3.5
The Wind Whales of Ishmael
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Wind Whales of Ishmael Reviews
3.5
“I first read this book not long after it was originally published in the early 70s. I had only a vague memory of liking the book and flying whales, though, so I decided to give it another read. It's a exciting and interesting adventure story that I'm glad I read again.”
“I received this in a science fiction mystery book box and chuckled when I saw the title and cover, fully expecting it to be rubbish.
It begins with Ishmael (yes, that Ishmael) who has survived the encounter with the legendary white whale and is now sailing aboard another ship called 'The Rachel'. One night, strange eel-like beings appear in the water around the ship and the sea itself suddenly disappears, resulting in Ishmael, The Rachel and its crew falling through a mysterious sky. He plunges through the membranes of a strange and enormous mushroom-shaped creature floating above a dark sea below. This slows his descent and he witnesses his ship smash into another airborne vehicle before he lands in the sea, which he finds to be extremely salty and he proceeds to float to the surface, drifting to a distant shore. Here he witnesses flying sharks and whales devouring the floating mushroom creatures, finds a forest of parasitic plants and encounters a mysterious person along the way.
Despite the core premise being a little ridiculous, Farmer exercises some extremely compelling and thoughtful worldbuilding that is a joy to read. The book has no chapters and is only short, allowing for a quick and fun reading experience. I should also mention that I've never read Moby Dick in full so perhaps I would have picked up on some additional detail if I had. Some of the action is poorly described, the characters are extremely shallow and the plot is not particularly interesting.”
About Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) was born in North Terre Haute, Indiana, and grew up in Peoria, Illinois. A voracious reader, Farmer decided in the fourth grade that he wanted to be a writer. For a number of years he worked as a technical writer to pay the bills, but science fiction allowed him to apply his knowledge and passion for history, anthropology, and the other sciences to works of mind-boggling originality and scope.
His first published novella, “The Lovers” (1952), earned him the Hugo Award for best new author. He won a second Hugo and was nominated for the Nebula Award for the 1967 novella “Riders of the Purple Wage,” a prophetic literary satire about a futuristic, cradle-to-grave welfare state. His best-known works include the Riverworld books, the World of Tiers series, the Dayworld Trilogy, and literary pastiches of such fictional pulp characters as Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes. He was one of the first writers to take these characters and their origin stories and mold them into wholly new works. His short fiction is also highly regarded.
In 2001, Farmer won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and was named Grand Master by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.
Other books by Philip José Farmer
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