Last update: July 1, 2005
This bibliography contains science fiction and other forms of fiction, poetry books, comic books, and short stories with dolphin and/or whale characters and themes, including works for young adults. For additional fictional works for younger readers, including Hardy Boys and Dana Girls mysteries, please refer to the Cetacean Children's Bibliography--Fiction, Nonfiction, and Other Resources. Please note that with the exception of Moby Dick and a few other titles, works primarily about the whaling industry are not included in this list. For further information on fictional works with whaling themes, see the nonfiction work The Whale, edited by L. H. Matthews.
Many thanks to the readers of alt.animals.dolphins, who provided the seed list for this bibliography, and special thanks to Stacy Braslau-Schneck and her two friends Bob Post and Magnus Redin, Scott Taylor, Rex Kahler, Frank Glover, and V2276G@vm.temple.edu.
Extra special thanks to Scott Taylor for his annotated list (Scott's comments are included where provided, sometimes appended to by me or others); to Frank Glover for his extensive list and ongoing help, and especially for his short-story references; and to Bob Post for his excellent coded list.
Key:
Above the Lower Sky, Tom Deitz. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1995. (FS)
From the dust jacket: "With Above the Lower Sky, [Tom Deitz] etches a dark and fantastic tale that seamlessly combines Celtic myth and Native American lore with future speculation and cetacean science."In the year 2024, in the shining New World capital of North America's independent Indian tribes, three extraordinary young people are brought together by a series of bizarre events: Kevin Mauney, who travels halfway across the globe to deliver a cryptic, troubling message . . . Kevin's estranged sister Carolyn, who dies and is miraculously reborn while investigating the unexplained murder/mutilation of scores of intelligent sea mammals . . . and a Cherokee diplomat/traditional dancer named Thunderbird O'Connor, who stumbles into a nightmare one evening on a secluded Mexican beach. A shared destiny unites the three here where the fate of civilization will ultimately be decided--for each has a unique role to play in the resolution of a multi-species conspiracy that predates humankind. And here, where the upper and lower skies meet, three unlikely warriors must now prepare to do magical battle--in order to defeat with the power of the word, faith and song a terror that has risen up from the ocean's depths to walk the world of men."
Trisha: An edgy, good read that weaves in a dark twist on the Selkie legends. I read this book the same week I read Ken Grimwood's Into the Deep, and although they are entirely different in story and style, I was intrigued by the similarities in basic structural elements.
Agviq: The Whale, Michael Armstrong. Questar, 1990. (CF)
From the author (wordfolk@xyz.net): "Although the title is the Inupiaq (Northern Alaskan Eskimo) word for the bowhead whale, Agviq is less about whales and more about survival. Sometime in the later twentieth Century, a nuclear war cuts off Barrow, Alaska, from the rest of the world. The Inupiaq and non-Native survivors of this holocaust come to understand that continued survival means going back to the old ways. While present-day Inupiaq continue their subsistence traditions, including the IWC-sanctioned hunting of the bowhead whale, for narrative purposes I suggest that these traditions have been lost."To relearn their old ways, the people of Barrow, or Utqiagvik, seek the help of Claudia, an anthropologist stranded in the north while doing research. The plot involves the struggle between those who would steal what little resources remain to survive and those who seek to reinvent a subsistence culture. Claudia and the others understand that for the culture to survive, they must also look to agviq, and learn again how to hunt--using skinboats and harpoons--the bowhead whale. Implicit in whaling is the idea that while hunting whales can provide tons of meat, more importantly it creates the community necessary for hunting whales--and necessary for surviving in the Arctic. So my novel is about survival, but it's also about the importance of people working together to create communities, which make survival that much easier. Creating communities, of course, is also how we create cultures, and keep cultures--in whatever form they wish to be--continuing. "I wrote Agviq for many reasons, but I think I wrote it as a metaphor about the real threats facing Alaskans--not just Native Alaskans--today. As an Alaskan, I care about my state, and the increasing alcoholism and loss of culture. Though I am not Native, I see the Native struggle to survive as a distinct and worthy culture as similar to the Alaskan desire to keep a sub- culture alive and distinct from the larger American culture. Similar conflicts exist throughout our world today, and can be expressed as the conflict between local societies and an overwhelming larger society.
"As a story about aboriginal whaling, Agviq is written out of respect for the whale. I try not to mystify the bowhead whale, to make it something more than it is, but I try to show the proper respect. The Inupiaq believe that agviq will come to those who show respect to the whale. Many of the ancient and even modern whaling traditions involve conducting the hunt in the proper manner. When whaling captains strike and land a whale, they must hold a fest for the community. Meat is shared with elders. And so on.
"The idea for Agviq came to me when I spent the summers of 1980 and 1981 working on archaeological digs in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in Barrow. Over the years I worked on the novel, first as a short story ("Going After Arviq," in Afterwar, ed. by Janet Morris, Baen Books 1985), and then as my third novel. Living in Barrow provided me with much of the personal knowledge needed to write the book. I'm also fortunate to have many fine teachers of Arctic anthropology."
Trisha: If you wish to converse with the author about aboriginal whaling (which I have done, as I hope to see the eventual end of all forms of modern whaling), you may write to him at his address above.
Aka, Tristan Jones. New York: Macmillan, 1981. (CF*)
From the dust jacket: "The longest period of time that Aka's dolphin tribe stays in one place is when the females give birth. Each August, when the calves are 2 to 3 months old, the 140-odd members of the tribe leave St. Paul's Rocks in the mid-Atlantic where the births have taken place--and which legend has it is the site of the vanished Atlantis--and head west to the Caribbean. Eventually they move northward into the Gulf Stream, and later make their four-month way east across the Atlantic to their traditional landfall in Spain. Still later, the dolphins swim down the coast of Africa to return to St. Paul's."Crossing the path of Aka and his tribe at sea is Conan, a middle-aged adventurer who has entered a single-handed trans-Atlantic sailing race, seeing it as his last chance to win status and success. In the course of the race, a sudden change in the wind makes Conan lose his balance and fall overboard. Alone in the still waters, he fights to keep from drowning.
"In a spellbinding tale involving man and that other intelligent mammal--the dolphin--Aka and the dolphins discover Conan's plight, relate to and communicate with him, and work to keep him afloat and alive.
"In Aka Tristan Jones has written a stirring novel of sea adventure--as real and as bracing as the wind and the spray in a sailor's face. But Mr. Jones has given us something more: an unforgettable portrait of Aka and the bottle-nosed dolphins: their ancient history, their extraordinary manner of communication, their courtship and mating, their hunting habits and playful antics, and most of all their eternal friendship with man."
The author, who has sailed the Atlantic eighteen times, nine times alone, writes in the forward: " . . . My tale is told . . . for those who have never stepped on board an ocean-sailing vessel, who have never known the elation of running free before the wind under a star-laden sky, who have rarely seen our wonderful relatives, the mammals of the sea, except in captivity . . . "
All the Weyrs of Pern, Anne McCaffrey. New York: Ballantine, 1992. (SF)
Ambrosia and the Coral Sun, Sherri L. Board. Newport Beach, Calif.: Tug Press, 1994. (F)
From the back cover: "Dive beneath the waves and meet Ambrosia, a mystical ocean-breathing Zel, her whale sidekick, Tug, and the evil phantom, Zelatar. Join forces with Ambrosia as she struggles to free the Zel race from Zelatar's wicked reign and sea life from man's deadly pollution. It all happens amid a frenzied stampede of colorful coral and giant sea fans fleeing land and forming a fantastic image of the Sun on the bottom of the ocean -- the Coral Sun!"
And God Created Whales, written, composed, and performed by Rinde Eckert. Featuring Nora Cole. Directed by David Schwitzer, The Foundry Theatre, New York, June 2000.
From a review by David Spencer (www.aislesay.com/NY-WHALES.html): ". . . it's not like anything else that ever existed, it deserves a much longer life than its limited off-off Broadway run, and if you miss it, you'll be shy one lifetime-worthy theatrical memory."Written, composed, and performed by Rinde Eckert, the 75-minute piece is about a composer [Nathan] who--we learn before the action begins--has been informed by doctors that he is losing his mind . . . The deterioration is inevitable and unstoppable.
"And he hasn't completed his opus yet: an opera based on Moby Dick.
". . . Thematically it's a fascinating riff on the nature of artistic obsession--the need to create as a compulsion, even a primal force. And what better metaphorical representation than the need to complete an opera based on Moby Dick--featuring Ahab, the ultimate obsessive. The completion of the opus is Nathan's great whale."
Animal Man comic. Issue no. 15. September, 1989. Written by Morrison, Truog, and Hazelwood. New York: DC Comics.
Trisha: Terrific issue pitting the good guys and Dolphin (a female aquatic comic character) against the Faroese Island dolphin and whale butchers. With imagined dolphin thoughts about what it is like to be a dolphin and what it is like to suffer human carnage.An excerpt of a dolphin's thoughts: "One day only the world will exist no more agony no more fear in all the vast enfolding of time and the world . . . one day . . . until then the killing will continue the bloodspilling slaughter of innocents . . . until then there will be oppression and pain and sadness . . . that is the way . . . that is the way of the sad hu-men . . . our way is different."
Apostrophes to Myself. E. F. Dyck. Lantzville, B.C.: Oolichan Books, 1987. Email: oolichan@island.net.
From the author: Apostrophes to Myself is "a collection of 'dolphin poems,' in which the literal dolphin becomes a figure of the narrator's desire to know the unknowable!"From the dust jacket: ". . . Through the symbol of the dolphin, E. F. Dyck reveals the subtle relationships/associations implied in his theory of rhetoric. The prairie dolphin, in all its symbolic complexity, becomes a source of meditation and persuasion, and hence, the means by which the author invites dolphin into being -- and us into the Unity of which it is a part.
Trisha: A wonderful paean to the yin-yang and ultimate mystery of dolphins (and language and life).
Includes poems entitled Found Dolphins; Topography; Anatomy I; Anatomy II; I Want You, Hermaphroditus; Arrested Speed; Yin-Yang Dolphin; My Dark Darling, My Dolphin; In Relief; Morphine Dolphin; The Dolphins of Lucretius; Dolphin of Dolphin; Blue Dolphin, Definition of Dolphin; Ricercar (or, to Seek); How Shall I Say Hills? He Works on His Tan; He Plays a Clarinet; A Theory of Communication; An Alternate Theory; Phaeton and Apollo and the Dolphins; Winter; and Goodbye Dolphins
The following excerpt and complete poem are reprinted with the permission of the author:
The last six lines of "Definition of Dolphin":
You are the cause of all causes
whose effects are themselves.How you hurt me with joy when you breach!
Pain is a dolphin whose name is ecstasyHow you never cry, never laugh,
always smile! We now nothing."Ricercar (or, to Seek)"
I have sought you, Dolphin,
and I have found you not.According to your royal command.
Your canticle of canticles remainsupon division of division by two
a canon of canons encoding itself.Your art is the art that delays,
your art is the art that defies.To seek and not to find is
to seek to seek a dolphin.
Aquaman comic book series. Adventure Comics. New York: National Periodical Publications.
Issue no. 443, Jan-Feb 1976: Aquaman, with the help of his marine friends, defeats a ring of criminals led by "The Fishermen", who are using dolphins to deliver drugs onshore from their offshore drug lab.Issue no. 27, Dec 1996: In the story "The Rising Sun," pp. 3-4, Aquaman and Dolphin speak to Aquaman's son Koryak, as they are shown swimming with bottlenose dolphins: "It's amazing the dolphins treat Porm with the greatest of reverence . . . give her the highest tributes . . . because she mothered me. But when she first took me in, she faced nothing but resistance. I can't think of any greater irony than that . . ." "Where are they bringing her, Dad?" "I don't know, Koryak. It's a place I've never seen. It's only for the most revered, the highest spirits in the dolphin culture." "They have a culture? A belief system?" "O yes, when those dolphins believed to be truly great in spirit die . . . they're brought to a sacred place where their spirits move to the next level of incarnation . . . as whales usually." "Oookay, and if whales have the souls of spiritually exceptional dolphins . . . what do lesser, or evil dolphins come back as?" "Humans." "Aw, come on!" "That's why dolphins have such affinity for humans. They're hoping to reach our to the lost souls trapped within . . . and bring them home to the way."
Aransas, Stephen Harrigan. Houston, Texas: Gulf Publishing, 1986. (CF*^)
From the dust jacket: "'We lay in ambush on the Laguna Madre, just below the lip of the great open basin of Corpus Christi Bay.' So begins Aransas, a book about the very tangible imprint on people's lives - in particular, the life of one young man who, after years of drifting, of emotional fastidiousness and thrift, returns to the place of his birth and his childhood."His name is Jeff Dowling, and he left Port Aransas, Texas, at the age of eighteen, thinking it was for good. But now he's back, summoned from the Santa Fe counterculture by an old family friend, one Dude Granger, to work in a porpoise show, the final installment of Dude's restless schemes to develop the Gulf Coast town.
"Summoned too by the porpoises themselves and his old memories of them - those silent, elegant creatures that (according to family legend) had saved his father's life during World War II and that, years later, Jeff himself had watched from the deck of his father's fishing boat. And as he works with the two he helps capture, teaching them their 'behaviors' while he learns to see them as distinct, sentient beings, Jeff finds himself swept up in a passion he cannot fully understand ('A part of my life fell away during those weeks,' he says. 'I swooned'), a passion that leads him to a pivotal decision of his life."
Arion & the Dolphin. A libretto by Vikram Seth. London: Phoenix House, 1994. (See also in the nonfiction bibliography Music, Myth and Nature or the Dolphins of Arion (Contemporary Music Studies, Vol. 6), by Francois-Bernard Mache.)
"An opera in nine scenes for professional and community peformers. The music is composed by Alec Roth and the libretto is by Vikram Seth. It was commissioned by the Baylis Programme at English National Opera."
Arm of the Starfish, Madeleine L'Engle. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965. (YA)
Trisha: Story of a scientist who has learned to regenerate missing limbs in starfish and other animals and the ensuing struggle to keep this information out of the hands of those who would use it improperly. One of the minor characters in the story is a dolphin named Macrina, who is loving and intelligent and protects some of the human characters from sharks.
Astride a Dolphin, Leonid Aronovich Zhukovitsky. Translated from Russian by Katharine Judelson. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1971. (CF)
From the back cover of Attar's Revenge: "The fiendish Black Lotus organization--called the Japanese Mafia by those who go in fear of it--has killed Attar's sister. But nothing would stop him from avenging her death. So he took the organization on by land--where his strength could defeat any single man . . . And by sea--where his unique breathing apparatus allowed him to stay alive under water . . . But it still remained to be seen if even his super power could outwit the deadly yellow peril of the Lotus!"Trisha: Somewhat similar in theme to Ecowar, with James-Bond-type action and violence, Attar's Revenge revolves around a secret organization with two highly trained, gill-enhanced humans (Attar and Essence) who set out to destroy the Black Lotus organization, a company that is, among other things, killing dolphins in fishing nets. Attar and Essence are aided by two dolphins (Sam and Lily) with whom they share telepathic communication.
Excerpt from the book: "Dolphins used to communicate vocally, aeons ago, and they still use speech in a limited way, in rituals and as a reflex in emergency situations. But they had perfected mind-to-mind communication before man had discovered fire.
"Then why, Attar asked, aren't dolphins the masters of the earth, instead of men? This drove the dolphins wild; they thought it was a fine joke.
"Mankind started going downhill, they explained, when he first learned to use tools. After that he tried to master his environment by changing it, rather than adapting to it. Delphine philosophers knew the enterprise was doomed from the start.
"This was the first time dolphins had talked to men for nearly two thousand years. The results of earlier attempts helped give dolphins their dim view of humanity.
"Sam and Lily had been trained from birth for the job of communicating with human beings. This had been done because many dolphins believed that men were going to die out soon, and it would be interesting to learn more about them, before it was too late.
"It would probably be too late in more than one sense, they said. Mankind would probably poison the earth and sea before it died or in the process of dying. They regarded the possibility with a great deal of interest--but not alarm. Attar and Essence were surprised to learn [that] dolphins viewed death as just another event, not terribly interesting unless the conditions surrounding it be interesting. Certainly nothing to get all excited about.
"The dolphins tried to explain this attitude to the humans. Attar tried to compare it to fatalism or a belief in predestination; the dolphins were amused.
"Sam and Lily had come over a thousand miles to meet Attar and Essence and make a final judgment as to whether they should try to communicate with them. Hundreds of others had been considered (various dolphins sending their suggestions along a telepathic grapevine), but the two mermen [Essence is actually a merwoman] were the final choice."
Excerpt on death with Sam communicating with Attar: "No, Attar, I know it is different with humans. But with us (pause) long before a dolphin is born, he feels the contractions of his mother's womb, the birthing spasms. He is thus awake and ready when he is born, and comes out alert and swimming.
"'So?'
"It is similar with death. What you call the soul, I think this part of you feels the tug of death long before the actual event.
"'But you can still fight it!'
"You can fight being born, Attar. The mother expels you anyway."
From the back cover of War of Nerves: "The villain Rasputin was blackmailing the U.S. Government, threatening to detonate forty drums of deadly nerve gas in the Caribbean. If he succeeded, it would mean the total destruction of every living thing in the area.
"Attar felt powerless to stop him, for Rasputin wore a deadman switch--if his heart stopped beating, the bomb would go off!"
Trisha: In this book, Attar is assisted by not only Sam, the bottlenose dolphin, but also Grampus, the name Attar gives to an orphaned orca who is raised by the dolphins.
From the book: "The killer whale's mind was even stranger territory than the minds of the dolphins. Dolphins are not exactly gentle--the ocean is unforgiving and a pacifist dolphin wouldn't live long enough to starve to death--but the only fish they kill for pleasure is the shark. Grampus got a little dark thrill every time he killed something, anything. In other respects, though, the killer whale's psychological make-up was very dolphinlife: playful, sarcastic, relatively unconcerned about his own death."
And on the failure of human scientists to learn to teach dolphins to talk: "They experimented with captive dolphins and porpoises, trying to . . . teach them how to mimic human words.
"Their success was not remarkable. Dolphins would learn a few words but refuse to say them on cue. They'd splash the experimenter and swim merrily away, or nibble on his toes, or just sit and look at him with those big, intelligent eyes. You could get better results with a parrot.
"The fact is, dolphins didn't want to communicate with men. Mankind was a dangerous, rapacious species beside whom even the killer whale was a gentle soul."
Bad Wisdom, Bill Drummond and Mark Manning. New York: Penguin, 1996. (Underground fiction)
"We had a plan: We were going to save the world -- the whales, the dolphins, the rainforests, the whole damn Walt Disney bunch, babe; we were gonna free Willy, . . . and slay dragons. We are Zen masters and know what . . . we are talking about."
La Ballena Varada, Oscar Collazos. Santillana Publishing Co., 1995. (CF)
Ballade pour un dauphin sacré, Francois-Xavier Pelletier. Paris: Editions Arthaud, 1988.
About the interspecies love affair between Pelletier and Koutta, a young female freshwater dolphin.
The Battle between the Elephant and the Whale, George Vincent. London: J. Blackwood & Co., 1879. (poetry)
Beast, Peter Benchley. New York: Random House, 1991. (CF)
Trisha: Primarily about giant squid, but whales play a not-insignificant role. A well-written page turner.
Black Satin, Donna Kauffman. Loveswept series no. 675. New York: Random House, 1994.(R)
From the back cover: "The dark bar might be the right place to hire an outlaw, but Cole Sinclair wasn't looking for a job -- and figured the lady with the diamond eyes needed a lesson in playing with danger... but he couldn't scare her off! He'd never be anyone's hero, but somehow she'd breathed life back into his embittered soul, made him feel respect -- and astonishingly fierce desire for this woman who dared to touch him."Once Cole Sinclair captured her . . ., Kira felt she'd carry his mark forever. . . . She'd offered him anything to recover her stolen dolphin, vowed to fight his demons, but Cole knew pain was all he had left of his heart. Could she prove she loved him, scars and all, and always would?"
Blueberg: Being the Narrative of His Adventures on a Tropic Shore with the Whale Blowhard, Geoff Taylor. London: Heinemann, 1960. (CF) (Blueberg is a seal.)
The Blue Dolphin, Robert Barnes. Tiburon, California: H. J. Kramer, Inc., 1994. Also published as Boji: The Blue Dolphin, a Story, Bratton: Dreamtime, 1992. Also availabe in German as Der blaue Delphin (Munich: W. Ludwig, 1996.)
From a review: "Based on current scientific understanding of dolphin capability, Robert Barnes weaves a fascinating story of life within the dolphin pod, their interactions with other pods and marine life, and the dangers posed to the dolphin by humans." Boji, the lead character in the novel, "challenges himself to do more and go farther than the other dolphins in the pod." He eventually "becomes a lone dolphin--a rugged individualist--driven by his love of learning."Scott: The story of a Dolphin who discovers that he needs to live his life apart from the other Dolphins, because he is so curious and independent. By the end, he has discovered that he is to be one of the Dolphins who interacts with Humans. A gentle story, with a message about our similarities. OK, not great.
