The Deep Range
The story of whale herders in the dep ocean from a time when “men from the ministry” (almost invariably white and middle class, even the new Buddhist leader) knew what was best and did their duty to feed the rest of human kind. Lots of inter-departmental bickering and dated social attitudes but the technology predictions have stood up astonishingly well.
The premise (whale ranching on behalf of a unified global populace) just doesn’t hold water (hah!) anymore but the story is well told with some exciting action sequences and it covers a fair bit of ground in character development and time period.
I first read this as a very early teen, following on from “Dolphin Island” and expecting some more of what today we would “Young Adult” targetting but on a second read later in life I see that this was a proper grown up book for its time, but also very much of its time. Simpler days that I could almost be nostalgic for given the shitshow we seem to be in at the moment…