Earth is an ocean planet. Water covers over seventy percent of its surface at an average depth of two miles. Yet at the beginning of the twentieth century, though human explorers have navigated the earth and soared through the skies, one earthly realm remains silent and hostile: The deep. Its crushing pressures kill all who attempt to invade its forbidden darkness. Then, in 1930, an adventurous scientist and a wealthy dreamer undertake a daring voyage in a tiny steel capsule, to a place no living man has ever gone. Success will make them ocean science pioneers. Failure will end in death. Awaiting them... beckoning them... is a fantastic unexplored universe. This is the story of these first intrepid descents into the abyss.