Blue Gold, Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos. New York: Pocket Books, 2000. (CF)
"In this new adventure from the National Underwater & Marine Agency (NUMA) files, Kurt Austin and his partner Joe Zavala nearly die during a powerboat race when a pod of dead, bloated gray whales bobs to the surface and obstructs the race course. Attempting to discover what killed the whales, Kurt and Joe track their migratory route to a mysterious underwater laboratory on the Baja Peninsula."
Blue Whale comic. Issues no. 1 & 2 and two stories in Very Small Comics nos. 1 and 2. By Tim Corrigan.
From a review by Scott McCloud in Amazing Heroes #88: "Blue Whale's story begins in Very Small Comics #1 and #2 in a couple of half-length three-pagers . . . about a particularly depressed blue whale who is abducted -- albeit politely -- by an alien race from the planet 'Sproing.' The Sproingians gain energy from others' suffering and the big guy provides such a 'mother lode of misery' once hooked up to their machines that they gratefully offer to grant him one wish as payment. His choice: to become human."
The Blue Whale: The Complete Partitas, Murray Pomerance. Fragment Media, 1994.
Boiling Rock, Remar Sutton. Latham, N.Y.: British AmericaN Publishing, 1991.
From the back cover: "Dolphins and tourists die mysteriously on Grand Bahama Island. Death, evil, and mystery shroud the tiny village of Boiling Rock. Too many loose ends convince Evelyn Wade that these incidents are related, and she recruits an unlikely crew to find out why . . . "
Book of Puns: A Play on Whales, Gus Theodore. St. Louis, Missouri: Whale Publishing, 1986. Address: P.O. Box 21696, Saint Louis, Missouri 63109.
Some sample puns (all of which are illustrated in the book): Red whales in the sunset; whale road train; wishing whale; pickled whalish; last whale and testament.
The Book of Revelations, Rob Swigart. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1981. (CF, New Age)
From the dust jacket: "What happens when the miraculous bursts into your everyday life? When coincidences mount, you hear odd voices, your sense of time alters suddenly, and the skies take on odd shapes and meanings? When you find yourself the locus of messages from the past and the future, when waves of ancient history and a visionary future roll over you without your control? When you have become the modern-day equivalent of the Delphic oracle?"In this . . . novel, America's 'best young humorist' shows us a place where dead and living, past and future meet. The heroine of this New Age saga is Cassie St. Clair, a woman who learns the language of dolphins so as to mate with an orca and who perceives the shifting of time and the wisdom of elephants. In her end-of-the-world confrontation on the San Andreas Fault, Cassie must master UFOs and crackpot organizations in order to shake us into a cosmic understanding of why, in order for us to live, we must all someday die.
"In Swigart's allusive, ironic universe, there are three levels: human, cetacean, and elephantine. Combining the humor of a Jonathan Swift with the erudition of a classical scholar, Swigart has created a comic adventure story, gnostic puzzle, and prophetic vision all in one."
Boule de Reve, Lise Thouin. Montreal, Quebec: Leucan, 1993 (French edition). Palia di Sogno. Editori in Sintonia and Five Show Production (Italian edition). English translation available at website.
Scott: Illustrated by Jean-Luc Bozzoli, this warm and wonderful book about a Dolphin who hears music from the stars and dreams so hard of going to hear it that he sprouts wings and leaves to visit the Crystal Planet is the work of a Canadian actress who has worked extensively with children dying from leukemia and other forms of cancer. Fabulous illustrations.Trisha: An exquisite work.
Brightness Reef, David Brin. New York: Bantam, 1995. (SF) (This is the first book in Brin's second Uplift trilogy. For links to information about the Uplift concept, see The Uplift War.)
From the back cover: "The planet Jijo is forbidden to settlers, its ecology protected by guardians of the Five Galaxies. But over the centuries it has been resettled, populated by refugees of six intelligent races. Together they have woven a new society in the wilderness, drawn together by their fear of Judgment Day, when the Five Galaxies will discover their illegal colony. Then a strange starship arrives on Jijo. Does it bring the long-dreaded judgment, or worse--a band of criminals willing to destroy the six races of Jijo to cover their own crimes?"Trisha: I haven't read this one yet, but reader comments at Amazon.com indicate that many find it substandard, confusing, irritatingly written, etc., whereas some others find it creative, intriguing, etc. All say that it must be read if you are to follow all the characters in the Uplift series. Frank Glover writes that the Streaker and its human-dolphin crew are mentioned only at the very end of Brightness Reef, but that you must read this volume of the trilogy "in order to understand the signifigance of the planet Jijo and its unauthorized inhabitants and their importance." to later events.
Bristol to Boston by Whale, Jontie Morgan. Eleven Minutes Behind, 1991.
Brotherhood of Dolphins, Ricardo Means Ybarra. Houston, Texas: Arte Publico Press, 1997. (CF)
From the publisher: "Detective Pete Escobedo is on the hunt for the arsonist of the Los Angeles Public Library. The heated search takes him back to the barrio of his youth, where he soon discovers that the arsonist he has been tracking may also be responsible for several grisly arson murders in Southern California. The criminal's trial moves dangerously close to his old friend Sylvia, an unorthodox firefighter, and finally to Carmen, the woman he loves. This thriller based on the unsolved April 29, 1986, arson of the historic Los Angeles Central Library takes the reader on a high-speed chase into the turbulent barrios of Los Angeles, the race-conscious offices of the Los Angeles Police Department and into the minds of the firefighters who risk their lives daily."Trisha: Billy Johnson, the psycho protagonist in this book, is a self-proclaimed dolphin lover who espouses a New Age philosophy related to pyramids, dolphins and swimming with dolphins, and return to Nature. In his mind, his philosophy justifies his murder and arson (a la Ted Kaczynski). It is an interesting twist on the theme of dolphins as gods.
Excerpt, Billy Johnson speaking: "You see what we're about to go through here is the expulsion of cultural idiocy. Rejuvenate the planet, Mrs. Nguyen. We will align once again with Nature," . . . "The whole world will follow because we'll be pollution free, happy, and rich. Our kids will cavort with the dolphins . . ."
"Let me explain it to you this way . . . The Trinity is a pyramid, Nature . . . It's not the hocus pocus they sell you, it has always been the new art. Nature. Get it? The pyramid."
Mrs. Nguyen answers: "I know what the Holy Trinity is. Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I understand; I'm good Catholic . . ."
Billy Johnson replies: "We'll see. Just think of the dolphins, that's who we are, a brotherhood . . ."
Brothers of the Sea, D. R. Sherman. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, 1966. Also in Reader's Digest Condensed Books, Volume IV. Pleasantville, N.Y.: 1966, pp. 503-574.(CF*^)
Brute Force: Protectors of the Environment. Vol. 1, Nos. 1-4. New York: Marvel Comics, August-October 1990.
From the opening page of issue #2: "Given powers and intelligence far beyond those possesed by other members of their species, five animals--a lion, a dolphin [name Surfstreak], an eagle, a bear, and a kangaroo--are forged into a team by a brilliant scientist to become planet earth's newest and most unusual environmental defenders . . ."
Cachalot, Alan Dean Foster. New York: Ballantine, 1980. (SF)
From the back cover of the paperback edition: "A guilt-ridden Earth had turned Cachalot over to the few surviving cetaceans as a perpetual refuge--a planet whose surface was one great ocean, where the remnants of the whales, porpoises, and dolphins could pursue their lives and perhaps even the development of an intelligence greater than man's."Humans on Cachalot were strictly confined to a few islands and the floating towns, prospering from the wealth of its sea. The cetaceans seemed to have forgiven the thousands of years of terror and slaughter they had suffered--some had even befriended selected humans.
"But something was destroying the towns of Cachalot--leaving no clues . . . and no survivors."
From the back cover of the hardcover book club edition: "To a marine biologist it was the chance of a lifetime, the fulfillment of a dream. And Cora Xamantina needed a dream fulfilled just now.
"Long before her birth, a guilt-ridden human race had tried to atone for centuries of slaughter by transporting Earth's surviving cetaceans to Cachalot. A covenant had been made between whales and men -- a noninterference pact that neither side dared violate. Cora could not help but wonder at the progress the huge sea mammals had made.
"Within hours after her arrival, she would have reason to suspect that cetacean progress had taken a devastating, deadly turn."
Scott: Curious sci-fi novel of a world with Great Whales as the only native inhabitants, great ending . . .
Trisha: Good read.
Call of the Wild Reef, Bern R. Brothers. Big Pine Key, Florida: Litoky Publishing, 1971.
Carnivores of Light and Darkness, Alan Dean Foster. Journeys of the Catechist series, no. 1. Warner Books, 1999.
From the back cover: "The tall herdsman/warrior Etjole Ehomba of the Naumkib tribe lives by the sea. When a number of strange warriors wash up dead on the sand, only the nobleman Tarin Beckwith survives long enough to whisper a dying request: It seems that the Visioness Themaryl of Laconda has been abducted by Hymneth the Possessed and carried off to the remote land of Ehl-Larimar. Etjole accepts the dead man's entreaty to rescue her, and sets off on a very long journey. Etjole speaks the languages of animals, his bearing is courteous, his aspect modest and reasonable, and he solves problems by negotiation."A friendly snake provides him with an immunity to poison. He acquires a sidekick, the garrulous treasure-hunter Simna Ibn Sind. He outfaces a sentient tornado to save Ahlitah, a large black cat that, feeling obligated, joins the expedition. Finally, after various adventures involving floating ponds, dolphins, tiny warriors, a hostile animated sand dune, the mirage-palace of a soul-eater, and a gigantic walking wall, he's menaced by the evil, light-eating eromakadi; fortunately, being an eromakadi himself (one who eats darkness), Etjole simply inhales the eromakadi. "
Cetacea, Theresa Foley. Key West, Fla.: SeaStory Press, 2001. (CF)
From the publisher: "Cetacea . . . is the story of a mysterious series of deaths that occur in the beautiful waters off of Key West, and the trio of locals -- an adventurous woman who captains a dive boat, her tarot-card reading psychic roommate, and an ex-Navy SEAL turned Duval St. bartender -- who set out to solve the mystery behind the killings. Blame falls on a majestic dolphin, and while the town is up in arms trying to either get the dolphin or hush things up, Captain Mattie Gold takes it upon herself to find out what is really going on out there beyond the reef."Cetacea has been praised as . . . a ripping first novel, with a legendary, lethal, lonely hero whose stunning secret spans time, oceans and the essence of life. Theresa Foley writes with passion and vivid authenticity about deep sea diving, danger, dolphins and love.
"Rosalind Brackenbury, the well known Key West writer whose work includes Seas Outside the Reef and Circus at the End of the World, comments: Theresa Foley has written a whodunit, a fast-paced story with a passionate plea at its core for the integrity of the natural world. The fate of the misused dolphin underlies the intrigues of the human characters, and one of the strongest voices in the book belongs to the mammal which thinks and feels as we do, but without the selfishness and greed."
Children of the Sea, Wilfred S. Bronson. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1940.
VM: I found this book several years ago at a rare-book show. It is about a young boy who helps a wounded dolphin get well. As you might guess, the boy and dolphin become close friends. What is interesting about this book is that it is copyrighted in the year 1940! Unless I'm mistaken, most, if not all, of the research regarding dolphins has taken place since around 1960. Yet, Bronson's book goes into great detail about dolphins, including their intelligence, friendliness, and the fact that they are air-breathing mammals. It looks like Mr. Bronson was way ahead of his time, at least as far as dolphins are concerned.
A Circle in the Sea, Steve Senn. New York: Atheneum, 1981. (YA*^)
From the dust jacket: Breee was a dolphin, a quiet, dreamy young female dolphin. And like her mother before her, she was troubled with nightsee. Dolphins who had this affliction dreamed of the Others, human beings, when they slept.Robin Shaw was a girl. She lived on Lando Key, Florida, where her father worked for Costain Lab and did secret deep-sea missions for the Lab and the Navy. From his most recent mission, he brought Robin a gift--a strange ring embedded in rock, taken from the floor of the ocean from ruins.
It was after she got the ring that Robin Shaw began to dream when she slept that she was a dolphin. In fact, it was more than a dream. Her mind actually inhabited the body of the dolphin named Breee. And as Breee, she learned not only how dolphins lived, how they communicated, and how they saw their watery world, but met many fascinating dolphins and whales and learned that dolphins had a history, a tradition. They called themselves "The Returned," since they, too, had once lived on land. Now, made desperate by attacks of the Others and the pollution of the sea environment, they were about to turn, to show their power to those who were destroying them. And Robin-Breee was a part of this.
Trisha: Gayle Julien's favorite young-adult title (Gayle reviews several books in the Cetacean Children's Bibliography); I liked this one very much too.
The Chronicles of Pern, Anne McCaffrey. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993. (FS)
From the back cover: "Travel back to the earliest days of Pernese history in this first-ever Dragonriders of Pern short-story collection[.] Join the original survey team as they explore Pern and decide to recommend it for colonization. Share the terror of the evacuation from the Southern Continent as a flotilla of ships, aided by intelligent, talking dolphins, braves the dreadful currents of the Pernese ocean. Learn how the famous Ruatha Hold was founded, and thrill with the dragonriders as they expand into a second, then a third Weyr. And discover a secret lost in time: the rescue of some of the original colonists before the planet was cut off forever . . . "Trisha: I haven't read all of this one yet, but thus far the dolphins are characterized as whimsically impetuous, fun-loving, extraordinarily good readers of human character and defects. Humans who work with dolphin partners are called "dolphineers."
Clickwhistle, William Jon Watson. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1973. (FS*)
From the dust jacket: "In a near future where the world is divided into two rival hemispheric states, one of four special nuclear subs is surrounded by dolphins and destroyed. What force has turned these peaceful creatures against Man as he teeters on the brink of nuclear holocaust, only the government's reluctant ally, delphinologist John Pearson, has even a hope of finding out."The ocean boils with the primordial conflict of dolphins and killer whales as Dr. Pearson struggles for the answer that may cost him his life. Something more important than the human race hangs in the balance as the most intelligent mammals of the sea plunge Man into a crisis that spreads from the bottom of the ocean into earth orbit--and beyond."
The Commodore and the Whale, Frank W. Gapp. New York: Vantage Press, 1996.
Cottage by the Sea, Sara Gordon Harrell. Concordia Pub. House, 1978. (CF)
From the publisher: "When Tig's friend is killed in Vietnam she finds some consolation in the birth of a dolphin pup."
Curse of the Killer Whale, Lawrence J. Hunt. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1963.
Curse of the Whale's Tooth, Steven Thomas Oney. Cape Cod Mystery Theater. Metacom, 1986. (CD) (On audiotape.)
Dame, H. Greeley Thornhill. Coolidge Press, 1984. (CF)
Dame is a great blue whale tormented by the death of her mother and father at the hands of Japanese whalers. Disoriented, she mistakenly makes her northern migratory trek up the Atlantic side of the Americas. Near Washington, D.C., she encounters a kindred spirit with whom she develops a relationship that, through a strange twist of fate, results in revelations that could save the oceans of the world.
Dance of the White Dolphin: "Shanghaied", S. C. Shells. New York: Vantage Press, 2000. (CF)
Dance the River Whale, Ron Mercier. Pittsfield, Mass.: Deerbridge Books, 1999. (CF)
From the back cover: "When twenty-four-year-old Tom Tetreault becomes consumed with self-destructive hate for his grandmother, a near-death experience introduces him to invisible forces that enable him not only to recover his own life, but to help his grandfather die as he had seldom lived -- in peace. The intermediary between Tom and those forces for life is a spirit guide called the Dark Woman, modeled after the Wise Woman of the Iroquois nations. From a small Massachusetts fishing town, through New Hampshire and Vermont, to the banks of the St. Lawrence River in Canada, she accompanies him on an extraordinary journey to forgiveness and reconciliation."
Dancing With Whales: An Adventure Story Reveals New Concepts of Time, Peter Beamish. St. John's, Newfoundland: Creative Publishers, 1993.
Scott: A truly fascinating and strange book, partly scientific data, partly story, partly analysis of data, concluding with a chapter on how to be a Whalewatch guide, then a chapter on how the communication skills of Whales could be used as the basis for a science-fiction story! Weird and wonderful . . .Trisha: Beamish presents his theory along with supportive data that whales communicate using both signal-based and rhythm-based communication, the latter allowing for time compression and time expansion, which makes for interesting reading. It's a nonfiction work, but is included here because of the brief discussion of science fiction.
Dark Mirror (A Star Trek: The Next Generation book), Diane Duane. New York: Pocket Books/United Kingdom: Simon & Schuster, 1993. Also available in abridged audio tape dramatization. Simon & Schuster Audio, 1993. (SF)
From the back cover: "One hundred years ago, four crewmembers of the U.S.S. Enterprise crossed the dimensional barrier and found a mirror image of their own universe, populated by nightmare duplicates of their shipmates. Barely able to escape with their lives, they returned, thankful that the accident which had brought them there could not be duplicated--or so they thought."But now the scientists of that empire have found a doorway into our universe. Their plan: to destroy from within, to replace one of our Starships with one of theirs. Their victims: the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D, who now find themselves engaged in combat against the most savage enemies they have ever encountered . . . themselves."
Trisha: Commander Hwiii, a brainy dolphin technowhiz, makes several brief appearances in this story in which nightmare duplicates of the U.S.S. Enterprise's crewmembers wreak havoc. Hwiii assists Data in problem-solving.
The Day of the Dolphin, Robert Merle. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969. French edition: Un animal doué de raison, translated by Helen Weaver, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969. (CF*^)
From the back cover: "Against the cool, precise backdrop of a government-sponsored laboratory in Florida, [this novel] unfolds the drama of a brilliant and charismatic scientist on the brink of a world-shaking discovery. Intent upon his private dream he is unaware that he, his laboratory, and his accomplishments are pawns in a savage game of espionage and nuclear terror."The Day of the Dolphin is a novel of man's first successful attempt to communicate with another species. It is much more than a chilling suspense thriller. It is a haunting and powerful portrayal of humans and dolphins, caught in the net of man's mindless and violent thrust toward his own extinction."
Scott: Famous book about the misuse of trained Dolphins. Based on John Lilly's work [The Mind of the Dolphin, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1967] and character, although this was disclaimed. Originally in French. Made into a movie starring George C. Scott.
Trisha: Based on partly truth but mostly fiction, and one of the books (and movies) I'm certain contributed to the general public's current perception of dolphins.
Dear Dolphin, Herbert A. Kenny. New York: Random Library, 1967. (Stories and fantasies)
A Deeper Sea, Alexander Jablokov. New York: Avon Books, 1992. (SF)
From the back cover: In the year 2015, dolphin research Colonel Ilya Sergeiivich Stasov pushes scientific experimentation beyond all ethical limits. And with one shocking act of extraordinary cruelty, the barriers impeding human/delphine communication are broken down . . . forever."Five years later, the world is at war--and Stasov has transformed intelligent, ocean-dwelling mammals into cybernetic weapons of destruction. But the dolphins have their own agenda, one that trnascends human greed and petty hostilities--leaving a guilt-stricken scientist to suffer the damnation of an altered reality . . . and ultimately rocketing him toward the stars."
Bruce Lane: IMHO, about the worst book I've tried to read in years. Very dark and depressing. I didn't even finish it.
Trisha: A friend of mine read this book and made a similar comment.
Adrian Esdaile (orinoco@cia.com.au): Okay, yes, I agree, it is depressing. But I don't think it is a bad book, as such. Depressing things are sometimes good because they expose us as vulnerable creatures, not the super-hero-know-everything types the media constantly tells us we are. Bad things happen. I view A Deeper Sea as an exercise in "how NOT to proceed." It perhaps shows us the dangers of continuing to use dolphins for military purposes, as well as the dangers of continuing the petty squabbles over resources that have caused so much damage to the planet. I think there are things to be learned from this book.
For a review by Paul-Michael Agapow, click here.
The Deep Gods, David Mason. New York: Lancer, 1973.
From the back cover: "The world was a planet of union, when dolphin and man communicated, held by a common bond--the Great Compact of Life. When the dolphins sang their hypnotic music, beings of the sea and beings of the land united in ecstatic celebration, renewing the Compact for the fullness of each life."The man was Daniel of the twentieth century--yet he was Egon, from that distant time when Earth was vibrant with the oneness of its life. Awakening in the body of the man Egon, he had been thrust back in time by forces beyond the comprehension of the wisest men. It was in his power to change the destiny of Earth, for he had been chosen by the Morra-Ayar--the gods of the deep. Plucked out of time, Daniel-Egon became a savior--even though to save the Great Compact of Life was to deny his own existence."
Deep Range, Arthur C. Clarke. New York: Signet Books, 1957/New York: Bantam, 1991. (An expansion of the short story "Deep Range.". See short-story section below for more information on the latter.) (SF^)
Scott: A futuristic look at a time when we use the seas to farm our food, especially Whales! Well written, but sadly misdirected.Trisha: Whale "herds" are contained inside electrified fences in the ocean, and dolphins, in cooperation with humans, serve the same herding and guarding functions as sheepdogs. I agree with Scott that the book is well written, but indeed sadly misdirected. Arthur C. Clarke elaborates on his unfortunate idea for herding and raising whales for meat in his nonfiction work The Challenge of the Seas.
