Book by David Graham 'Down to a Sunless Sea' ending query

[Danny McG]

This may have spoilers..

I've today finally finished a reread of the book, last read fully in the 1980's.
The ending differed a lot from my memories of it.

In my memory the WW3 survivors were at McMurdo base and had some very good news that was followed right away by very bad news.
They learned there had been an axial tilt caused by the nuclear war and within a couple of years they'd be living in a Tropical paradise.
Moments later a scientist dashed in and they learned the radiation levels were increasing and, like On The Beach, they were doomed. The final pages were cancer ridden victims taking suicide pills.

However the book I just read had them doing a Happy Dance and celebrating the good weather to come...no radiation deaths for all.

Were there two versions of the book or am I loopy?

(Or both!)

 

[Bick]

Interestingly, wikipeadia have this to say:

Soon after the characters arrive at McMurdo, it is realised that the tilt of the Earth on its axis is being affected by the numerous nuclear explosions. There are two different endings of Down To A Sunless Sea which suggest either a radioactive death for all the survivors with a theological twist, or minus the polar advance of radiation, a chance for the almost one thousand survivors to rebuild the world.

 

[Bick]

And this was posted by someone in LibraryThing:

Also, the story has 3 potential endings, depending on which edition of the book you have. My own copy (a 1986 printing from Fawcett Crest/Ballantine Books with 23 chapters) had the happier "Americanized" ending, which was more satisfying than some of the other options available. My understanding is that some editions end after chapter 21, and chapter 22.

This suggests that the older UK versions are bleak, and the more recent american version is the sunnier one. Which version is yours, Danny?

 

[Bick]

Grim British version on the left (1979-1981), sunnier Americanized version on the right (1984-1986):

 

[Danny McG]

The one I have (ebook) is 1986.
However I first read this story the week my local coalmine closed ...August 1984 when I got made redundant, I remember waiting outside the union office and reading it.

It looks like I now have the happy ending version instead.

Thanks for clarification

 

[Bick]

However I first read this story the week my local coalmine closed ...August 1984 when I got made redundant, I remember waiting outside the union office and reading it.

Oh man, that was a grim time - where in UK were you? Thatcher's Britain of the mid-80's huh - as divisive a time as there's been... until Brexit possibly. That wouldn't have been the most cheerful book to read at that moment! As a teenage soft southerner, quite divorced from such realities, my best appreciation of the time has come since then from movies such as Brassed Off.

That's a good idea for a thread though, "what locations stick notably in the mind as being where you read... " I find some books are ones I can recall exactly where I was while reading it. Others, I'd struggle to remember the place and time so specifically. I may start a thread...

 

[Danny McG]

That's a good idea for a thread though, "what locations stick notably in the mind as being where you read... " I find some books are ones I can recall exactly where I was while reading it. Others, I'd struggle to remember the place and time so specifically. I may start a thread...

Go for it!
Some have sprang to mind right away

 

[Danny McG]

Oh man, that was a grim time - where in UK were you

Small town called Whitehaven, working in the last coalmine in Cumbria.

Funnily enough there's been a fair bit in the press very recently because they are planning to open a new colliery here.
About a mile from my house.

Redirect Notice

 

[biodroid]

I thought Neville Shute wrote this...

 

[Danny McG]

I thought Neville Shute wrote this...

Nah, in the 'grim ending' version of this book there's a very similar premise to Shute's On the Beach, with them all topping themselves as they start really suffering from radiation sickness

 

[BigBadBob141]

I remember we did Shute's "A Town Like Alice" at school, the teacher told us the year before they did " On The Beach", and pupils were crying at the end, at such lovely scenes as parents grinding up suicide pills for their baby!
So radiation poisoning or POWs begin starved, beaten and crucified by the Japanese!!!
Oh boy did I have such fun times at school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S. I kid you not, one of my arts teachers thought it was a good idea to do a painting, there were two subjects to choose from.
Either Mary Queen Of Scots being beheaded or WW2 POWs being tied to trees and bayoneted to death!
Oh such fun, fun times!!!
The best years of your life, you've got to be kidding me!