Secret Under the Sea, by Gordon R. Dickson

(I know there could be some mistakes in this review. I’m trying to improve my English, thanks)
I admit it may surprise you that my first Gordon R. Dickson’s novel is this one. Secret Under the Sea (1960) is undoubtedly a minor novel by the author, but I can not resist an underwater science fiction adventure, so why not start with this and later, "in the future," with the intention of read, for example, his best-known Dorsai series.

Cover courtesy of Goodreads

I have enjoyed this classic science fiction book with its naive vision of the future that is actually our past -the story is set in 2013-, so we can consider this novel with the label retro futurism.The adventure takes place in an ocean station located in the Caribbean. In this aspect, we must remember that in the sixties the seas were part of the promising future of humanity.

In this adventure Robbie, a twelve year old boy, and his genetically altered dolphin will see how his father's advanced ocean laboratory will be compromised by a kind of terrorists (they are called Vandals in the novel) and they must try to survive and call for help, with the aid of an ugly and eccentric super agent.

It is a pity that in our present we do not have the fabulous atom powered water lung that can extract oxygen from the wateer indefinitely. Or that we have not yet discovered aquatic life in the caves of Mars, although I admit that we would be more careful to bring species from other planets to our oceans. This is something that the Vandals oppose, making them in a curious way a kind of supremacists of terran biology. Well, why not? This is science fiction : )

In summary, an interesting juvenile novella -our present young adult literature I understand that it is a bit different- of aquatic adventures that I have enjoyed and whose two sequels I also intend to read.