Deep Spirit, Christian De Quincey. Mighty Words, 2000. Available online from Mighty Words, http://www1.mightywords.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.asp?theisbn=EB00017487.
From the website: "Early in the 21st century, the world was already on course for a major transformation-a revolutionary shift in consciousness. Visions and dreams of millions were about to become a reality. The key: a worldwide quest for the 'noetic code,' a new way of knowing that builds on the ancient wisdom traditions of shamans, the perennial philosophy of mystics, and the profound insights of modern science. But the quest is threatened by a powerful force determined to keep the 'Great Dream' down."A NASA scientist (Martin Darrah) searching for extraterrestrial life gets an anonymous email with a strange message: 'Intelligence seeks expression.' He takes the bait and is led to Hawaii, and to a remarkable sequence of experiments in inter-species communication with a South American anthropologist (Maya Santos) and a remarkable dolphin.
"Instead of teaching the dolphin, they begin to learn surprising lessons about consciousness--the missing link in science. The search for 'alien intelligence' must begin closer to home. Not in distant galaxies, but within the depths of the oceans, deep in the matter of the Earth itself-deep within themselves. They must learn to listen to the echo from the birth of time. And how it unfolds in evolution.
"They embark on a seven-stage spiritual journey from quantum light to mystical enlightenment. The Great Dream is rising, and they must play their part by helping to crack the noetic code."
Deepwater Dreams, Sidney J. Van Scyoc. New York: Avon, 1991. (SF%)
From the back cover: "It is the time of kalinerre--when young men and women of Aurlanis, chosen by lot, must leave their island home to be tested by the sea. Genetically engineered descendants ofa human race from a world beyond the sky, they surrender to mercies of the vast and terrifying ocean. Most return from their initiation. Some do not."Orphaned and willful, young Nuela now must enter the waters--to uncover the profound mysteries of a secret ocean-dwelling people . . . and to fulfill her strange and powerful destiny to unite a humanity torn asunder.
Trisha: Very imaginative, with fascinating whale-like beings who transport humans via the dream world.
Deep Wizardry, Diane Duane. New York: Delacorte Press, 1985. New York: Laurel-Leaf Books, 1987. United Kingdom: Corgi Books, 1991. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1996. (F/YA)
Thanks to Diane Duane for providing the following info for this book:"Very briefly, Deep Wizardry details the involvement of a couple of young human wizards, a boy and a girl, with a group of cetacean wizards who are about to re-enact a ceremonial which "keeps the Sea divided from the land" (among other things). One celebrant has an accident, and one of the human wizards volunteers to replace her--not fully understanding that the ceremony ends in the sacrifice of that particular celebrant (who is to be eaten by a very VERY large shark, who may have been participating in this ceremony for a very long time . . . ). Needless to say, complications ensue."
From the back cover: "When Kit and Nita come to the aid of a wounded whale, they are plunged into deep wizardry. The whale is a wizard, and she enlists Kit and Nita in battle against the sinister Lone Power. Becoming whales themselves, Nita and Kit join in an ancient ritual performed by whales, dolphins, and single fearsome shark. But which poses more of a danger: the Lone Power, or ed'Rashtekaresket, the enormous shark as old as the sea?"
From customer julian.morrison@virgin.net at Amazon.com: "The story revolves around a deceptively simple moral dilemma--choose freely to accept a painful death, or break your promise and thousands will die. Deep indeed, this is one of the most intriguing books I have read; even though it is meant for teens, I still keep coming back to it as an adult."
From customer trum7150@uwwvax.uww.edu at Amazon.com: "This is a young adult book about adolescents, but at twenty-three I find that it's still my all-time favorite. It's moving without being pretentious, and the dilemma presented is morally complex. Duane doesn't pull punches or talk down to readers (save for a few comic relief missteps which don't detract from the impact of the book). Deep Wizardry is fascinating and fun, easy to read with some simple yet beautifully lyric turns of phrase. I reread my well-worn copy of it at least once or twice a year and still find it satisfying. Playful, emotional, beautiful, realistic and a must-have for any intelligent fantasy-lover."
Trisha: Very well written, this work both fascinates and makes you think. What would your decision be if you were a young person with wizardly obligations, and your choice was painful death for yourself or the death of hundreds of thousands of others?
A School Librarians' Journal Best Book of 1985
An ABA Best Book (young adult) of 1985
Delfín Blanco: Cuentos y Leyendas del Mar (White Dolphin: Stories and Legends of the Sea), Suryavan Solar. Zacatecas, Mexico: Ediciones Delfin Blanco,1999. [In Spanish and Portuguese.](New Age)
From the publisher: "In this book you will find 12 tales and legends dedicated to the sea, the dolphins, and Atlantis . . . Delfin Blanco was written for the ones that are looking for the magic dimension of their inner ocean . . . [The] book comes with a interactive CD-ROM composed of pictures from sacred places, a video showing the places mentioned in the book, meditation music, and information for further assistance."
This Web site contains several selections of dolphin poetry by amateur poets. (Thanks to Julia [aka Nai'a] for suggesting I add this link.)
Descended from Whales, Charlotte E. Churchill. Buffalo Free Press, 1999. (Poetry)
The Dolphin, Robert Lowell. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973. (poetry)
Poetic commentary on the illusions and realities of life and love.
The Dolphin: Story of a Dreamer, Sergio Bambaren. Australia: Sergio Bambaren, 1994/Carlsbad, California: Hay House, 1997, 2d. ed. rev.; illustrations by Michelle Gold.
"In the journey through life it is the will of the heart that decides our fate; for to achieve our goals we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan but also believe."The Dolphin is a story of courage, of struggle against our own fears, our own limits. It reminds us that there is more to life than what meets the eye: things we can only discover if we follow our own rules. It is a story of hope that unveils the magic of this world, the magic we too often seem to forget."
Trisha: This is an inspirational work about overcoming fear and following one's dream in the vein of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (in the present work the character is named Daniel Alexander Dolphin), but not as well written.
The Dolphin and the Deep, Thomas Burnett Swann. New York: Ace Books, 1968. (The story "The Dolphin and the Deep" was first published by Nova Publications in 1963.)
Trisha: Short story of a male explorer searching for Circe, who is accompanied by a merboy, two other human males, and a female white dolphin, and who must ultimately choose between "the dolphin"--who represents embodied existence and its interplay of friendship, betrayal, love, forgiveness, and acceptance--and "the deep"/Circe--which represents transformation, ultimately beyond embodied existence.In Swann's story, dolphins are playful, protective, noble, highly intelligent beings, who expect to be acknowledged for their service to humans, and who are also bearers of good luck (especially the white dolphin), possessors of caches of treasures in sea-caves, and possessors of a literature.
This volume also contains the non-cetacean short stories "The Manor of Roses," and "The Murex."
Dolphin Borne, Carlos Eyles. San Diego, California: Watersport Publishing, 1994. (CF)
From the back cover: "Dolphin Borne is an adventure story. One that hold the body, the mind and the spirit in critical jeopardy. Veteran blue water hunter Ray Messias and novice Andy McCorkin have been swept into the dangerous waters of the Sea of Cortez and must survive by their skills and what they carry. Carlos Eyles weaves a masterly tale that twists and turns with the unexpected that only someone who has spent a lifetime in the water could draw upon."Here in the far reaches of the ocean wilderness, the peril becomes overwhelming, the impossible becomes possible, the real becomes surreal, and the messenger becomes the message."
The Dolphin Boy, Stephen Anthony Edell. Pentland Press, 2001. (CF)
From the publisher: "With Dolphin Boy, Stephen Anthony Edell brings us the story of a disfigured young boy and the portentous New York City lawyer, David Saunders, who determines that fate has elected him to save the boy from exploitation."Desperately seeking to exorcise the demons of his past, David is searching for new meaning in his life. The money and success that being a ruthless attorney has brought him did not come in a pretty little package of happiness. Along with his longtime tireless pursuit of professional gain, David is fighting cancer. Despite his grueling treatments, he manages to keep his clout with the firm, leading a life tainted by a nagging feeling of disillusionment and unfulfillment.
As his path crosses with 'The Dolphin Boy,' a limbless, pathetic young boy, David is disturbed by the plight of the youngster. But in the eyes of the boy, he finds the inspiration he was so desperately seeking, thus vowing to rescue him, and ultimately changing his own life."
The Dolphin Connection, Beryl Bainbridge. CollinsDove Publishers. (YA)
Dolphin Divination Cards, by Nancy Clemens. Nevada City, California: Blue Dolphin Publishing, 1994. P.O. Box 8, Nevada City, California 95959-0008, USA, voice: (800) 643-0765, (916) 265-6925, fax: (916) 265-0787, e-mail: bdolphin@netshel.net. An accompanying instrumental tape Dolphin Divinations, by Chris Skidmore, is also available from Blue Dolphin. For more information, see the Cetacean Audiography. There is also A Guide to the Dolphin Divination Cards: One Hundred and Two Oracular Readings, Inspired by the Dolphins by Nancy Clemens. Nevada City, California: Blue Dolphin Publishing, 1998. (New Age)
A deck of 102 small round cards with words of counsel and affirmation."Messages and gifts from the Dolphins to brighten your day, inspire you, and guide you in a positive, joyful way. Let synchronicity and your inner guidance collaborate with these divination cards inspired by the joy, love, and liberation of our Dolphin brothers and sisters."
"[The Dolphin Divination Cards Guidebook] is a unique [resource] for those seeking further information and interpretation of the Dolphin Divination Cards. [Each] reading (102 in all) is designed with a short preface for quick, easy reference followed by a longer teaching and explanation of the card . . . Woven through the lines of the readings is friendly counsel, a universal spiritual understanding, and an environmental message to all creatures that echoes the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi and the indigenous . . . peoples of the Earth . . . "
From the guide description: "The Guide is splashed with dolphin lore, stories, environmental messages, and anecdotes of human/dolphin encounters. It has been called a 'Dolphin I Ching' by one reader. Nancy believes that our own inner guidance collaborates with synchronicity creating a unique 'mind mirror' . . . each time we draw a card and connect with Dolphin energy."
Dolphin Dreaming: Poems of Gentle Love and Laughter, Rosemary Harding. Braunton: Merlin Books, 1996. (poetry)
The Dolphin in the Wood, Ralph Bates. Great Britain: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1950. (CF)
Dolphin Island: A Story of the People of the Sea, Arthur C. Clarke. New York: Berkeley Publishing Co./Ace Books, 1963. (SF/YA*^)
From the back cover: "Late one night in the future, far, far out at sea, a young man adrift on a packing crate is about to encounter an intelligence that will change the course of history . . ."Dolphin Island is science fiction master Arthur C. Clarke's beloved classic of the young stowaway who is rescued by 'The People of the Sea,' and who in turn helps them defeat an enemy even more ancient and more ruthless than Man!"
Scott: Early 60s teen sci-fi novel. Quite bland, but futuristic for its time. A resource for ideas used in this book was an article in the March 1962 issue of Scientific American entitled "Electrically Controlled Behaviour."
Trisha: I think young adults will find it a worthwhile read. It raises some strong ethical issues the reader must consider and contain's Clarke's usual imaginative/ practical problem-solving.
From the book (Professor Kazan speaking): "Every dolphin is a person in his own right, an individual with more freedom than we can ever know on land. They don't belong to anyone, and I hope they never will. I want to help them, not only for science, but because it's a privilege to do so. Never think of them as animals; in their language they call themselves the People of the Sea, and that's the best name for them."
(Professor Kazan speaking again): "We're not dealing with wild animals but with intelligent people. They're not human people, but they're still people."
The Dolphin Journey, Brita Orstadius and Lennart Didoff. Translated by Eric Bibb. Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1992. (CF)
Dolphin Key, Jon Land. Forge, 1999. (CF)
From the dust jacket: "Dolphins are magical creatures: they comfort the heartbroken, rescue the lost, even heal the sick. At the Dolphin Key Center for Dolphin Human Therapy in Florida, dolphins use their healing powers to help autistic children communicate and to soothe other troubled people. But what if you don't want help? What if you've gone so far down the wrong path that you cant go back?"Katy Grant can't see any way back from the path her life has taken. And she doesn't really care. Working at Dolphin Key keeps her out of jail, and it just might give her a chance at revenge on the man who ruined her life. Not even the dolphins can do anything about that. Or can they?
"In the tradition of Hope Mountain, Dolphin Key is a powerful novel of redemption and second chances, a place where magic exists and miracles happen."
From Publisher's Weekly: "Though he is better known for his international thrillers, in this slim paean to controversial dolphin therapy Land makes this second foray into softer terrain, following Hope Mountain. After abusing and abandoning his first wife and daughter, Vietnam vet and alcoholic Mike Fontana is himself abandoned by his second wife, who leaves him with their young son, Joe. The responsibility of being a single parent motivates Mike to sober up, and just in time, for within a year Joe is diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. When the boy's cancer goes into remission, a development attributed in part to dolphin-human therapy, Mike opens up his own healing center, Dolphin Key, in Key Biscayne, Fla., where he helps disabled children overcome their handicaps with the assistance of half a dozen captive dolphins. Meanwhile, Mike locates Katy, his daughter from his first marriage; she is in prison serving a two-year sentence for a series of juvenile crimes. Mike offers to effect Katy's release out in return for six months of volunteer community service at Dolphin Key, hoping the dolphins will work yet another miracle on his recalcitrant daughter, and also bring father and daughter closer together. The plot thickens: an animal rights activist is determined to shut down Dolphin Key, Joe's cancer appears to have come back and Katy's justifiable anger spurs her to sabotage Mike's good works. Will the dolphins keep Mike from drinking, cure Joe again, soothe Katy's anger? Is there a Clarence Darrow-type character willing to volunteer his services and save the center? The formulaic plot fosters little suspense, but Land does a credible job of presenting the perspectives of both animal rights activists and supporters of dolphin-human therapy. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Dolphin Leaping in the Milky Way, Jeff Poniewaz. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Inland Ocean Books, 1985. (poetry)
From the back cover: "Aspiring to what is most dolphin-like in human heart and mind, these 'cetacean meditations' embrace the dolphin as totemic teacher and friend. Presented chronologically as written between the mid-'70s and early '80s, they document the unfolding of the human eco-consciousness. They see the dolphin of the ocean and the dolphin of the nightsky as a hopeful emblem to inspire the positive evolution of mankind. From the shore of Lake Michigan to the shore of the Pacific, Dolphin leaps to the rescue. And just in the nick of time . . . "Trisha: An edgy, passionate collection of poetry and newsclippings about humankind's abuse of the environment. Includes several vivid dolphin and whale poems, and dolphins and whales make appearances in several of the other poems. The book closes with what the author calls a "Dolphinifesto," which consists of quoted sections from Mind in the Waters and a quintessential Walt Whitman selection.
The Dolphin Life, Jonathan Little. Xlibris, 2000. (CF)
Written by an English professor, "this is a fast-paced adventure story of a young dolphin separated from his family and forced to draw from his deepest physical and spiritual resources to survive. This unforgettable tale carries on the literary tradition established by such classic works as Siddhartha and Jonathan Livingston Seagull and will appeal to anyone interested in spiritual exploration and imaginative storytelling."
Trisha: These books contain some interesting fictional ideas, but they are not well written and could be helped tremendously by a good editor.
A Dolphin of Many Colors: An Inter-Species Friendship, Jennifer Semro. Bonita Springs, Florida: Dolphin Defenders, 1995. Address: P.O. Box 933, Bonita Springs, Florida 34133, USA, (941) 947-2268, fax: (941) 498-2879. A sequel entitled The Journey Home is planned. (*YA - adult)
"A look at captivity viewed through the eyes of the dolphin . . . The story of Peter, a young man who meets a wild dolphin he calls Alpha. A strong bond forms as their friendship develops. In a surprising twist Peter obtains the ability to understand the dolphins' language. The pair begin an adventure that will change both of their lives forever."Trisha: This is a nicely written story (although the copyediting phase was bypassed) that also provides a lot of accurate factual information (with one or two exceptions) about dolphins.
The Dolphin Pool, Yvonne West. Vantage, 1989. (CF)
The Dolphin Position: A Comedy, Percy Granger. New York/London: French, 1984. (drama)
The Dolphin Project: To Those Who Feel They Need a Complete Relationship, Michael Marlan. Raymond, Alberta, Canada: Sunspring Publishing Co., 1989. (New Age)
Trisha: Typical New Age themes (related to dolphins, as well as in general): Atlantis, Lemuria/Mu, soul mates, transforming gross bodies to light bodies, etc.
The Dolphin Queen, Edmund S. Graves. New York: Vantage Press, 1994 (FS)
Reviewed by Julia (aka Nai'a): This is the story of a psychic Christian girl called "Red" and her friends, as they battle to save earth from a bunch of alien carnivorous plants. There are twelve chapters, and each is a somewhat distinct story. All of the most important places are named after dolphins, rather peculiarly, and two-bit characters in the tenth and eleventh chapters are dolphins.Darleen, one of the main characters in chapter 11, lives in a boat and they follow dolphins around. She talks telepathically to her favorite dolphin, Bright Star, who rescues her when she falls off the boat in a storm. Bright Star is her closest friend and hangs around while she recovers in an undersea sanctuary from her mother's death and various psychic troubles . . . All of the characters in this book are basically, in my opinion, cardboard cut-outs, and the dolphins aren't much different . . . friendly, playful, telepathic . . .
In chapter 12, Varlo, a Neptulan--an aquatic creature from another planet--has a dolphin, Hero, who he rides . . . Hero later calls ninety-nine friends to escort the book's main characters, Red and all her friends, to a council meeting--having an escourt of a hundred dolphins is considered a great honor.
I found the book rather dull and flat; it read something like a really bad sci-fi serial in a magazine. The characters had no depth; it was all flash and action.
The Dolphin Rider, Roy Meyers. London: Rapp & Whiting, 1968.
Dolphins, Stephen Spender. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. (poetry)
From the dust jacket: "Dolphins is Steven Spender's first new volume of poetry since his Collected Poems appeared in 1985. Although most of the [nineteen] poems included here were completed recently, they cover a whole lifetime of experience, going back to memories of childhood during the First World War and advancing to old age. Written for anonymous friends or for prominent contemporaries like Simone Weil or Isaiah Berlin, these poems explore the images of war, the loss of childhood, or the longing for freedom, however evanescent. When read as one work, these poems, like dolphins, "leap out of the surface of waves reflecting the sun . . . "Trisha: The short opening poem in this volume, entitled "Dolphins," is the only one specifically about dolphins, and it celebrates their freedom and delight (the heart), contrasted with our imprisonment by speech (the mind).
Dolphins and Killerwhales: A Novel. Wellington, New Zealand: Mother Sea Publications, 1978.
The Dolphin's Arc: Poems on Endangered Creatures of the Sea, Elisavietta Ritchie, ed. College Park, Maryland: SCOP Publications, 1989.
From the editor's note: "I conceived of this anthology to reach both scientific and literary audiences. In particular, through the sale of the book I hope to raise needed funds for the Center for Marine Conservation--the umbrella organization for The Whale Protection Fund, The Seal and Sea Turtle Rescue Funds, and the Marine Habitat Program."I sent out a call for poems on whales, dolphins, sea turtles, seals, and sea lions. Poems poured in from all regions of the country; some also celebrated walruses, sea elephants, sea cows--even one octopus. Everyone was enthusiastic about a project concerned with restoring the environment. Many good poems had to be returned for lack of space. It has taken several years to choose, arrange, edit, fund, and finally to publish The Dolphin's Arc, earlier called Tide Turning. As can be seen from the brief biographical notes, the 109-poem collection includes poets from 32 states and one from Chile. There was room only to suggest the wealth and variety of honors, credentials, and publications this gathering of American voices represents.
"As if poetry could halt a slaughter. Like hurling a pebble at an armored tank. As Deena Metzger writes, 'If it were only a question of whales.' We face (or avoid) so many immense problems--the threat of nuclear war; actual wars forever breaking out somewhere on the globe; constant, universal dangers of pollution, hunger, homelessness, disease, overpopulation, man's inhumanity to man--and to animal. But the wanton killing of whales, the overdevelopment that deprives sea turtles of their birthing beaches, and the dolphins strangled in tuna nets--these are not simply metaphors for all the world's ills. They are problems in themselves. As American poets, we can focus attention on them, to help change the broad environmental policies of all the nations . . .
"The whales, dolphins and other sea creatures threatened with extinction, who seem so free, joyous, and self-contained, have become silent prisoners whom we must champion. The survival of the sea affects Earth's survival--and our own. For, as Richard Wilbur writes in the final poem of this collection:
- ". . . What should we be without
- The dolphin's arc, the dove's return
- These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken?"
