This book doesn't read much like a novel, it's much more like a series of short stories focused around the same character. It's like some snapshots of events during one man's life.

The main character is a Walter Franklin, who has come to the undersea world of Whale Wardening late in life following an aborted space career. We meet him as he starts a rather intensive training program under the tutelage of a first Warden called Don Burley, and see him develop through his career in the Bureau of Whales.

This book shows Clarke's mastery of SF. He excels in the near future stories, taking one aspect of human society and extrapolating forward to see how the next generations will see it. At a little over 200 pages this book has more plot than some novel series I have read. This is another of the books that would probably not get published in its current form. There is no padding at all, we get the story stripped bare of superfluous detail, we get just enough to tell the tale and no more. Another fine read from a great writer.