THE SEA GIRL

THE SEA GIRL is a lost world science fiction novel by American author, RAY CUMMINGS, originally serialized in ARGOSY ALL-STORY WEEKLY in 1929. The first book edition was published by A. C. MCCLURG in 1930, using the same Robert A. Graef cover from the first ARGOSY ALL-STORY WEEKLY installment. The story takes place in 1990, sixty years from when it was written. A world in which few conventional ships remain. Overseas trade and travel are dominated by aircraft and giant submarines. Jeff Grant, the narrator of the story, is second officer on a commercial submarine. Aboard his submarine is 18-year-old Arturo Plantet, the son of a doctor who has retired from medicine to take up oceanography. Odd things are happening at sea. Several of the remaining surface ships have sunk, for no apparent reason. Then a submarine sinks. The tides are behaving abnormally. At least that’s what is assumed at first but slowly it becomes obvious that sea levels are falling. Falling dramatically. Then comes a report that a mermaid was seen on an island in Micronesia. Jeff Grant goes to investigate and discovers a beautiful woman from an undersea civilization named Nereid. The civilization is ruled by another beautiful but evil woman, the Empress Rhana. It is a lost-world story with a romance between Nereid and Arturo, but it’s also a story of a struggle between competing civilizations.