Trisha: One of my favorite creative works about and on behalf of cetaceans (available from Amazon.com). Most of the poems are about whales or dolphins, including poems by Pablo Neruda, Richard Wilbur, Stanley Kunitz, Mary Oliver, and Marge Piercy (if you've never read Marge Piercy's poetry, head for your nearest library and prepare for a feast. Here are a few lines, referring to dolphins, from her poem "Another Country," which appears in The Dolphin's Arc: "Never do they sleep but their huge brains/hold life always; turning it like a pebble/under the tongue, and lacking practice, death/comes as an astonishment."). And the rich beauty of the poem "Children in Fog," by Al Poulin, Jr., is on its own worth the price of the book.
Dolphins at Cochin: Poems, Tom Buchan. Barrie & Rockliff. (poetry)
The Dolphins' Bell, Anne McCaffrey. Wildside Press.
Dolphins for Luck, Peggy Nicholson. Harlequin Presents series. John Curley and Associates, 1989.
From the back cover: "The Marichelle was more than a classy old yacht. She was the anchor in her namesake's life, the only place ther real Marichelle had ever called home."So the loss of her home, and then her heart, was more than Marichelle could bear -- especially when the pirate who had stolen both displayed a dolphin ring on his wedding-ring finger. Even the ancient symbol for good luck and happiness was against her.
"No wonder Marichelle did everything in her power to hide her true feelings from Rod Kenrick -- for fear of being truly lost at sea."
The Dolphin Shore, Phyllida Barstow. London: Century, 1984. (CF)
Dolphins in the City, Bo Carpelan. Delacorte, 1973. (YA)
The Dolphin Smile: Twenty-nine Centuries of Dolphin Lore, Eleanore Devine and Martha Clark, eds. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
Trisha: Chronologically arranged, rich array of circa 100 fiction and nonfiction selections about dolphins.
The Dolphins of Altair, Margaret St. Clair. New York: Dell, 1967. (FS*)
From the back cover: "Before the dawn of man . . . there was a covenant between the land and the sea people--a covenant long forgotten by those who stayed on shore, but indelibly etched in the minds of the others--the dolphins of Altair."Now the covenant had been broken. Dolphins were being wantonly sacrificed in the name of scientific research, their waters increasingly polluted, their number dangerously diminished. They had to find allies and strike back. Allies willing to sever their own earthly bonds for the sake of their sea brothers--willing, if necessary, to execute the destruction of the whole human race . . ."
The Dolphins of Atlantis and the sequel, The Shadow of the General, Robert Burroughs. 1996. The author is seeking a publisher. For more information, please e-mail Trisha at dolphintlf@aol.com.
Trisha: I have read excerpts of the human-dolphin sections from The Dolphins of Atlantis, and they are beautifully and sparely written, conveying a gentle and wonderful vision of the possibilities for human-dolphin collaboration and cooperation. The author has titled a collection of these excerpts "The Children of Prometheus," which originally appeared in the Winter 1996 issue of Interspecies Newsletter, Interspecies Communications, 273 Hidden Meadow Lane, Friday Harbor, Washington 98250, USA.Concerning the complete books, the author writes: "The idea behind The Dolphins of Atlantis was a model of an ideal human society (or even a business organization, since that's part of my background), something like Thomas More's Utopia. The stories portray the island republic as a civilizing influence on the Mediterranean world. And since the people of an island maritime nation would interact closely with the sea, they might find fellowship with its cetacean inhabitants. Plato's Atlanteans knew of the Americas, so I also included their discovery in The Dolphins of Atlantis.
"The Shadow of the General is loosely modeled on the campaigns of Alexander the Great. The historian Arnold Toynbee speculated on history's course had Alexander not died at age thirty-three . . . so I decided to write a story, using three characters as a composite Alexander. They liberate Asia Minor (from the Assyrian Empire) instead of conquering it, and show the people how to govern themselves. Dolphins play a role in the story."
The Dolphins of Pern, Anne McCaffrey. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994. Also available as an Audio Book, read by Mark Rolston (9 hours). Also available in French as Les Dauphins de Pern. Pocket, 1996. See also the online interest group "Triad Weyrs". (SF)
From the dust jacket: "When the first humans came to settle the planet Pern, they did not come alone: intelligence-enhanced dolphins also crossed the stars to colonize the oceans of the new planet while their human partners settled the vast continents. But then disaster struck in the form of Thread, deadly silver spores that fell like rain from the sky, devouring everything--and everyone--in their path. And as the human colonists' dreams of a new, idyllic life shattered into a desperate struggle for survival, the dolphins were forgotten, left to make their own life in the seas of Pern."As time went by, human memory of dolphins was lost to legend, and only the occasional tall tale of 'shipfish' rescuing fishermen lost at sea kept the legend alive. But the dolphins never forgot, and from generation to generation they preserved their oral history against the day when humans at last might remember their old friends, and once again the seas would resound with the ringing of the dolphins' bells from docks and ships . . .
"Now, centuries later, the dragonriders of Pern were on the verge of ridding their planet of Thread forever. But T'lion, a young bronze rider, was not old enough to participate in that great venture. Instead, he and his dragon, Gadareth, were relegated to conveying people from place to place--until he and Readis, son of the Lord Holder of Paradise River Hold, made contact with the legendary 'shipfish.'
"And as the dragonriders grappled with the ending of an era, T'lion, Readis, and the dolphins faced the start of a new one: reviving the bond between land- and ocean-dwellers--and resurrecting the dreams of the first colonists of Pern . . ."
Dennis Hipsher: About genetically engineered dolphins who can talk to humans in English. It is set in the far future on a colonized planet called Pern. Some of the dolphin characters seem smarter than the human hero of the story :-).
Dolphin Song, Wilma Fasano. Thomas Bouregy & Co., 2002. (R)
From the publisher: "Cass Chase loves her job running a dolphin show in a Los Angeles Marina. Ever since she broke us with Australian Jack 'Digger' Coady, her work has been her only life. Digger shared her passion for dolphins, and she can't imagine falling in love with someone who doesn't. "When they find each other six years later, their feelings are rekindled on sight, and Digger asks Cass to come to Australia for a month to see if they really are right for each other. "Cass falls in love with Digger's lifestyle and his tourist center with wild dolphins in remote Western Australia, but trouble surfaces when she suspects a local fisherman of dolphin poaching. Cass hatches a plan to catch him, but Digger thinks she's using the man to buy dolphins for her show. After he tells her he never wants to see her again, Cass is desperate and heartbroken. "Can their beloved dolphins help Cass and Digger find a future together?" The most memorable trip for the author and her husband was four months in Australia, including a visit to the wild dolphins that were the inspiration for this book.
Dolphin Song, Michael Tod. Cadno Books, 2000. (New Age)
"The narwhals -- gods and guardians of the deep -- enlist the dolphins as their contacts to the human world. Could humans become to understand the songs the whales and dolphins sing? . . . inspired by the hope that man and whales may one day be able to communicate -- to the lasting benefit of both species."
Dolphin Summer, Monica le Doux Edwards. London: Collins, 1963.
"Because the dolphin had once saved her from drowning, an English girl tries desperately to keep it from being captured for a water circus."
A Dolphin Summer, Gerard Gormley. New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1985.
Trisha: This is primarily a fictional work, but is based on years of the author's and others' observations and a solid grounding in scientific literature."In this . . . book--the story of the first eight months of a dolphin's life--we enter a young dolphin's world to share her experiences, see what she sees, hear what she hears.
"The world of the young dolphin is an exciting and active one. A variety of sea life--prey and predator--cross her [pod]'s path. And in her explorations she cavorts in play, faces dangers, and witnesses a mass stranding.
"Along with the fascinating events of the young dolphin's early months, the author . . . provides the current facts that are known about dolphins as well as information about the other creatures she meets [including humpback whales and orcas] . . . "
Dolphin Summer, Carola Salisbury. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1977/ London: Century, 1976, 1987/London: Pan Books, 1978. (CF) (CF)
Dolphin Sunrise, Elizabeth Webster. West Seneca, New York: Ulverscroft Large Print Books, 1994/Souvenir, 1992. (YA)
From the dust jacket: "Tragedy has aged young Matthew far beyond his fifteen years. Numb with shock and horror following the London fire that left him orphaned and badly injured. Matthew's anguished spirit permits no human contact or consolation. He is not, however, beyond the reach of all living things, and welcomes the lifesaving friendship that comes in the form of a dolphin. With a devotion greater than anything Matthew has known from a person, the dolphin waits every day by the beach to play, to rest quietly--to provide the companionship that even the most hardened heart craves."In this moving tale of a boy's rapport with one of earth's most loyal and intelligent mammals, Matthew learns to come to terms with his grief and acquires a deeper understanding of the people who attempt to help him. But even as he emerges from his shell, he finds himself confronted with the plight of the dolphins in their battle with pollution, drift-nets, and man's unthinking hostility.
"Growing to a maturity born of sorrow, Matthew begins to understand the dolphin's lesson: One must glory in the moment and not allow life to be blighted by sadness at what is past or what may come."
From Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1993: "Webster . . . continues to boost noble causes to relieve the downtrodden . . . , but stick-figure characters, awash in sentiment, are just not up to carrying a Cause--which is too bad, because the cause here is the rescue of threatened sea mammals, specifically dolphins. Fifteen-year-old Matt's alcoholic mother died in a fire with her latest man, but Matt was able to rescue four children in the building . . . He is sent to Cornwall for swimming therapy for his burns, and there he meets a marine biologist, a right-thinking swimming instructor, a grouchy old "Captain" who turns out to be a millionaire, and "Flite" the dolphin, whose joy in living is infectious. (Flite also rescues a small boy from floating out to sea.) Matt . . . plays his guitar for the dolphins and seals. Then an aunt-by-marriage in San Diego sends for him. There, he'll . . . meet an animal-rights activist, and go off to Baja, where he'll learn firsthand of the cruel deaths of dolphins from the giant fishing firms with drift nets. All along, Matt collects adults who want to do their best for the lad; finally, there are reunions, a trip back to England, and a sad/joyful last view of Flite. Webster appends facts about the slaughter of dolphins--but it's unfortunate that the author has chosen a dweeb like Matt for their spokesperson." Copyright 1993 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Dolphin's Wakes: A Novel, Peter Such.
The Dolphin Swimmer, Gerard Emerson Langeler. Lewes: The Book Guild Limited, 1996.
From the publisher: "The Dolphin Swimmer tells the story of Britannia's first Anglo king, and of his incredible past as a Roman slave. It is a story of tumultuous passions, of deadly warfare on land and at sea. Told in rich, evocative language it brings alive the scent, the sound, and the taste of the days when the rump of the Roman legions was retreating across Europe, leaving the empire to ravaging barbarian hordes . . ."The year is 411 AD and Derrk, the son of a proud Anglo king, has been swept out to sea from his native Friesland. After spending two days in the savage waters of the North Sea, he is finally nudged ashore on the alien coast of Britannia by a gentle dolphin . . . "
From the front cover of Dolphin Boy: "The sea had bred him--man tried to destroy him."From the back cover of Dolphin Boy: "Eons ago, down in the green depths of warm oceans, man had his basic origin. And although he evolved into a creature entirely of the upper air, he still has much in common with the air-breathing, salt water mammals who are his ancestral brothers.
"Except of course that the sea creatures have much greater potential intelligence, are infinitely better adjusted to themselves and their environment. And have a much longer life span.
"The gentle dolphins knew exactly what to do when a small human baby [John Averill] fell into their midst. But neither they nor anyone else could foretell what would develop from this remarkable combination . . . "
From the back cover of Daughters of the Dolphin: "From the age of two, Sir John Averill had lived in the sea, where kindly dolphins raised him to manhood. Known to a few humans as Triton, the dolphin man could never become fully accustomed to living on land and fled away to his underwater home whenever the need impelled him. But here he could not live either. For now that he had known man and the ways of man he needed more than the companionship of dolphins. Now at last there were two creatures like himself--if only he could keep them alive long enough to grow up!"
From the back cover of Destiny and the Dolphins: "Sir John Averill, sometimes known as Triton, was a unique creature. At least until a scientific accident produced two females who, like himself, were able to live in the upperair but whose natural habitat was under water.
"All three, Triton, Vinca and Syn, spent their childhood years being raised by dolphins. This was a fierce and unforgiving training but it was easier than what was to follow . . . For although Triton did his best to protect his two young wards, the world of the upperair held dangers and threats he might foresee but could not avoid."
The Dolphin Who Was Searching for the See: A Spiritual Journey to the Heart, Jonathan Bentwich. Cross Cultural Publications, 2002. (New Age)
The Dolphin with the Revolver in Its Teeth, George Hitchcock. Santa Barbara, California: Unicorn Press, 1967. (Poetry)
Dragonsdawn (Dragonriders of Pern series), Anne McCaffrey. New York: Ballantine, 1988. (SF)
From the back cover: "The beautiful planet Pern seemed a paradise to its new colonists--until unimaginable terror turned it into hell. Suddenly deadly spores were falling like silver threads from the sky, devouring everything-- and everyone--in their path. It began to look as if the colony, cut off from Earth and lacking the resources to combat the menace, was doomed."Then some of the colonists noticed that the small, dragonlike lizards that inhabited their new world were joining the fight against Thread, breathing fire on it and teleporting to safety. If only, they thought, the dragonets were big enough for a human to ride and intelligent enough to work as a team with a rider . . .
"And so they set their most talented geneticist to work to create the creatures Pern so desperately needed--Dragons!"
Trisha: "Intelligence-enhanced" dolphins are among the new colonists of Pern, but I don't yet know how big a role they play in the book.
Dreamfall, Joan Vinge. New York: Warner Books, 1996. (SF)
From the dust jacket: "Acclaimed for her ability to combine brilliant, evocative prose and sharp scientific extrapolation with intimate explorations of the human spirit, award-winning author Joan D. Vinge is perhaps best known for her Snow Queen series and her bestselling saga of the telepathic outcast Cat. The story of a half-human street punk fighting to survive in a hostile universe, these novels are the work of a lifetime, ranging from Ms. Vinge's earliest writing to the present, including her bestselling novels Psion and Catspaw, and now . . . Dreamfall. From his earliest memories in the desperate slums of Oldcity, Cat has hated the pretensions of the rich, the machinations of the powerful interstellar combines; for at every turn Cat has been used. He's been a thief, a hustler, a spy, a slave. Used as a pawn. As bait. But at this moment, Cat is a scholar, a university team xenologist doing field research on the planet Refuge, home of the enigmatic cloud-whales. Vast aerial creatures created by an unknown species, the telepathic whales are far more than uniquely beautiful. Their thoughts and dreams manifest, falling from the sky to form vast reefs of solid data comprised of pure, retrievable thought . . . data mined by the planet's all-powerful corporate owner, Tau Biotech."
Dream Water, Karen Rivers. Custer, Washington: Orca Book Publishers, 1999. (YA)
From the back cover: "When a trainer falls into the killer-whale pool at the Victor Seaquarium, spectators, including a class of elementary schoolchildren, are horrified as they watch the whales drown the young woman. Dream Water takes up the story of Cassie and Holden, two of the children who witnessed the tragedy, several years later as they each struggle to deal with the effects of what they saw."Further description: "The book catches up to Cassie, a promising dancer, and Holden, a burgeoning artist, several years later as each struggles to deal with the effects of what they saw, while all the while coping with the pains of growing up, discovering their sexuality, and struggling with their inner demons. Holden's life is complicated by an alcohol addiction, and his mother's illness, while Cassie moves away from home to attend a School for the Arts. Each has more than their share of things to deal with, but the accident with the orcas still haunts their dreams and nightmares . . . until each is able to finally find some kind of resolution."
This is Karen River's "first teen novel, and grew from her interest in whales, her opposition to their captivity, and a real-life accident that occurred at a Victoria seaquarium."
Trisha: The tragedy is magnified by dysfunctional families.
Drifting Among the Whales, Carol Battaglia. Long Branch, N. J.: Vista Publishing, 1999. (Poetry)
Dune, Frank Herbert. New York: Ace Books, 1990. (SF)
Trisha: It has been over thirty years since I read Dune, so I can't recall whether or not the Space Guild Navigators were "like human-whale beings," but since they are referred to as the latter in the following quote, I am including Dune in the bibliography. R. Douglas Frederick, in an article entitled "Trees in Space" http://www.teleport.com/~rfrederi/slu/spaced02.htm), states, " These people will gladly give up gravity, and after several generations may well start looking like the human-whale beings from Frank Herbert's Dune - the 'Navigators.'"
The Dying Dolphin: Ancient Secrets. Underground comic. Circa 1968.
Trisha: In this typically cryptic underground comic, a scene of nuclear destruction drawn by R. Cobb near the beginning shows several dolphins viewing a mushroom cloud from a distance, and the caption reads: "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." The next section of the comic, entitled "The Dying Dolphin: A Mystery," begins "Watch the dolphin, he is you," and then recounts a creation story that initially involves an Eskimo rendering of the dolphin as orca with the words, "They came, they became, they were . . ." This is followed by a section entitled "Part 2 (Sphere of Grace): The Logo," picturing a dolphin superimposed on a yin-yang symbol. There is no text in this section, but the imagery shows a dolphin and a scarab merging. Dolphins do not appear in the final section, "Part 3/Divine Law: The Victim-Man," other than in the title of a chart, "Dying Dolphin Simplified Chart, Diagram and Explanation," which explains "the complicated order of manifestation."
The Eagle and His Egg. Mark Rascovich. New York: Atheneum, 1966. (CF)
From the dust jacket flap: "The Eagle and His Egg is a fictional reminiscence which pays tribute to the reckless abandon, generosity of spirit and unconventionality of the author's father. The setting is France in the period between the Great Wars (1918-1939) and the characters include: an idealistic American engineer struggling not only to assimilate but to reform the baffling national traits of his adopted land; a raffish band of demobilized WWI flyers and ferocious gourmets who call themselves Les Canards Creves (The Ruptured Ducks); an embittered old cavalry brigadier fighting his last losing rear-guard action against life and wife; a deviously enterprising lighthouse salesman; a tragic whale; and a licentious comic ghost who is finally exorcised by a pair of star-crossed lovers."
Easy Target, Cynthia Wall. American Radio Relay League. (CD)
"Something or someone is killing gray whales on their pacific migratory journey. Kim, KA7SJP, and Marc, KA7ITR, find themselves in the heart of this dangerous mystery involving dead whales, cocaine traffic, and a South American lumber freighter. While hiding as the 'fox' in a transmitter hunt, Kim sees too much, and the drug dealers are out to get her."
Easy Travel to Other Planets, Ted Mooney. New York: Vintage Books, 1981. (SF*)
Scott: An unusual novel about the relationship that develops between a woman and a Dolphin. She lives with him in a research facility in the Virgin Islands in a house with a flooded second floor, copied from the facility designed and built by Dr John Lilly. (The actual woman who worked with Lilly was Margaret Howe.) In this book, the woman's life is unsettled by the love of the Dolphin.Trisha: Well written, but in my view the ending is a total copout.
Ecowar, Richard P. Henrick. New York: HarperPaperbacks, 1993.
From the back cover: "The Star of Linshu--As it dumps toxic wastes in the waters off Hokkaido, Japan, a monstrous manta ray rises from the depths, rams it amid ship and sinks it to the bottom of the sea. The devilfish has struck again."The USS Chicago--Dr. Peter Kraft, renowned expert in dolphin communication and training, boards the Los Angeles class attack vessel with orders to investigate strange reports of a marauding sea monster in the depths of the Kuril Trench.
"Ecowar--A sleek submarine of stunningly advanced design, it plies the Pacific at speeds that defy pursuit and confound detection. Embarked on an impassioned mission to save sea-life from destruction, Ecowar stands ready to challenge the world's most sophisticated attack subs."
Doug Cuvein (cuvein@aol.com): The USS Chicago is tasked with looking for a "giant manta ray" that turns out to be a sub. This sub is involved in sinking many ships that have killed dolphins (either on purpose or by accident, doesn't matter to the captain of the sub). The sub is so quiet that normal sonar cannot detect it.
Trisha: This is a well-written page-turner about a group of radical environmentalists whose mission it is to stop the plundering of the oceans, whether it be from toxic waste dumping or whaling, and they have the technical means, the talent, the philosophical imperative, and the high-placed funding to carry out their mission.
An incident that drives one of the environmentalists, in which a mother blue whale comes to the rescue of her calf who has just been harpooned, is recounted as follows:
"The Agosta's control room filled with an anguished bass cry. There was a weak, scratchy, high-pitched response, followed by a gut-wrenching bellow from the confused newcomer.
"Tears of compassion cascaded down Moreau's cheeks as he watched the mother blue gently nudge the calf with the rounded tip of her flat head. A series of deep, guttural blasts of sound touched Moreau deep in his heart. In that sad, magical moment, the barrier to interspecies communication was momentarily surmounted, and the young Frenchman clearly understood the whale's tragic plight.
"The arrival of another harpoon cut short the mother blue's mourning. Moreau watched in horror as the lance ripped into the mother's back. Seconds later the grenade in its explosive warhead detonated. An ear-piercing cry of anguished pain was followed by the arrival of yet another harpoon and another sharp explosion.
"A bloodred spout poured from the mother blue's blowhole, causing the whalers still gathered on the trawler's prow to raise their arms in celebration. Infuriated, Jean Moreau backed away from the periscope and addressed his commanding officer.
