily where the book is most enjoyable. And I wish Turtledove had introduced more of those elements earlier in the book, giving the climax more room to breathe and the overall narrative a better sense of cohesion.

And speaking of Jerry, the novel spends so much time developing him, yet it never feels like he's given an actual character arc. He goes on a journey of sorts, sure. But it's primarily plot-driven rather than character-driven. On a character level, he doesn't seem to change all that much from the beginning of the story to the end. We don't get the impression that his worldview's been challenged all that much by everything he sees and learns while looking into this UFO. Or that his experiences have changed him in any fundamental way.

Sure, the latter half of the book tries to beef his storyline up with a little bit of subterfuge. But it feels too little too late. Especially since Turtledove takes the same approach to these elements as he does with the novel’s first third. Overall, Jerry’s a difficult character to care for. He's never all that sympathetic, despite the ways the book tries to endear him to readers. And since he doesn't really learn much or change much, there's not a whole lot to get invested in. Outside of his general survival, I guess.

Overall, "Three Miles Down" feels like a prelude to a different, more enjoyable story. Except the promotional material never suggests the book is anything other than a stand-alone story. And that's a big bummer because I think there was enough here for "Three Miles Down" to have been something special. It just feels like Turtledove decided to save all his best ideas for a sequel instead of using them here and now. So, we’re left with a political thriller devoid of any real political intrigue, and a First-Contact story with very little contact between aliens and humans. It's a fun enough read, I guess, especially if you enjoy a good retro sci-fi romp. But "Three Miles Down" doesn't live up to the potential of its premise.

First contact is one of the most widely explored themes in science fiction, and justifiably: What would it be like to encounter meaningful signs of alien life and then actually come face to face, or face to tentacle, with a being from another planet? In Harry Turtledove's latest book, it's the 1970s and our hero is UCLA grad student Jerry Stieglitz. He studies whale songs and tries to get his sci-fi stories published, and is startled when mysterious agents from the US Gov't ask him to join the crew of the Glomar Explorer. It's ostensible mission is to recover a sunken Soviet submarine, but when the real mission is revealed, Jerry's mind is blown: They've found an alien ship and want to bring it up to the surface and study it!

Turtledove is an incredibly experienced writer with dozens of alternative history and sci-fi titles to his name, which is why it's a bit surprising that this feels disorganized and oddly paced. After about the 50% mark in the story, Jerry returns to the mainland and then the next 100 or more pages are about his life with his father, friends, school, etc, with barely a mention of the alien find. It's a relief when it reappears in the story, though in the most improbable of ways and with the most unlikely and unbelievable of consequences. Be prepared for the ending too: This entire book turns out to be a prequel and you might be more than a smidge disappointed when you arrive at the last sentence.

One more note: Turtledove has been part of the sci-fi world for a long time and populates the book with famous science fiction writers, notably Ben Bova and Jerry Pournelle. It's disconcerting and feels more like a fanfic sort of addition than anything that propels the story forward.

I was attracted to this book initially because I'm a fan of Harry Turtledove's work in general, and the premise of this particular book sounded particularly entertaining (using such an odd but totally true historical event as the basis). Once I started reading, I could not put the book down. It is extremely readable and the author does a great job of capturing the time and place without being heavy handed. Highly recommended.