"'Mon Dieu! Why does man do such a horrible thing?'
"'For pet food, lipstick, lubricant, and lamp oil,' spat Michel Baptiste. 'Such a waste can never be excused!'"
Cetacean themes: Intelligence, telepathy, holiness, rescue of humans, the cruelty of whaling
Elementals: A Story of Fathom comic. "Hammerheads" issue. Written by Bill Willingham. Vol. 2, No. 14, April 1990. Norristown, Pennsylvania: Comico The Comic Company, 1990.
Trisha: Fathom is dropped off in the ocean to determine why legions of hammerhead sharks have begun attacking boats. Via telepathy, she learns from a pod of dolphins who come to her assistance that some of the sharks are being radio-controlled to keep everyone away from a secret underwater facility. Fathom seeks out the facility and, with the help of the dolphins, destroys it.The dolphins' philosophy is interesting, some of which follows:
Dolphins refer to humans as "god-monsters," and the dolphin named Longdive explains why: It is "an ancient term that some of the more superstitious of the delphinians still use. It refers to the creatures from the overworld. Humans. What do you expect? In all of our lives, we've given your kind nothing but honor and friendship. In return, you kill and capture us. 'God-monsters' sees pretty generous under those circumstances, eh?"
As they near the secret facility, Fathom says to her dolphin friends: "Let's go, guys. We have some murderers to catch . . .you will have a chance to repay them in kind.
Longdive responds: "No, Fathom. I am afraid that is not possible. Delphinians cannot kill humans. It is one of our earliest, strongest beliefs. Our kind believes that humans, god-monsters, are the guardians of the afterlife. To be killed by a god-monster is to be specially chosen -- to be assured a special place in the ever-lasting oceans. Our beliefs prevent us from attacking the humans in the god-shell, but you are free to do so. We will take care of the wide-eyed sharks while you take care of the god-shell [the dolphins' name for human enclosures] . . .
To honor the dolphins after they assist her in destroying the villains, especially Longdive, who is killed during the fighting, Fathom establishes the Longdive Foundation. "She brought public and political pressure to bear against the indiscriminate murder of dolphins and their cetacean cousins, and lobbied continuously for their protection. The foundation financed several studies on dolphin intelligence, trying, on several occasions, to get the nations of the world to recognize the dolphins as a sentient species."
Exodus: The Dolph/In Saga, Martin A. Enticknap. Murfreesboro, Tenn.: Armstrong Valley Publishing, 1999. (New Age, Ebook)
From the back cover: ": A legend is born . . . A new vision in the birth of a race even beyond history. 35 million years ago the future was created. Their story is ours -- their hope is a gift which we ignore at our peril. They witness our birth as a race. They speak -- we do not hear because we dare not listen. The ancient Greeks honoured them; killing them was punishable by death. The Iriquois people also saw them differently and spoke of their way. But now we no longer see them an they die in their thousands. And as our New Age begins it's time for their legacy to be realised . . ."
Eyas, Crawford Killian. New York: Bantam Books, 1982. (F)
From the back cover: "Through the long centuries of humanity's twilight, the People of Longstrand lived in peace and harmony with nature, under the protection of their goddess from the sea. Then she put her mark upon a raven-haired child who would alter their destiny forever -- Eyas, nestling of the hawk."
The Falklands Whale (La Baleine des Malouines), Pierre Boulle. Translated from French by Patricia Wolf. London: W. H. Allen, 1983, 1984.
Falling for a Dolphin, Heathcote Williams. New York: Little, Brown and Co., 1990.
Trisha: Beautiful long prose poem, exquisitely illustrated, inspired by the author's personal encounters with Funghie, the Dingle, Ireland, dolphin.
Fatal Exposure, Michael Tobias. New York: Pocket Books, 1991.
"When the sun rises, it will bring the most frightening disaster the world has ever known . . . The dawn caresses the earth. The horror begins. On the shores of British Columbia beached whales die of starvation and disease, while an Indian shaman sings a chant of doom. In Seattle an embittered scientist, confined to a wheelchair, pores through sheets of computer projections. Then a local TV reporter, whose wife works on the front lines of a government research agency, gets the story of a lifetime . . . Above the Arctic Circle a hole in the ozone layer has begun drifting southward, letting in a shower of sunlight and heat -- sun that blinds, heat that kills and hatches murderous swarms of insects. While a handful of courageous men and women try to spread the warning, a government cover-up extends all the way to murder. Soon the Pacific Northwest will be overcome by an environmental tragedy such as the world has never seen . . ."
The Feast of the Fishes, or the Whale's Invitation to His Brethren of the Deep. London: J. Harris, 1808.
The Ferry Story, Terry Lawhead. Pacific Search Press, 1978. (CF)
"Fictionous Dolphins," . Magnus Redin.
Trisha: This is a nonfiction piece, but partly about dolphin fiction, so I'm including it in the fiction bibliography.Magnus: "This essay was written for the 22nd EAAM (European Association for Aquatic Mammals) symposium with the intention to bring some simple, hopefully interesting remarks about mythical dolphins and some ramblings about real ones from a hobbyists point of view."
Fighting for Air, Marsha Mildon. New Victoria Publications, 1999. (CF)
From the back cover: "Scuba instructor Jay Campbell takes her class of students out for their first open water dive. All goes well until a young Ethiopian man loses consciousness and drowns. An investigation shows his tank was filled with carbon monoxide, and Jay is indicted. But Cal Meredith, in love with Jay and determined to prove her innocence, finds there are other suspects as well: his jealous fiancee; her right wing Christian fundamentalist parents who hate the idea of their daughter marrying a dark skinned foreigner; his friend, another Ethiopian student with a hidden political agenda; and a young researcher with more respect for dolphins than people . . ."
Fishkar graphic novel comic book. 1994.
Story line: "Female environmentalist tries to stop polluters' plot of dumping toxic waste in a local river. The main character, Atagatis, is a woman from the Cayman islands who interferes with the toxic dumping . . . She then transforms into a half-fish/half-human with super piscine strengths. She plots revenge in Japan, fighting environmental/animal rights ills such as whaling and dolphin kills."Money raised through the sale of the comic was donated to the Cayman National Trust, an environmental organization.
Fluke, or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings, Christopher Moore. New York: William Morrow & Co., 2003. (CF)
Chapter 1 is available at the website (click on the title of the book above).From the publisher: "Everybody knows that humpback whales sing . . . but no one knows why. So every winter, Nathan Quinn and his partner in the Maui Whale Research Foundation ply the warm waters off Hawaii in search of an answer to this burning question. Lately, though, Nate's beginning to wonder if he's spent just a little too much time in the sun. Either that, or he's losing his mind. For just as he snapped a photo of a humpback tail fluke, he could've sworn he saw the words "Bite Me" scrawled across the whale's tail . . .
"So begins a rollicking adventure involving an age-old conspiracy, top-level military secrets, a highly evolved super race with a penchant for baked goods, the source of all life on the planet, a very bizarre long-distance love affair, and a megalomaniac undersea ruler thrown in for good measure."
Footprints of Thunder, James David. New York: TOR, 1997.
From the back cover: " It began with a rain of corn falling from an empty sky, and with the unheeded warnings of a handful of eccentric scientists and college students. Only they saw the disaster coming, but nobody listened to them until . . . Suddenly, overnight, the boundaries between yesterday and today dissolve, transforming the entire world into a crazy-quilt mixture of the present and the distant past. Portland, Oregon, turns into a primeval forest, where a vicious motorcycle gang takes advantage of the chaos to hunt both tyrannosaurs and innocent human beings. Plesiosaurs are spotted off the coast of Hawaii, while a stranded family struggles to survive a savage conflict between an enraged brontosaurus and a bloodthirsty pack of killer whales. Winged reptiles, extinct for millennia, swoop from the sky to carry off small children. Looters battle dinosaurs in the Bronx, where one old woman, alone and forgotten, discovers a new reason to live. And in the White House an increasingly unstable President searches for a solution -- any solution -- to the catastrophe that has gripped the planet. But the cure he is presented with may be worse than the disease."
A Friend in the Water: Tales of Sea and Sky, Jim Cummings. Hampton, Connecticut: Healing Earth Publications, 1988. (FS*^)
Scott: An extraordinary book! It captures the Spirit of awakening that is ongoing through the deepening connection between Humans and Dolphins. Told as a tale about a young boy and his experiences with a Dolphin, it goes very deep into the nature of the Dream, the Reality of our lives, and the means for connecting to our own part in the larger Dream. Highly Recommended!Trisha: I second Scott's recommendation.
The Gift, Kristin L. Franklin. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1998. (CF)
Themes: Fishing, whales, old age
A Girl and a Dolphin, Patrick V. O'Sullivan. Niwot, Colorado: Irish American Book Co., 1997/Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1994. (YA)
The Girl Who Sold Dolphins, Amy Cheung. [In Chinese.](CF)
The Girl Who Talked to Whales, Graciela F. Beecher. Bloomington, Ind: 1st Books Library, 2000. (CF, Ebook)
From the publisher: "The Girl Who Talked to Whales describes the love story of Marietta Leveque, a high spirited girl fond of the sea and the whales, and Malcolm Frazer, the richest and most sought-after bachelor of the Colony of Baja Centro, a colony founded in the 40s by a group of American farmers in the center of the Mexican Peninsula of Baja California . . . From Baja Centro the story moves to San Diego, California, where Marietta, after being separated from Malcolm by her father, begins to work for a scientist trying to teach two killer whales . . . to communicate with humans by using their echolocation system of communication . . ."
The Goat Without Horns, Thomas Burnett Swann. New York: Ballantine, 1971. (F*^)
From the back cover: " . . . a strange tale of a remote island, an island which should have been a paradise but quickly became a nightmare in which all known rules of behavior seemed to be reversed, where, in fact, a young man brought up amidst the proprieties of Victorian England, found that his only friend was one small, lonely dolphin--and his enemies included several well-ordered hammerhead sharks . . . "Quote from the book provided by Frank Glover: "It was the one time in his life when he stood by his dignity. No one who disliked dolphins could use his given name."
The Godwhale, T. J. Bass. New York: Ballantine Books, 1974. (The sequel to Half Past Human.) (SF*)
From the back cover: "Rorqual Maru was a cyborg--part organic whale, part mechanized ship . . . and part god. She was a harvester--a vast plankton rake, now without a crop--abandoned by Earth Society when the seas died."So she selected an island for her grave hoping to keep her carcass visible for possible salvage. Although her long ear heard nothing, she believed that Man still lived in his Hive. If he should ever return to the sea she wanted to serve. She longed for the thrill of Man's bare feet touching the skin of her deck. She missed the hearty hails, the sweat and the laughter.
"She needed Man!"
Gold Coast, Elmore Leonard. New York: Dell, 1980. (CD)
Trisha: Some humans who run captive-dolphin shows at a fictional display facility in Florida play a role in the story, and although not a great deal is said about the dolphins themselves, some of what is said about them takes center stage in the book's punchline.
The Golden Whales of California and Other Rhymes in the American Language, Vachel Lindsay. New York: Macmillan, 1920. (poetry)
A Grave for a Dolphin, Alberto Denti di Pirajno. London: Andre Deutsch, 1956.
From the dust jacket: "The material for this [collection of stories] came from the writer's experience as a doctor and administrator in Italy's former African colonies. Children, animals and magic are the main themes. [The title story], 'A Grave for a Dolphin,' is [that] of Shambowa, who sported with sharks and was loved by a dolphin."
The Gray Whale and Other Poems, Virginia M. Stetser. Ocean City, New Jersey: Laridae Press, 1985. (poetry)
Includes poems entitled "The Gray Whale," "The Finback," "Spouts," "Whale Acquaintances," "Whale of Small Significance," "Wherefore Moby Dick," and "You, Jonah."
The Great Whale Game [La grand avenutre des baleines], Georges Blond. Translated by James Cleugh. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1954/Viking Press, 1957.
The Green Dolphin: A Play, M. T. Kelly.
The Green Dolphin of Oz, March Laumer. Vanitas Press, 1978. (CF)
Green Shadows, White Whale: A Novel, Ray Bradbury. New York: Knopf, 1992. (CF)
Heart of Fire, Linda Howard. New York: Pocket Books, 1993. (Romance)
". . . set in the Amazon -- a strange place where pink dolphins play and death can strike without warning. It's also a place where amazing things can happen, where the impossible becomes possible, and all you can do is hang on for the ride."
Heaven's Reach, David Brin. New York: Bantam, 1999. (SF) (This is the third book in Brin's second Uplift trilogy. For links to information about the Uplift concept, see The Uplift War.)
From a review by Brooks Peck, Amazon.com: "Heaven's Reach is the final volume of the Uplift trilogy, which begins in Brightness Reef and continues in Infinity's Shore. It chronicles the adventures of a handful of primitives from the planet Jijo who have left or been taken from their homes only to be swept into the intrigues of galactic politics. The novel also continues the story of the fugitive Earth starship Streaker, pursued across the galaxy for its precious cargo of ancient artifacts. Just when it looks like things can't get worse for Streaker, the foretold Time of Changes rocks the galaxy. Devastating 'space quakes' shake every planet and star, and some of the particularly unscrupulous alien races attempt to use the disaster to further their bizarre goals. There's danger and excitement on almost every page (in contrast to much of the first two books in the series) and Brin finally delivers on many of the mysteries of the Five Galaxies. The Progenitors, the Hydrogen Breathers, Streaker's cargo--these and more are explained at last. Or are they? Each seemingly ultimate truth tends to dissolve a chapter later, revealing a new and more complex truth. New adventures and mysteries await."From a review by Roland Green in Booklist: "Brin concludes the Uplift trilogy, his own best work and one of the most ambitious explorations of sapient evolution in all science fiction. The finale to a saga begun in The Uplift War (1987) and continued in Brightness Reef (1995) plays out on the same immense backdrop, that of the Five Galaxies, with a cast including eight different orders of beings, thousands of races, and so many individuals that it strains a reader's capacity to imagine them all. Fleeing the refugee-settled, multispecies world of Jijo, the dolphin-crewed ship Streaker bears secrets vital to the future of peace in the galaxies, the ambitions and dreams of many races, and the very survival of Earth. Hotly pursued by the Jophur, who look like stacks of gigantic doughnuts, Streaker obtains somewhat accidental help from the hydrogen-breathing Zang, encounters a sapient chimpanzee serving--thanks to his ability to navigate realms of existence in which thought exists apart from matter--as an intergalactic policeman, and meets with a host of other opportunities and perils. Brin's intellectual fertility is as prodigious as ever; indeed, readers coming to his work for the first time may feel a bit daunted. Brin doesn't fill all parts of his vast canvas with equal skill but manages enough of it at the top of his form to please all Uplift followers and many others as well."
Trisha: I haven't read this one yet, or the other two in the trilogy, but the consensus of reader comments at Amazon.com is that this book and the trilogy itself are below par compared to the original Uplift trilogy. They found the writing in this final volume disconnected from the previous two volumes, with too many new ideas and characters introduced, no closure, etc. Frank Glover writes that in this third volume of the trilogy, as well as in the second, however, Streaker and its dolphin-human crew are central characters.
Hobbes's Whale: Poems by John Gohorry. Marlborough: Paulinus Press, 1988. (poetry)
Home from the Shore, Gordon R. Dickson. New York: Ace Books, 1978. (SF^) (Story continues in The Space Swimmers.)
From the back cover of The Space Swimmers: "[In Home from the Shore] Johnny Joya [leads] the sea-born Cadets of the Space Academy back to the sea. He [knows] that the sea- and land-born must separate or clash. When the Cadets [refuse] to return to the Land, the Sea-People [are] declared outlaws . . . hunted and killed like animals in a one-sided war without quarter . . . "Scott: A science fiction tale about a future Earth and a time when many of the Earth's population have moved into the sea and befriended the Dolphins. Interesting in its projection of what might happen if a Human-Dolphin community ever actually was established. Very simple, but deeper than it would at first appear . . .
Trisha: Another of my favorites. It is also unusual in that Dickson very closely collaborated with artist James Odbert to create this work. About their collaboration Dickson writes in the foreword: "The work itself turned out to be full of discoveries for both of us. The profusely illustrated story that the book presently is, with over fifty pages of Odbert illustrations, developed enventually into something not merely new in bookmaking but in artistic concept. The end result of our teamwork eventually became a collaboration in the truest sense of that word between the artist and the author. What emerged was not merely an illustrated story, not even a story with special illustrations carefully fitted to it; but a unique unit of pictures integrated with words in which these two elements became equal partners . . .
"The resultant creation has consequently become this something which is more than a book in the traditional sense. If we have done what we think we have done, what you hold now is a mechanism for the imagination never developed before--a magic box of sorts that the reader can open on an experience more fully rendered than those in ordinary books, putting himself or herself into the life of the story with an extra element of depth or involvement which comes from the direct interaction between the subtleties of the text and the subtleties of the illustration. And it is my belief that as such it marks the first exploration of a hitherto-untouched area in book making . . ."
Hope, Cherie J. Gierak. An online, in-progress novel. (New Age)
Human-dolphin telepathy theme.
The Hostage, Theodore Taylor. New York: Dell Publishing, 1987. (YA)
Trisha: This is a well-written story for young adults that explores various aspects of the captivity issue and requires the reader to consider the basis, merits, and demerits of various viewpoints. About orcas.
House of the Dolphin, Diana Raymond. New York: Beaufort Books, 1986/ West Seneca, New York: Beaufort Books, 1987/London: Piatkus, 1985. (CF)
Humphrey, the Humpback Whale. Oakland, California: C. E. Wolfe, 1985. (poetry)
The Hunter and the Whale: A Tale of Africa, Laurens van der Post. London: Chatto & Windus, 1967, 1986/New York: William Morrow, 1967. (CF)
Trisha: Although this is a novel about whaling, it contains some sensitive observations about the whales' plight, as one would expect to find in a work by van der Post.From the novel:
"Leif . . . added that, taken by and large, and considering their size, there had never been an animal so gentle, harmless or so deserving of man's respect if not love as the whale."
. . .
"'You know, Pete,' Leif sid, 'I've often wondered how well all these people would sleep if life had only give [sic] the whale a voice to match its size. Suppose he were capable of roaring out the agony of his slow death at the end of a harpoon? The sound would reach the town and I doubt if anybody would be able to endure it. I'm certain no whaling man could. It's the silence of the whale that is more than half his undoing.'"
Hyperion. Dan Simmons. New York: Bantam, 1990.
From the back cover: "On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of the Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope--and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands."Magnus Redin: " In Hyperion,, another space opera book a pastoral planet is invaded by the larger part of humanity in one of the numerous subplots. The dolphins in the subplot who are somewhat un-human complain and are massacred with depth charges."
Ice Swords: An Undersea Adventure, James Houston. New York: Atheneum, 1985. (CF)
If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him . . ., Sharyn McCrumb. New York: Fawcett Gold Medal, 1995. (CF)
Trisha: In this legal novel about a fledgling lawyer, Bill MacPherson, his feminist legal partner, A. P. Hill, his forensic anthropologist sister, Elizabeth, and two murder cases, Bill takes on a side case involving a woman who wants to marry a dolphin. He at first thinks it is a ridiculous idea, but then becomes intrigued with its possibilities as a civil rights case and in proving the personhood of the dolphin.
The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. New York: Dell Publishing, 1975. (SF)
Trisha: Dolphins play a small part in the story, but it is intriguing--dolphins as poets and athletes and as the inventors of psychoanalysis, as beings who neither fear death nor avoid suffering, who are "not assailed by conflicts between intellect and feeling" and who are "not worried about being ignorant of things . . ."
If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him . . ., Sharyn McCrumb. New York: Fawcett, 1996. (CF)
From Booklist: In her new book, Edgar winner McCrumb offers up a variety of miniplots revolving around fed-up wives and recalcitrant husbands and successfully weaves the disparate stories into a singularly charming tale. Elizabeth MacPherson, heroine of earlier McCrumb novels, is home in Virginia mourning the loss of her beloved husband and working as a part-time investigator for her lawyer brother Bill. Bill's caseload is daunting: besides trying to convince a woman she can't marry a dolphin . . ."
In Dolphin Time, Diane Farris. New York: Four Winds Press, 1994.
Trisha: Creative photography--unusual, dreamlike--with poetic text about a child's fantasy of bringing dolphins home from the beach in a pocket, admiring them in various places at home, and then returning them to the ocean. This is not a fantasy I would want to encourage in a child (or an adult), but the dreamlike photography is unique and contains one of my favorite photos of a dolphin.
Infinity's Shore, David Brin. New York: Bantam, 1996. (SF) (This is the second book in Brin's second Uplift trilogy. For links to information about the Uplift concept, see The Uplift War.)
Synopsis: "Continuing the story begun in Brightness Reef, Brin returns to the planet Jijo where six bands of sapient beings, formerly deadly enemies, now coexist. But when their alliance is tested, venerable laws topple. Now many feel free to plunder, or carry out grudges--including genocide for one of Jijo's races and possibly death for all."Trisha: I haven't read this one yet, but the consensus of reader comments at Amazon.com is that, although not quite up to the quality of the books in the first Uplift trilogy, it is much better than Brightness Reef and excitingly sets the stage for the concluding novel of the series. Frank Glover writes that in this second volume of the trilogy, as well as in the third, Heaven's Reach, Streaker and its dolphin-human crew are central characters.
From customer mjons@starnetinc.com at Amazon.com: "The characters are enjoyable. There's humor and sadness and thrilling tales of the unimaginable as we progress through this great Brin story. Best of all, similar to [Brin's] other uplift stories, this book is fun to read and think about. The dolphins, nonetheless, steal the show."
The Inland Whale: Nine Stories Retold from California Indian Legends, Theodora Kroeber. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
Stories with commentary by the author, the first of which is a whale legend.
In Search of Moby Dick: The Quest for the White Whale, Tim Severin. Basic Books, 2000. (CF)
From a review by Langdon Cook at Amazon.com: "Historian and adventurer Tim Severin has made a career of retracing epic voyages. He crossed the Atlantic in an open boat of stretched leather to test whether a sixth-century Irish monk could have made a fabled journey to North America, and later explored the Spice Islands of eastern Indonesia to see how the archipelago has 'evolved' since 19th-century naturalist Alfred Wallace first surveyed it. The quest for the white whale, however, lands Severin in different territory: the shifting currents of fiction. Following tenuous evidence of pale sperm whales, Severin embarks for the South Pacific and the birthing grounds of Melville's masterpiece. On Nuku Hiva, the setting for Typee, he finds that the island harbors 'many of the sources that Melville had raided to embellish his own, rather thin, experiences.' Also thin is any evidence of a white whale, so he moves on to Pamilican, a dirt-poor little scrape where the locals subsist on jerry cans of imported fresh water and by 'jumping' the sea's bounty. Their principal prey is the whale shark, the largest fish in the sea. Artists of the jump actually wrestle these plankton eaters underwater by hand, hooking the beasts with a massive grappling hook before coming up for the fight on board. One ancient hunter speaks vaguely of having jumped a white whale shark, but there are also rumors of giant white manta rays and other fantastic creatures."The centerpiece of the book is a visit to the little-known island of Lamarala, the 'last community on earth where men still regularly hunt sperm whales by hand.' An old-timer with 60 years of whaling notched into his harpoon explains enthusiastically that the white whale 'has visited us many times. Sometimes it can be a wicked fellow.' Severin's . . . firsthand account of an actual hunt gives credence to a 1993 report of 34 Lamaralese fishermen being towed out to sea for four days by a big bull sperm whale. But does he find Moby-Dick's kin? In a manner of speaking. What surfaces in these pages is not so much the white whale as the idea of the white whale--a creature bathed in mystery and the people that speak knowingly of it, all of whom give meaning to the sea."
Inside the Whale, Evan Jones. Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1960. (poetry)
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, Nathaniel Philbrick. Viking, 2000; Wheeler (large print), 2000.
An historical novel about the sinking of the whaleship Essex by an enraged sperm whale and the subsequent problems of the crew.
In the Whale, Leonard W. Robinson. Selma, Indiana: Barnwood Press Cooperative, 1983. (poetry)
In the Whale's Belly and Other Martyr Stories, James W. Lowry. Christian Light Publications, 1981. (CF)
Into the Deep, Ken Grimwood. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1995. (FS^, several species)
From the dust jacket: "Set on land and beneath the oceans, [this novel] reveals, once again, Ken Grimwood's exceptional talent for blending fantasy and reality. One part thriller, one part spiritual adventure, the exhilarating story at the heart of Into the Deep involves a hard-hitting journalist, a beautiful scientist, a globe-traveling engineer, and a venerable Portuguese fisherman. Vastly different, their lives are about to intersect and to become irrevocably changed by a school of dolphins--as the fate of the world hangs in the balance."With the drama that unfolds from a silent war aged at the sea's greatest depths and from a single, fateful discovery, Into the Deep takes a tantalizing glimpse at the optimistic future this planet might achieve if humans and the creatures of the deep could learn to share and defend its remarkable bounty.
"Into the Deep was born from Ken Grimwood's fascination with cetacean intelligence, his encounters with dolphins in the ocean, and his extensive research on the latest theories of intraspecies dolphin communication."
Trisha: A superbly beautiful visionary, cautionary tale about the human-cetacean connection. One of my all-time favorites--I can't recommend it highly enough.
Ireland's Friendly Dolphin, Sean Mannion. Dingle (Co. Kerry, Eire): Brandon Book Publishers/Minneapolis, Minnesota: Irish Books and Media, Inc., 1991. (YA)
Island of Dolphins, Lillian Cheatham. Harlequin Romance No. 2683. New York/London/Toronto: Harlequin Books, 1985. (GR)
From the back cover: "Juliet had no complaints about James Bannerman, the gentle scientist who had hired her to assist him with his study of dolphins on the Caribbean island of Tamassee."The problem lay with James's ruthless and abrasive brother Mark, who thought every woman fair game and made it clear from the start that Juliet wasn't welcome in his private paradise . . . "
Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O'Dell. Newberry Award winner. New York: Dell Publishing/Yearling Books, 1968. (YA) (See also Zia below and Lone Woman of Ghalas-Hat: The True Story of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Rice D. Oliver in the Cetacean Nonfiction Bibliography.)
"Scott O'Dell began with a few bare facts. In 1835, when an Indian tribe was evacuated from an island off the coast of California, two children were left behind. Eighteen years later, visitors to the island discovered a woman living there alone, except for her dog. Little is known of her years of solitude because no one who spoke her language could be found. In her remaining years at the Santa Barbara Mission, she communicated only with hand signals. From these facts, Scott O'Dell [wove] a moving and memorable novel of what this solitary existence might have been [like]."
Island of the Dolphin, Josephine Hansel. London: Hale, 1982. (CF)
The Jimmy Trilogy, Jacques Poulin. Translated from French by Sheila Fischman. Toronto: Anansi, 1979.
Joan 'n' the Whale, John Duckworth. Eastbourne: Minstrel, 1987, 1988. (humor)
Johnny Mnemonic, Terry Bisson. New York: Pocket Books, 1995. Novelization of the movie of the same name. (See also the short story of the same name by William Gibson in the "Short Stories" section below.)
Andrew Jensen, Great Books (GrtBooks@ix.netcom.com): Has a dolphin enhanced with implants by the military for anti-sub warfare, which let it interface with computers, and it now spends most of its time in cyberspace. The dolphin has a small role, but it is one of the ultimate hackers attempting to find a cure for a disease sweeping the world.
Jonah and the Pink Whale: A Novel, Jose Wolfango Montes Vannuci. Translated by Kay Pritchett. Fayetteville: The University of Arkansas press, 1991. (CF)
From the back cover: "Jonah's been swallowed whole by his wife's family and their ambitions for him . . . To escape his boredom and disenchantment, Jonah dives into a hopeless affair with his sister-in-law . . . Their affair mirrors the country around them, a Bolivia besieged by cocaine barons and wracked by a crippling inflation that robs everything of its value . . . Thus begins [Vannuci's] irreverent, raunchy novel of urban Bolivian life . . ."
Jonah and the Whale, James Bridie. In James Bridie, A Sleeping Clergyman and Other Plays. London: Constable, 1934.
Jonah and the Whale, Rudolf Otto Wiemer. Translated from Jona und der gross Fisch. London: Macmillan, 1961.
The Jonah Kit, Ian Watson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976/ Bantam Books, 1978/London: Gollancz, 1976.
From the back cover and front matter: "[Watson] surpasses his first novel with the story of a long-dead cosmonaut who somehow lives on in the mind of a six-year-old boy . . . and joins him in the brain of a giant whale. With the scientific brilliance of a Clarke or an Asimov and the colorful inventiveness of a Delany, Watson stakes his claim as a master of the science-fiction field . . . ""All over the world the whales were coming ashore, in a ritual mass suicide that no species of animal had ever matched. In the laboratories of Tokyo, at the secret police headquarters of Moscow, beside the Big Dish at Arecibo that peered blindly into space for another voice, even among the motorcycle gangs and ordinary citizens of California the phenomenon brought an astonished question: Why?
"And the answer--
"Because they have tasted men's minds, and they are dying of it . . . "
Trisha: Sounds similar to Tavro Kassandry.
The Journal: Where Seagulls Dare to Fly, Makhan Singh. The Book Guild, 2000. (CF)
Uses whale metaphors.
Journey of the Dolphin King, Bruce Berman. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Sterling House, 1999. (CF)
From the back cover: "The last of the dolphins are about to die. Can anyone save them? In a desperate attept to survive an international fishing war, Rinaldo and his dolphin pod embark on a dangerous journey in search of the last herd of dolphins in the Atlantic. Looming at the break of each day are threats of vicious predators and starvation Rinaldo must lead his pod to safety or die trying."
Jupiter: A Novel of a Planet Stranger Than We Can Imagine, Ben Bova. New York: TOR Books, 2001/London: Hodder Stoughton, 2000.
"Astrophysicist Grant Archer takes an assignment at the observatory orbiting the giant planet [Jupiter] with the expectation that he will spy for the New Morality theocracy that rules Earth and is gravely suspicious of uncontrolled science. Archer merely wanted to work quietly as an astronomer on the far side of the moon. But a coalition of censorious do-gooders who run 21st century America sends him to a research station in orbit around Jupiter to spy on the scientists who work there. What they don't know is that Grant's loyalty to science may be greater than his loyalty to the New Morality."Dangerously skeptical, Archer gets involved in subversion when he discovers that some fellow scientists are conducting unauthorized experiments (e.g., genetic engineering of gorillas and dolphins) and planning a manned mission into the lethal Jovian cryosphere. The latter involves a liquid-filled spaceship-cum-submarine whose crew has been surgically modified to breathe liquid and communicate through electronic implants with the ship and one another. The mission succeeds by the skin of its teeth with the help of sapient Jovians--free-floating entities, each the size of a small asteroid."
Key Out of Time, Andre Norton. Time Trader series, volume 4. New York: Ace Books, 1963/Hastings-on-Hudson, New York: Ultramarine Publishing, 1978. The World Publishing Company, 1963 (hardcover edition). (SF^)
From the back cover of the paperback edition, written by P. Schuyler Miller, Analog: "Time Agents Ross Murdock and Gordon Ashe, aided by a Polynesian girl and her team of telepathic dolphins, probe the mystery of the sea-planet men have named Hawaika. Its cities and civilizations have vanished, but our agents are snatched back through a Time Gate and marooned in the midst of the struggle for power that must have destroyed the planet."The richness which Andre Norton lavishes on her portraits of the wonder-worlds of the universe, the subtle warmth of the empathic relations she portrays between men and mutated animals, and above all the mysteries she suggests and half-reveals--these, in the words of another book, are STORIES, O my brothers!"
From the dust jacket of the hardcover edition: " Sent from Terra to probe the past of the deserted planet Hawaika, Time Agents Ross Murdock and Gordon Ashe are startled when murky underwater pictures of ancient races locked in a fierce battle for supremacy suddenly appear on their time-probe. Despite prophetic warnings of Karara, a Polynesia girl, the Agents decide to invade the past and uncover the secrets of this barren, lotus world.
"Aided by Karara and the telepathic powers of two dolphins, Murdock and Ashe set up an underwater time gate and are, by mischance, separately catapulted back ten thousand years into the midst of the competing Wreckers, Rovers, and Foanna--ancient peoples of Hawaika. Thus begins Murdock's perilous adventures among the Rovers, a highly mechanized maritime race, and the Foanna, enigmatic remnants of an occult civilization, who rule the rock-bound citadel above an unknown sea where Ashe is held. But the sudden appearance of the Baldies, blue- suited, hairless men from outer space who dominate by reading men's thoughts, poses a new threat to the Agents and the Hawaikans, too. Unwillingly drawn into a desperate attempt to save the planet from destruction, the Agents and their allies, including the dolphins, rely upon powers--natural and supernatural--in a fantastic other-world battle."
Killer, Peter Tomkin. Publisher unknown. (orca major character)
"From out of the deep came freezing terror . . . "
Killer Dolphin, Ngaio Marsh. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966. (CF)
Killer Dolphin: Volume 3, author unknown. New York: Jove Publications, 1982.
Killer Whale: A Lauren Maxwell Mystery, Elizabeth Quinn. New York: Pocket Books, 1997.
From the back cover: "When Lauren Maxwell, Anchorage-based investigator for the Wild America Society, arrives on Alaska's Prince of Wales Island to prevent the capture of wild orcas, she knows she has a prickly assignment. French biologist Raoul D'Onofre has won the right to take the animals from the deep, wild waters -- and he's not bout to let eco-activists stop him. But then Sam Larrabee, Lauren's host and friend, is found floating in Cordova Bay, and she must turn her attention from the killer whales to a deadly mystery."
King of the Sea, Derek Bickerton. New York: Random House, 1979.
From the back cover: "Other men give up their homes, their careers, even their countries for their ideals. Andy Holliday went even further. He became one with the species he was trying to save, giving up his allegiance to the human race. And in another world only a few feet away from our own, he found adventure, loyalty, love, and finally . . . humanity."rcarlberg@aol.com writes at Amazon.com: "The narrator of the book decides the only way to really study dolphin language and social structure is to study them in the wild. With the aid of a secret Navy project he learns to swim in the open ocean for days at a time. He gradually integrates into a dolphin pod--and discovers more than he ever expected. Extensively researched and thoroughly worked out, linguist Bickerton's speculations on dolphin intelligence are extremely thought-provoking and insightful. He teaches you a great deal about language and thinking, as well as crafting a rousing story around the scientific issues. The values expressed in this book will stay with you a long time."
Peter da Silva: King of the Sea sucks because the technology it describes is gibberish (not just "science fictiony," but just plain impossible), the dolphin behavior doesn't match real dolphin behavior, and the behavior of the *human* characters isn't much better: it's so bizarre that the story just plain fails to make sense in many many places. At best it's adolescent wish-fullfilment fantasies of infinite power and sexual potency masquerading as a novel.
Trisha: Several readers of alt.animals.dolphins panned this book, although one gave it thumbs up, in spite of its negative ending.
Kiss Me, Janie, Elizabeth-Ann sachs. New York: Atheneum/Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan Canada, 1992. (CF) (whale-watching)
The Last Blue Whale, Vincent Smith. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979. (CF)
"A journey into the world of whales where the warmth of the Chagos Archipelago and the icy depths of Antarctic seas are home. To Musco, a giant of the biggest species ever to inhabit the earth, the ocean is tranquility, love, sympathy and security. Until people intrude with instruments of death . . ."The Last Blue Whale tells of this intrusion--from the whale's point of view: the mystery of human presence, aggression and the ensuing tragedy . . .
"A story of great sensitivity and authenticity, The Last Blue Whale describes how Musco, Nika and Sul are increasingly alienated from their ocean environment, but they have allies in adventurer Alan Burton and whale spokesperson Alison Debret who undertake to frustrate the exploiting whalers at every turn . . ."
The Last Whales, Lloyd Abbey. New York: Ballantine/Ivy Books, 1991.
From the cover copy: "The oceans have become eerily silent. For the first time in decades there is no sound of men plundering the seas, but neither is there any sound of marine life. Nuclear radiation has turned the waters of planet Earth into a barren wasteland."Now in this watery graveyard, the last majestic Blue Whales swim through the oceans numbed by shock and despair. Theirs is a final desperate battle against forces over which they have no control as man-made death slowly seeks to annihilate all living creatures."
Farley Mowat: "The Last Whales is a truly remarkable look at the world of the ocean and all of its major denizens . . . Although it is impossible for a human being to view things through the eyes and mind of a whale, Lloyd Abbey has probably come as close as one can get."
Let Me Hear You Whisper: A Play, Paul Zindel. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1974.
Frank: This play involves a lone dolphin in a lab where they're doing behavioral or neurological research. A relationship builds between the dolphin and the nighttime cleaning lady (who, I think, teaches him the title song). In the end, she tries to smuggle him out of the lab.
Lethe, Tricia Sullivan. New York: Bantam Spectra, 1995. German edition: Heyne, 1997. The author may be contacted at: 101542.3362@compuserve.com. (SF*^)
From the back cover: "It is the year 2166. Eighty years have passed since the Gene Wars devastated Earth, decimating the human population and giving rise to myriad new life-forms. Only planetwide rule by an oligarchy of once-human brains in permanent computer interface has allowed 'pure' humans to survive. Now, among the dolphins of Australia, Jenae Kim stumbles on information that could mean a new beginning for human civilization: information that the government is determined to keep secret--even if they have to kill her."On the edge of the solar system, researcher Daire Morales falls through an insterstellar gate and discovers an Edenic world to which refugee children from the Gene Wars escaped long ago--but at a terrible price. The onset of adulthood promises a monstrous fate, and now the colony's adolescent leader, Tsering, faces her own violent demise. Only when Jenae exposes the long-buried truth about the Gene Wars does Tsering realize that the memories trapped in the planet's strange, sentient trees have the power to save--or destroy--not only the colony but the hope of humanity itself."
Trisha: This is Tricia Sullivan's first novel. Great story about the "Gene Wars," the multiple life-forms they've spawned, subsequent problems and factions, and the connection of an amphibious human ("altermoder") with dolphins in the mind "web" to save the day. (The dolphins participating in the web are described as "willing dolphin pods with their extravagant talent for layering mind on mind and so tackling the most complex theoretical problems to confront humans of the present age").
For a review by Paul-Michael Agapow, click here.
Leviathan, John Gordon Davis. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Books, 1976/London: Michael Joseph, 1977.
From the back cover: "Now the whale hunters become the hunted . . ."Justin Magnus, son of a famous oceanographer and TV celebrity, is captain of the ship Jubilee and all her underwater gear--
"Infuriated by the plight of the great whales, magnus decides to devote his power to one end: to sink the Soviet factory ship on which the whales are butchered.
"What he plans is illegal--and very dangerous. But nothing will stop him. Not Katherine, his new-found love. Not the mammoth size of his Russian target, unique in all the world. Not the great great whales, rolling and rising in turmoil far below . . . "
Leviathan: An Indian Ocean Whale Herd Journal, Hugh Fox. Pomeroy, Ohio: Carpenter Press, 1981. (CF)
From the back cover: "Hugh Fox has done what no man has ever done before, attach himself remora fashion to a nursing mother whale, and travel with the herd in the Indian Ocean. His journal is a vivid sea adventure from an entirely new perspective. Fox's supposed conversations with the mother whale highlight the focus of the journal: man and his relationship not only to the environment, but the sea of his origin."The journal entries begin in June 1978 and end in October of that year when Fox died in an attack upon the mother whale by a Japanese catcher. The journal was found in the waterproof case he wore on his belt, and was edited by his niece, Connie, who provided the introduction."
From Library Journal: "By attaching himself to a mother whale by means of a suction pad, Fox purportedly followed a sperm whale herd for more than three months in the Indian Ocean before he was accidentally harpooned and killed by Japanese whalers. His 'journal' (cautiously labeled fiction by the publisher) records not only his encounters with sharks, squid, and killer whales, but also his 'conversations' with the mother whale, dream-like dialogues which touch upon such topics as infinity, the nature of God, and man's relationship to his environment. Although Fox and his whale friend occasionally spout platitudes, the story of ocean survival makes exciting reading, and Fox's musings on man as the killer animal are often chilling."
Trisha: One of the most creative and extraordinary works of cetacean fiction I've read -- and I've read a few.
Lifeboat Earth, Stanley Schmidt. New York: Berkeley Publishing Corporation, 1978.
Little Calf, Victor B. Scheffer. Adapted from The Year of the Whale (see entry for this title). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970.
From the dust jacket: "As a starting point of his tale, the author has chosen q quiet month in autumn in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, where a sperm whale calf is born. Month by month, through the full circle of the year, the reader follows the adventures of the Little Calf; and in the process he learns about the birth and death of whales, the migrations of whales and their courtship, and the fierce battles they wage in the sea."Written into the narrative are sun and stars, sea and storm, and the other denizens of the great deep -- the cousins of the whale, the porpoise and the dolphins among them.
"Fiction based on fact, this story of the little whale and of his companions is a composite of all that scientists know about these behemoths. And the human characters that wander in and out of the pages are not all real, but they could be."
The Loud, Resounding Sea, Frank Bonham. New York: HarperCollins Children's Books/Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1963. (YA*^)
From the dust jacket: "The dolphin's supposed ability to communicate with humans has been the subject of much ancient mythology and several recent [as of 1963] scientific studies. In this tale that hovers between reality and illusion, Frank Bonham uses his background research to make a judicious guess about the true capabilities of this remarkable mammal."After a surfboarding accident, Skip Turner's life was apparently saved by a dolphin. Moreover, the boy thought he heard the dolphin speak to him! Repeated experiments with a trained oceanographer showed that not only could the dolphin talk, but it might have other startling talents. When the news suddenly leaked out, Skip found himself involved in a swirl of publicity and 'business opportunities.' With events completely out of hand, he had to decide what was most important in all the hullabaloo. Clearly, his developing friendship with the dolphin came first, and this was being jeopardized by curiosity seekers.
"Mr. Bonham presents a delightful picture of dolphins and their amazing capabilities. Whether a dolphin and a boy could have the adventures they have here is a timely question and one which combines with Skip's very real problems to draw the reader into a fascinating story."
From "A Note from the Author": "I don't know why the sight of a dolphin close at hand excites one so much. There seems to be a kinship of some sort between dolphins and men--or should I say children? Antony Alpers says, 'Children have always been accorded first rights to their friendship.' And in Patrick Leigh Fermor's words: 'These creatures bring a blessing with them. No day in which they have played a part is like other days.'"
Lucchesi and The Whale, Frank Lentricchia. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2001. (CF)
From the publisher's website: " Lucchesi and the Whale is an unusual work of fiction by noted author and critic Frank Lentricchia. Its central character, Thomas Lucchesi, Jr., is a college professor in the American heartland whose obsessions and compulsions include traveling to visit friends in their last moments of life -- because grief alone inspires him to write -- and searching for secret meaning in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick . . . Having become 'a mad Ahab of reading,' who is driven to dissect the 'artificial body of Melville's behemothian book' to grasp its truth, Lucchesi allows his thoughts to wander and loop from theory to dream to reality to questionable memory . . . Despite apparent spiritual emptiness, Lucchesi in the end does find 'a secret meaning' to Moby-Dick. And Lentricchia's creations -- both Lucchesi and The Whale and its main character -- reveal this meaning through a series of ingeniously self-reflective metaphors, in much the way that Melville himself did in and through Moby-Dick. Vivid, humorous, and of unparalleled originality, this new work from Frank Lentricchia will inspire and console all who love and ponder both great literature and those who would write it."
Maelstrom: A Mystery, Sam Llewellyn. New York: Pocket Books, 1994. (CF)
From the dust jacket: "Once driven by an idealistic commitment to protect the environment, Fred Hope has left his swashbuckling days of cutting tuna nets and ramming whale boats behind. Today, he sits in Pulteney's Seaview Hotel tending to his business and to his quadriplegic wife. A daughter of the British aristocracy, she conceived and carried out a disastrous personal act of environmental terrorism -- one that left her crippled for life. Although she has withdrawn from her husband and from the world, Fred has remained steadfast in his devotion to her demands and desires. As owner of a recycling company, the brainchild of his beloved Uncle Ernie, Fred deals in scrap metal. But the deal is about to change ... and so is his life. Two events draw him back into action and back to the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. His partner -- his wife's cherished stepbrother -- announces that he has chartered their boat to a group of Norwegian whalers. And word has arrived from Ireland that seventy-eight-year-old Uncle Ernie, a dyed-in-the-wool pacifist accused of running arms to the IRA, is dead ... his shrewd-eyed, mischievous face, and unruly mop of white hair now but a haunting and bittersweet memory -- one that refuses to rest in peace. A dedicated anti-fascist in his youth, Uncle Ernie made plenty of enemies in his life, and the mystery surrounding his death is only compounded when Fred discovers the identity of the Norwegian chartering his boat: Thor Landsman, an unrepentant Nazi and godson of Hermann Goering. Fred fears that Hope Recyclers could become a tool in the resurgence of a fifty-year-old evil -- in an even more deadly form. Uncovering a connection between Landsman and the Irish Republican Army, Hope becomes convinced that Uncle Ernie knew too much about the operation -- and that he himself knows too little."
Magical Mermaids and Dolphins Oracle Cards, Doreen Virtue. Hay House, 2002.
Magma the Indestructible, Henry W. Crosby. Western Book/Journal Press. (CF)
Making Waves, John Daley. London: Macmillan London, 1982.
From the dust jacket: "Captain Bushy was seventy, an old man with a lifetime's memory of the sea and owner of the Rosie Dear, a Thames sailing barge as old as himself. Penny Lane was a fashion model, had made the centrefold of Playboy when she was sixteen and two years later was bored of her way of life and of the men who inhabited it. Edgar G. Stovepipe was an American who'd bought fifty tons of English soil (soil on which his ancestors had fought the Battle of Roundway Down) and wanted it shipped to California. And then there was the whale.""This unlikely mixture of characters and circumstances combine to set the Rosie Dear across the Atlantic under sail, with the Captain and Penny as crew and the soil for ballast. Captain Bushy sees the venture as his last great sea voyage. Penny sees it as an opportunity to get away and maybe make it on the way. Neither of them foresee the intervention of the whale.
Trisha: Decent writing, typical male fantasy, with a male orca who symbolizes powerful, unconscious, brute, sexual force. Instead of ending grandly, however, as it could have, it concludes with a whimper, with humans doing what they've almost always done when faced with raw, untamed Nature.
The Man on a Dolphin: The Storyteller and His Tales. Kensington, California: York House, 1983. (Fiction and nonfiction)
Megalodon, Robin Brown. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1981/PBJ Books, 1981. (H)
From the back cover: "The news stuns the scientific community, the Pentagon and the White House: MEGALODON still lives."Somewhere deep in the waters of the North Pacific there lurks something monstrous, immense, primeval. The Jules Verne, a nuclear sub surveying the gold-rich floor of the Molokai Fracture, returns to the surface a broken, batteredd hulk. The one clue to its ruin is the shard of a tooth some say could belong only to an immense, prehistoric shark that has long been thought extinct--the MEGALODON.
"Terror mounts as a diving bell and yet another sub vanish into the eerie darkness of the ocean's depths. Bewildered Navy experts turn finally to the Institute of Marine Studies and Frank Acreman, its brilliant director, a pioneer in the study of the intelligence of marine creatures. Acreman sets out for the project site with a team of trained dolphins and a seemingly impossible plan. A gargantuan struggle begins, one that will pit a giant sperm whale, Acreman's dolphins, and the Navy against a haunting specter out of dim prehistory."
The Mermaid, Betina Krahn. New York: Bantam, 1997. (CF, historical romance)
From the publisher: ". . . Betina Krahn has penned an enchanting new romance about a woman ahead of her time and an academic who must choose between cold reason and . . . The Mermaid. If Celeste Ashton hadn't needed money to save her grandmother's seaside estate, she would never have published her observations on ocean life and the dolphins she has befriended. So when her book bursts upon the London scene, making her an instant celebrity, she is unprepared for the attention . . . especially when it comes from handsome scientist Titus Thorne. While Titus suspects there is something fishy about her theories, Celeste is determined to be taken seriously. Soon their fiery clashes create sparks neither expects, not least when Celeste dares Titus to let her give him a personal tour of the world she knows so well. But when a shady entrepreneur takes too close an interest in Celeste's work--and Celeste--Titus must decide if he will risk his credibility, his career--and his heart--to side with the Lady Mermaid.From Gloria Miller, Literary Times: Celeste Ashton received an invitation to address two royal societies to discuss her book, The Secret Life of Dolphins. The invitation practically guaranteed her acceptance into the scientific world of academia. Celeste made claims of swimming with the dolphins and observing their behavior underwater, even their sexual behavior. And Titus Thorne, acclaimed professor of ichthyology, would be there to discredit her. It wasn't enough that they doubted she could swim, much less underwater and hold her breath, they also question[ed] her scientific method, her observations and her conclusions. Celeste challenges Titus to visit her home so he can observe the dolphins himself and then . . . write a paper validating her work. At first, Celeste can't summon the dolphins but eventually she shows Titus that she is more than adept at sailing, swimming and that she does know about dolphins. Titus has to follow all of her methods of observation so he can come to his own conclusions--but he has a few problems that hold him back. Under Celeste's patient tutelage, Titus overcomes the obstacles and he becomes enamored with the dolphins and Celeste too. Yet all is not right in paradise. Titus leaves abruptly thanks to Aunt Sophia and the interfering, eccentric Atlantean society and then Celeste can't summon her dolphins. Titus later discovers the dolphins in London and is shocked by their deplorable conditions. After informing Celeste they try a daring rescue attempt, but in the bedlam there is an accident. Titus will not allow the sea to claim another life of someone he loves and it is up to him to save her, but he gets a little help from his friends. What really impressed me about the book is the novel idea that a woman swims with dolphins, collects data and presents it to the public in a scientific way. And unlike most historical romances, the characters aren't peers of the [upper class?] or the nobility. It was just a nice and different change of pace . . . The premise is extraordinarily original and it takes historical romance to new levels . . ." Copyright 1994-97 Literary Times, Inc. All rights reserved.
From a review at Amazon.com by reader Harriet Klausner: ". . . Betina Krahn proves that she is one of the best writers of Victorian romance with her classy new novel, The Mermaid.. The minute details of the scientific community and its research methodology enhances an already intriguing story line that is simply superb. The reference to Jules Verne is sheer brilliance. However, it is the constant chauvinistic attitude of the all male scientific community towards a female researcher that makes this novel one of the best historical romances of the year and will be well received by fans of the sub-genre . . ."
A view shared by two readers is summed up by one of them as: ". . . starts off swimmingly, but ends up a disappointment."
Trisha: Hyperbolic romance prose, and the author, who has swum with dolphins and supposedly researched her subject, errs at even the most basic level by implying that dolphins make sounds via their mouths: "When he opened his mouth to make a series of cawing sounds . . . ," "He opened his beak and uttered some odd sounds . . . ," "He opened his mouth and gave a few caws and squeaks . . . " She also errs in her description of the position of male and female dolphins when they mate.
In addition to factual errors, her fictional description of dolphin behavior in the wild is more akin to trained behaviors you find in captivity, or to the controlled interactions at Monkey Mia, and will contribute to the growing numbers of folks who have no idea how to respectfully approach dolphins in the wild or what to expect from such encounters. To top it all off, in her concluding author's note she states that her fictional descriptions of wild dolphin behavior "are based solidly on current-day understandings of dolphins and on human-dolphin experiences." Since dolphins in the wild are not trained to jump through hoops, do not give dorsal fin tows on command (it is the very rare wild bottlenose, and only bottlenose, dolphin who permits a tow), do not speak even halting English, etc., I must disagree.
Mermere, Hugo Verlomme. In French.
Verlomme "expresses his passion for the ocean in Mermere, [which tells] the saga of the Noe people, ecological refugees who settle in the middle of the ocean with the participation of the cetaceans."
The Missile Whale and Other Stories, selected by Jo Phillips. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Mister Bluefin, J. B. Drori. Oakland, California: Scopus Books, 1986. Scopus Books, 6157 Aspinwall Road, Oakland, CA 94611, USA.
"Mister Bluefin is a series of tales about a young marine scientist, and the great whales he studies. A sense of wonder and mystery about life on our planet emerges as exciting encounters with whales, feeding, mating, giving birth, and traversing ancient migration routes, are described in absorbing detail. Scientifically, all references are accurate, as far as they are known. It is, however, the fantastical escapades which befall the protagonists that bring forth the mystical bond that exists between humans and cetaceans and beyond that, with the oneness of life everywhere. This is the powerful theme of the book."
Moby Dick, Herman Melville. New York: Penguin Books, 1992, and various other editions. (First published in 1851.) See also the Cetacean Audiography and Cetacean Videography for audio-book and film versions of this work, and the children's bibliography for multiple adaptations. There are also numerous nonfiction critiques/analyses of Moby Dick, a few of which are included in the Cetacean Nonfiction Bibliography. For an online version of the complete text, click here.
According to the book The Whale, edited by L. H. Matthews, "Moby Dick is a transcendentalized version of [Melville's] experiences during his eighteen months' voyage, in which he makes the whale the vast projection of the uncontrolled forces of nature that bring forth and yet overwhelm mankind."According to Richard Ellis, in his book Men and Whales, when Moby- Dick was first published, "For the most part, the reviews were as savage as the whale himself, and as vindictive as Ahab." He later continues, "Melville's reputation languished for forty years. In 1893, however, the tide began to turn. An anonymous reviewer (in The Critic) called the book a 'remarkable romance,' and wrote that 'the author's extraordinary vocabulary, its wonderful coinages and vivid turnings and twistings of worn-out words, are comparable only to Chapman's translations of Homer . . . The only wonder is that Melville is so little known and so poorly appreciated.' By 1913, he had been promoted to the ranks of 'minor fiction writers,'" and his reputation continued to build from there to its ultimately exalted state.
According to John Lilly's Web site, "The first edition of Moby Dick was issued in October 1851. The London edition, entitled The Whale, was published by Bentley in three volumes; in New York it was issued in one volume by Harper. Chapter 54, the only part to be serialized, appeared the same month in Harper's New Monthly Magazine as 'The Town-Ho's Story.' Moby Dick was reprinted in 1863 and 1892 in New York, and in 1901 in London. A collected edition of Melville's works, in sixteen volumes, was issued by Constable, London, in 1922-24. In 1930, Moby Dick was published in three volumes by The Lakeside Press, Chicago, with illustrations by Rockwell Kent. [This] edition, with Clifton Fadiman's introduction and Boradman Robinson's illustrations, was first issued by The Limited Editions Club, New York."
This novel has spawned endless literary analysis, as well as the Melville Society, the journal of which ranks the universities that have published Ph.D. dissertations on Melville, and the Classic Comic version of Moby-Dick. For more details about Melville and Moby-Dick, see Richard Ellis's Men and Whales and L. H. Matthews, ed., The Whale.
Scott: One of literature's all-time great works, a story drawn from Melville's own life and the then-current tale of the whaling ship Essex that was sunk by a Whale. Full of authentic information about whaling, extravagant fancies, curious thoughts about life, God, and good versus evil. Funny, witty, some exquisitely written passages, a truly wonderful meditation on whaling as a symbol for man's ultimate dilemma.
Moon Whales and Other Moon Poems, Ted Hughes. Drawings by Leonard Baskin. New York: Viking Press, 1976.
The More Than Complete Hitchkiker's Guide (contains The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish; and Young Zaphod Plays It Safe), Douglas Adams. Avenel, New Jersey: Wing Books, 1994. (SF)
Trisha: Dolphins play a small role in these works, but it's pithy!From chapter 23 of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins becase he had achieved so much--the wheel, New York, wars and so on--while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man--for precisely the same reasons.
"Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived.
"The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backward somersault through a loop while whistling the 'Star-Spangled Banner,' but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish."
Mouth of the Whale, Elizabeth Sutherland. Santa Barbara: Mudborn Press, 1979. (poetry)
The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale. Random House, 1991. (CD)
Murasaki. A novel in six parts by Poul Anderson, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin, Nancy Kress, and Frederik Pohl, edited by Robert Silverberg. New York: Bantam, 1992.
Jason Star: This B- shared-world anthology features "carpet whales," and one of Poul Anderson's chapters is a thinly veiled attack on current Terran whaling psychology.
Musco--Blue Whale, Vincent Smith. Publisher unknown. (CF, blue whale major character).
A natural history novel about a blue whale.
My Life as a Whale, Dyan Sheldon. New York: Villard Books, 1992. (CF)
My Name is Legion, Roger Zelazny. New York: Ballantine Books, 1976.
Three interwoven futuristic detective stories about a slippery computer hacker who is able to adopt any identity he wishes.From the back cover: "He could be anyone he chose to be . . . wherever and whenever he wanted. Not a bad cover for an agent on assignment! . . . The first assignment was to find and destroy whoever was attempting to sabotage a controversial nuclear project. That was tricky . . . because he would have to kill himself in the process! . . . The second was to clear a gang of dolphins of a murder charge . . ."
My Sister Sif, Ruth Park. Puffin Books, 1997. (YA)
From Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 1991: "In another beautifully written story by the author of Playing Beattie Bow (1982), an adult Erika ('Riko') narrates events in 2000 A.D. when she was 14, imaginatively linking environmental concerns with a plausible explanation of mermaids as humans with special adaptations (e.g., webbed fingers), but with lungs and sophisticated technology to maintain their undersea cities; the 'tail' is a sort of wet suit. Daughters of a mermaid (Marika) and a Scandinavian seaman, Riko and Sif, 17, are unhappily living with a bossy older sister in Australia; until their father's death, they had lived on an island near Tahiti, where they were friends with dolphins and could visit their mother. Riko plans to become a marine biologist, but Sif pines for the sea; deeply concerned, Riko contrives to take her back to their beloved paradise. They find it threatened by man's depredations: whales and porpoises are tragically born dead; the sea people plan to migrate to a cold, desolate, but safer place, and Marika wants Sif to join them. Sif is torn: she realizes how precious she is to Riko and has also fallen in love with Henry, a young scientist they have both learned to trust. Like many of the poignantly evoked sea creatures, Sif doesn't survive, losing her life in a dramatic undersea climax. In a final chapter/epilogue, people are finally stirred by the earth's impending death (and by Henry and Riko's well-informed pleas) to give up their greed and begin to reclaim their environment. A compelling novel with unique, memorable characters and a thoughtful message."--Copyright (c)1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Native Tongue, Carl Hiaasen. New York: Fawcett Books, 1992. (CF)
Trisha: In a review in Whole Earth magazine (Srping 1998), Prof. Susan Davis's excellent nonfiction work Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience is described as "the serious version of Florida's funniest mystery novel, Native Tongue, which deals with sea worlds run amuck."From the back cover: "A former muckraking reporter now working in public relations for a cut-rate theme park in the Florida Keys stumbles onto a hot new story. Two extremely rare blue-tongued voles are stolen from the park. The trail leads to a ruthless fugitive-turned-realtor who wants to bulldoze North Key Largo and cover it with condos and golf courses. And nothing will stand in his way--not rogue porpoises, a psychopathic road-kill gourmet, the New Jersey Mafia or the reporter."
Net Profit comic, Michael J. Becker and Shelby Sampson.. Underground comic. Bolinas, California: Ecomix for Project Jonah, 1974.
From the inside front cover: "Porpoises: Some people call them dolphins--others confuse them with dolphin fish. Some people consider them as intelligent as people--but to the tuna industry they are simply net profit."This book is dedicated to the great order of mammals called Cetacea-- porpoises, dolphins, and whales--and to the process of putting people and porpoises back on the same wavelength."
Trisha: Opens with the Greek legend of Arion, followed by the Polynesian legend of Te-whare, who is sacrificed as a boy to the gods at sea, but is rescued by a dolphin and becomes a chief. Next told is the story of Opo, the friendly dolphin in New Zealand, followed by a section entitled "Now Imagine You Are a Porpoise," which describes the birth, life experiences, and behaviors of a dolphin and its pod, and then points to the greed and destructiveness of humans and asks (in a section that is identified as being inspired by Loren Eisley):
"Porpoises: Are they as smart as man? Maybe not. But they certainly aren't as dumb as we are. Maybe they're really smarter than us because of a simple evolutionary fluke--no hands. No hands to divert the mind from dreaming and the awesome possibilities of the inner eye. If there is a power of intelligence there and it can't expand its energy in building Polaris submarines and devising schemes to wipe small Asian nations off the map, then where does it go? If man's hands had grown as flukes, the moral might run, he would still be a philosopher, but he would not have the devastating power to wreak his thought on the body of the world. Instead, he would have lived and wandered like the porpoise, his home the currents and winds and oceans; intelligent, but forever only an awed and curious observer of unknown wreckage falling thru the blue lights of eternity. Perhaps such a transformation would bring him once more into that mood of childhood innocence in which he talked successfully to all things living, but had no power and no urge to harm. It would break, perhaps, the long loneliness that has made man a frequent terror and abomination, even to himself."
The next section is entitled "How I Became a Horrible Porpoise-Killing Monster" and describes a tuna-fishing boat that sets nets on porpoises, and the final section, "Something Fishy," describes what actions can be taken to help save the dolphins. The inside back cover strip is entitled "What Really Happened to Comet Kohoutek," and the text indicates that the comet was so distraught about what was happening to planet Earth and the dolphins that it left, and that's why it was not as easy to see as had been predicted :-).
New Beginnings: A Booklet of Images and Written Meditations with Musical Accompaniment on Cassette Performed by Water Tribe, Sachi Nifash. Kona, Hawai'i: Big Mouth Productions, 1994.
Titles of selections include: Whalesong, Genesis II (dolphins), This Magic Moment (dolphins), Children of the Sea (dolphins), Splash! (Big Mouth) (dolphins),
Night of the Whale, Jerry Spinelli. Little Brown & Co., 1985.
Ocean Encounter: A Meditative Journey Through Space and Time, Eric Mohn. St. Paul, Minnesota: Eric Mohn, 1992. 195 East 5th Street, St. Paul, Minnesota 55101, USA. Spiral bound on resume quality linen with full-color 4x6 photos and hand assembled by the author. (New Age)
"Ocean Encounters is a meditative story accompanied by photographic images to assist the reader in [his or her] journey. After reading the book a few times, you can take the journey on your own, exploring different paths along the way . . . "
La nuit des dauphins, Hugo Verlomme. In French. Die Nacht der Delphine. In German.
Kurt Moebus: La nuit des dauphins, which Verlomme calls a fairy tale for adults, is a very beautiful story about a lonesome old man who has lost his girlfriend seven years earlier. She loved the sea and used to swim far out, even when the weather wasn't good. One day she didn't return, and each year, on the anniversary of her disappearance, the old man decorates the table for two persons, awaiting her return. On the seventh anniversary, he saves a dolphin that was thrown on the beach [during a storm]. When he looks into the eyes of the animal, he is very confused, because it seems to have the eyes of his girlfriend. This marks the beginning of a new understanding of whales worldwide. The whales are aware of this, and they show the whole earth that they have consciousness and are able to communicate and even synchronize their behavior worldwide. In the end, humans understand that whales and humans are the same kind of creature--not in the biological sense, but in other ways--and the earth becomes a more peaceful place.
The One: A Dialogue between a Fish and a Whale, Leshek. Birmingham: Scribe Books, 1968.
Operation Malacca, Joe Poyer. Garden City, New York: Modern Literary Editions Publishing Co., 1968. (CD*^)
From the front and back covers: "The bizarre novel of an unlikely hero chosen to save the world from holocaust.""No one could doubt the danger of the situation. The British Government has proof that the Red Chinese have secretly planted a five megaton thermonuclear bomb on the floor of the Malacca Strait, ultimately threatening the world with nuclear destruction.
"Only one man can perhaps divert the world from World War III--Dr. Mortimer Keilty, an astonishing super-secret weapon."
The Ophiuchi Hotline, John Varley. New York: Berkley Books, 1977, 1984.
From the back cover: "The invaders came in 2050. They did not kill anyone outright. They said they came on behalf of the intelligent species of Earth - dolphins and whales. The humans resisted, but their weapons refused to operate. The invaders quietly destroyed every evidence of technology, then peacefully departed, leaving behind plowed ground and sprouting seedlings. In the next two years ten billion humans starved to death . . ."
The Oracle of Whales: The Story of Whales from Their Point-of-View, translated into Human English by Paul Lloyd Warner. Santa Cruz, California: New Clear Press, 1987.
"An anthology of original oracles, poems, and histories from the major races of whales in the northern and southern hemispheres."Trisha: This is an unusual find from my annual combing of the used-book stores in San Diego, California. It is a collection of primarily poetry, with some brief sections of whale-speak (MENSHIPS COME SIGHTING ANGLES/SPEED SWIM TOWARD SUN, etc.), all of which is cast as communications from various whale species (and a few humans) at various places and times in history. For instance, the poem "The Flow of Wisdom" is by a "sei whale, late 20th century, Western North Atlantic, Labrador Sea, summer, feeding ground," and "The Guard" is by a "fin whale, 18th century, South Atlantic, Chile Trench, spring, southward migration." The sections of the book include The Whales Speak to Humankind, Whales to Whales (The Death of Whales by the Hands of Man), Whales to Their Inner Spirits, Song of the Cachalot and Giant Squid, The Belugan Sagas, and The Whale Chronicles.
The writing is uneven in quality, but this work's 279 pages certainly stand as a uniquely creative endeavor in the cetacean fantasy literature field.
Orca: A Family Story, Peter Hamilton. North Hollywood, California: The Lifeforce Ecology Center.
"Beautifully illustrated with photos of wild orcas and graphic archive photos portraying early orca captures. The text blends historic and scientific information about the horrors of the live-capture industry with fictional hopes." Referring to pod A5, "Two of its members were killed during the capture; twelve were sold to worldwide aquariums. Only two--including Corky--are still living."
Paikea, Robyn Kahukiwa. New York: Viking. (Maori folklore)
Paradise Park, Allegra Goodman. New York: The Dial Press (Random House), 2001. (CF)
Trisha: In this well-written novel about a quirky New Age seeker, an experience while on a whale-watching trip becomes pivotal in her search.An excerpt: " I leaned over the side of the boat. I sent my thoughts down into the water: 'I can see how you wouldn't want to come up with all these people around. Why should you? It's crass. It's worse than that. It's the descendants here of the folks who killed your ancestors. What a sick little world.' But I was also thinking, Please, please come. I was thinking, Whale, please show your face here, because we need you. We do. I was thinking, Please, whale, come out, because there are some people here who miss your presence. There are people out here on this boat who can't even imagine staying under water for twenty minutes at a stretch. There are people here who can barely hold their breaths at all, and, honestly we are surface dwellers. We like our dolphins in tanks, and our birds in aviaries. We're very trivial. Yet we have so much respect for you when it occurs to us. Whale, I kept thinking, please come.
" Then I saw them. Two clouds coming up from underneath the sea, and they were two whales, big ones, and they came up like these black clouds from underneath, enormous but swift, from right under the boat . . . I was just about flattened there against the rail [from the crush of people trying to see them] and Wayne was somewhere, but I'd forgotten about him. The shadows were melting back under the water.
"Then one whale came back. The whale's flukes began to lift. Our boat was still. The whole vessel was frail next to her. She was massive as a building, and almost close enough to touch. In a rush her flukes came up. Our boat rocked backward. It was as if the whole ocean slid back for an instant, the surface of the water sliding off and opening as that tail reached and tipped itself. It was as if the whole ocean was sliding open. And I saw something there. The world was big, not little. The place was deep. The sky swung back in liquid gold, the air mixed with the water. I saw something. It was a whale, but not just the whale. It was a vision. It was a vision of God."
Penelope, William Anderson. New York: Crown Publishers, 1963/Pocket Books, 1965.
From the front cover: "A bawdy, sparkling novel about a passionate porpoise who, among other talents, talks with a southern accent . . . "
Penelope, The Damp Detective, William Anderson. New York: Crown Publishers, 1974. (May be a reissue of Penelope above.)
The Pink Dolphin, P. T. Olemy. New York: Caravelle Books, 1967. (CF, humorous)
From the back cover: "An American Expedition, a nude from the sea, and the Russian Navy. Plus, a cannibal chief worried about the dwindling food supply of the backward nations.""Commander Sam Carney, our hero, fearlessly leads an American Expedition up the Amazon. Relentlessly he is followed by vodka slugging Russian Captain Vichinski and his dauntless submariners.
"Can Sam carry out his top secret mission midst the confusion caused by the presence of the torrid Lupe, and the beautiful Leslie; not to mention the over stimulated Jiminez?
"Like all good cooks, the cannibal chief has a few new recipes he would like to try. The arrival of the Americans and Russians deep in Amazon country makes for a very wet and funny war."
Trisha: A completely silly romp, written while the U.S. was still concerned about staying ahead of the Russians in all things scientific, in this case dolphin communication research.
The chase begins when the marine mammal feeder at a U.S. dolphin research facility comments to someone who happens to be a Russian informant that he thinks pink Amazonian dolphins, because they live in such a different environment and are, after all, a different color speak a different language than gray bottlenose dolphins :-). When the U.S. researchers find out he's said this to an informant, they think the idea is crazy, but have to get a pink dolphin and study it before the Russians do just to make sure. The journey to the Amazon is humorous, with some complications ensuing when the Russians fail to distinguish between the terms "pink" and "red" and think the U.S. now knows about their top-secret nuclear submarine, the Red Dolphin.
The Pilot, James Fenimore Cooper. 1823.
The second novel ever written about whales and whaling.
The Pirate, Sir Walter Scott. 1821.
The first novel ever written about whales and whaling.
The Planet of Waters, Douglas Anderson. Denver, Colorado: Bread and Butter Press, 1976.
Scott: A curious book about some vaguely defined water Beings, perhaps Whales . . .
The Prince of Whales: A Fantasy Adventure (humpback), Robert L. Fisher. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1986/New York: Tor Books, 1985/E-dition, 1999. (YA*)
From the back cover: "Young Toby's uncontrollable dream music filled the Arctic night sea with sound that brought great danger to all the whales in Toby's pod. His powerful and thundering music was sure to attract the human hunters with their killing ships and hideous exploding harpoons. For the safety of the pod, Toby had to be banished, exiled to certain, lonely death--unless he could silence his song."But then a strange, ghostly spirit appeared, setting Toby on a quest that led from the depths of the haunted oceans to the mystery of an enslaved, sunken city. A quest in search of his true voice. Somewhere in Toby's song was a secret that reached from the seas to the stars. And only Toby's music could united all the beings of the land and the water, to save Earth from a dark, evil creature who hated whales, hated humans, hated Nature and, most of all, hated--Dreams."
From a review in Publisher's Weekly: "Readers who enjoyed Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Watership Down . . . will welcome Toby."
Trisha: Readers of alt.animals.dolphins find this novel dark.
Probe, Margaret Wander Bonanno. New York/London: Pocket Books, 1992. (SF)
From the dust jacket: ". . . Probe [is] an epic-length novel that . . . picks up the story of the USS Enterprise and her crew where Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (see elsewhere in this bibliography) left off. A novel that reveals the secrets behind the mysterious probe that almost destroyed Earth--and whose reappearnace now sends Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and their shipmates hurtling into unparalleled danger . . . and unsurpassed discovery."Winds of change are sweeping the galaxy. The Romulan Praetor is dead, and with his passing, the Empire he ruled is in chaos. Now, on a small planet in the heart of the Neutral Zone, representatives of the United Federation of Planets and the Empire have gathered to discuss initiating an era of true peace . . .
"But the talks are disrupted by a sudden defection--and as accusations of betrayal and treachery swirl around the conference table, news of the probe's reappearance in Romulan space arrives. And the Enterprise crew find themselves headed for a final confrontation with not only the probe--but the Romulan Empire."
Rafts and Dreams, Outside the Whale: Two Plays, Robert Holman. Methuen New Theatre Transcripts. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann, 1992. [British and Irish drama.]
Rajac: A Story, Stanley Spain. New York: Macmillan, 1982,
A novel in the tradition of Watership Down about the life of a young fin whale, Rajac.
Ra-oo and the Porpoise, Betty Brothers. Coral Gables, Florida: Wake-brook House, 1962. For information, contact Litoky Publishing, Box 456, Big Pine Key, Florida 33043.
Red Sky at Night, James W. Hall. New York: Delacorte, 1997/Dell, 1998. Also available as an Audio Book, read and performed by John Glover. (CF)
"The brooding, complex hero of James Hall's previous bestsellers faces the fight of his life in Red Sky at Night. Brutally beaten while investigating the bizarre torture killings of a group of dolphins [who apparently are being slaughtered in order to treat human paraplegics], Thorn is left paralyzed from the waist down. After checking himself into a state-of-the-art pain clinic run by a childhood friend, Thorn uncovers a series of horrific experiments being performed on handicapped army veterans. But the shock doesn't end there. Soon Thorn realizes that his own paralysis is no accident; an enemy from long ago has returned to seek his own sinister form of justice. And, as the novel races toward its shattering conclusion, Thorn finds himself the experimental subject of a man who will go to any length to cure his own twisted pain . . . "
Remembering Blue, Connie May Fowler. New York: Random House, 2000. (CF)
From the author: "My novel revolves around a shrimping family whose family legend holds that they are related to an ancient race of dolphins and that every generation or so the dolphins 'reclaim' one of them and return them to the sea."Connie May Fowler was awarded the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for her most recent novel Before Women Had Wings, which was subsequently produced by Oprah Winfrey as the premiere Oprah Winfrey Presents movie, and for which Ms. Fowler wrote the screenplay.
Trisha: Dolphins and dolphin legends play a small but important role in this well-written novel about a colorful Greek family and the short but passionate marriage of one member (Proteus Nicholas [Nick] Blue) and a woman (Mattie) he meets at the Suwannee Swifty convenience store. Mattie recounts the events of their meeting, marriage, and Nick's tragic end.
Replay, Ken Grimwood. New York: The Berkeley Publishing Group, Ace Books, 1986. (World Fantasy Award winner). (FS^)
Trisha: About a character who relives his life again and again, each time reshaping it based on his memories of his past lives. (For U.S. readers: It's not as simplistic as the movie Ground Hog Day.) Briefly hints at the dolphin theme Grimwood will develop fully in his later work Into the Deep. Both Replay and Into the Deep are excellent works--I find Grimwood one terrific writer.
Ride a White Dolphin, Anne Maybury. 1971. (CF)
Riding the Dolphin, Amanda Thomas. New York: Beaufort Books, 1987. (CF)
Rifts Underseas: World Book Seven. Taylor, Michigan: Palladium Books, 1995, 1996.
Trisha: A volume in the Rifts Role Playing Game series containing detailed information on human Whale Singers and cetacean characters and abilities, including Dolphin Magic (known only to dolphins, porpoises and some whales; dolphins can also learn some Whale Singer spellsongs).Whale Singer spellsongs: "Shortly after they rebelled against the Lord of the Deep, a number of pneuma-biforms discovered that the ancient songs of the cetacean race (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) had magical properties. The blind prophet Current-Rider was the first Whale Singer to learn all the known songs and develop many into spellsongs which could be used by pneuma-biforms and normal cetaceans alike. This unique form of magic is known to all true Whale Singers."
Contents of the "Dolphins & Cetaceans" chapter: Background: Before the Rifts; The Dolphins of Rifts Earth: The dolphin community, Dolphins & conflict, Technology, Foreign relations, Dolphins & the human language (the dolphins' ability to speak in words), Dolphin speak (dolphin gestures -- body language); Dolphin R.C.C.: Natural dolphin & porpoise abilities, Dolphin magic powers (innate); Dolphin & Orca Power Armor; Killer Whale R.C.C.: Natural killer whale abilities, Killer whale magic powers (innate); Sperm Whale R.C.C.: Natural sperm whale abilities, Sperm whale magic powers (innate), Sperm whale psionics (special); Humpback Whale R.C.C.: Natural humpback whale abilities, Humpback whale magic powers (innate), Humpback whale psionics (special)
A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L'Engle. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980. (YA^)
From the dust jacket: L'Engle's classic about a young girl, Vicky Austin, whose incipient telepathic powers help a young marine biologist in his research with dolphins. Vicky's attention is divided between the biologist and another young man, while at the same time she struggles with the knowledge that her grandfather has leukemia. As she confronts questions of love and death, of dependence and responsibility, the inevitable crisis comes, and Vicky must rely on the love of others to overcome her private grief.Once again, Madeleine L'Engle has written a story that reveals through vividly portrayed characters and events the spiritual and moral dimensions of common human experiences.
Trisha: Gayle Julien's second favorite title for young adults (Gayle reviews several books in the Cetacean Children's Bibliography), her most favorite being Steve Senn's A Circle in the Sea. I found A Ring of Endless Light well written, interesting, and educational in the sense that it helps the young reader to confront difficult life/values issues.
Rocheworld, Robert L. Forward. New York: Baen Books, 1990. (SF%)
From the back cover: "Powered by a revolutionary laser-driven stardrive, the first interstellar spaceship would reach the double planet that circled Barnard's Star in a mere twenty years. Some of the world's finest scientists were aboard that ship, and they would arrive prepared for adventure, danger and--to them, most important of all--the thrill of scientific discovery. But what they would find, both in terms of danger and discovery, would surpass all their expectations."
Running with the Dolphins and Other Tybee Tales, Michael Elliott. Smyth & Helwys Pub., 1995. (CF)
Saturn's Race, Larry Niven and Steven Barnes. New York: Tor Books, 2000.
From the back cover: "The future is a strange and dangerous place. Chaz Kato can testify to that. He is a citizen of Xanadu, a near-future perfect society hosting the wealthiest men and women on Earth. Along with his fellow citizens on this artificial island, Kato bears the burden of a dark secret that the outside world would be shocked to hear. Avid Minsky, Kato's oldest friend, is a reclusive biological genius, who resides in the bizarre underwater village below this island. Grotesquely distorted by an array of cybergenetic gear, he surrounds himself with composite life forms -- dolphins and white sharks with grafted arms and organic computer links. Lenore Myles is a student when she travels to Xanadu and gets herself involved with Chaz Kato. When Kato unwittingly lends her his access codes, Lenore stumbles upon the grisly truth behind Xanadu's glittering facade. Lenore, not knowing whom to trust, is soon on the run, hunted down by Saturn, a mysterious entity that moves aggressively to contain the security breach. With the interests of the world's wealthiest people at stake and powerful technology at Saturn's fingertips, Lenore is on a race for her life, against a truly formidable foe."
Save the Whale: A Novel, Michael Koepf. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1978.
From the dust jacket: "Stanley Curtis is tired of the city, tired of work, tired of growing up. Vietnam vet and student drifter, he is not cut out for the nine-to-five grind. He lasts only two weeks working for a San Francisco collection agency before he realizes his true vocation demands a journey north into the Mendocino woods of California in search of Alternative Culture. But penniless pioneering can be a drag, and salvation is hard to come by without an annuity check. Then Stanley teams up with Jorgi--opportunist and con artist extraordinaire, a man brimming with vitality, ingenuity, and blessed with a nose for money."When they find a twenty-five-foot dead killer whale beached at low tide, Jorgi concocts a gigantic con game. They pump the giant whale with formaldehyde, slap on twenty gallons of varnish for a high shine, and mount him on the back of a rented flatbed truck. With girlfriend in tow, it's out of the woods and onto the freeways, as they head south for the cities, launching a massive 'Save the Whale' campaign that is a front for fleecing money from ecology enthusiasts and 'liberal chic' conserationists.
"Everyone wants a piece of the action, and the resulting collision between grand ideals and hard reality makes Save the Whale a marvelous, irreverent spoof of ecology and American life styles. Its targets are many and its aim is sure: success, sex, love, knee-jerk liberalism and law and order, redneck bullies and parlor radicals, trust-fund dropouts and welfare poachers. The author is an authentic new voice in the seventies that speaks for a new post-hippy generation: sardonic, skeptical, still a bit disoriented perhaps, yet aware of its alternatives, intent not on revolution but on somehow coping with an imperfect system . . . "
Save the Whales, Richard Roberts. San Anselmo, California: Vernal Equinox Press, 1991.
Scott: A screenplay, published in book form, with a promo for the visionary artist Andrew Annenberg appended. The screenplay tells a story of the discovery of Dolphins' interdimensional consciousness. Very curious book . . .
The Scientist, A Novel Autobiography, John Cunningham Lilly. New York: Bantam Books, 1978, 1981.
Lilly's autobiography, which uses fictional forms. Covers his early experimentation with dolphins and includes a chapter entitled "Simulation of the Future of Man, Dolphin, and Whale."Scott: A fascinating look into the personal life and thoughts of the Dolphin Man.
Sea as Mirror, Tess Williams. HarperCollinsPublishers Australia, 2000. (CF)
From the publisher: "In the not-too-distant future, and in a specially constructed marina off the US coast, Elizabeth works to communicate with a killer whale, an orca -- Tachotic. Because of the nature of the project, it is very 'political' and she treads a fine line between people thinking she is mad, closing down the project and doing the work necessary to prove it is possible. Elizabeth feels she is getting very close to success, but she is getting frustrated with being so close and unable to find the key to understanding what Tachotic is trying to tell her. Tachotic himself is unsure whey he has sought humans . . . how he can possibly convey the life of the pods . . ."And Elizabeth's time and energy is sometimes fragmented by her on-off relationship with Joe, her inability to put him in one compartment and her work in another. As her work takes over more and more, Joe is impatient to move on.
"As the human world falls victim to terrorist nuclear attacks and everything that was familiar comes under threat, ancient kinships between the land and the sea re-emerge to show a different future, a future full of hope."
Contains sections told from the whale's point of view.
Trisha: Van Ikin and Helen Merrick interview Tess Williams, and her book is reviewed, in issue no. 42 (volume 15, number 2, 2000) of the Australian journal Science Fiction: A Review of Speculative Literature. One of the original short stories on which the novel is based, also entitled "Sea as Mirror," is also included. (The other short story on which the novel is based is Williams's "No Less than Trees and Stars," about a human-whale relationship.) With Van Ikin's (the journal editor) and Tess Williams's permission, following are excerpts from the interview and review:
"Helen Merrick: By far the most compelling and fascinating task imposed by the novel was the need to be able to work out how a whale might understand life and the universe. We lucky people who have read Sea as Mirror ahead of publication date have been astounded by the way you take us into a whale's consciousness and unfold its language and its cosmology. How on earth did you even begin to go about grappling with this utterly alien perspective?
"Tess Williams: I've been interested in whales for years. When my oldest son was a baby, I used to play humpback whale songs to him to get him to sleep. I read about whales and I really thought about them a lot. I found their world amazingly different and I invested quite a lot of mental energy in wondering what it would be like. For example, every breath a whale takes is voluntary. If a whale loses consciousness, there is no autonomic nervous system to simply keep handling that vital function. So, how do they sleep? And that's only one of dozens of questions that I asked. What do the observations
From the author: Sea as Mirror . . was a difficult book, one I struggled with but one which is intensely rewarding. I also like the fact that Sea as Mirror is an 'out there' book which challenges values and promotes respect for other beings on this planet. It is a book which literally 'gives voice' to the planet in a way a lot of people would like to but don't know how. Sea as Mirror is a book with both head and heart, which I think makes it a little special."
Sea Beasts, A. Bertram Chandler. Curtis Books (Modern Literary Editions Publishing Co.), 1971. (H*)
From the dust jacket: "They came in armies from under the sea--they possessed an intelligence and cunning beyond any human."These incredible tales were dismissed as the ravings of madmen by marine expert, Peter Hallows, and his lovely assistant, Sally Brent.
"But then they appeared . . . strange and monstrous creatures that Hallows and his expedition might never live to describe"
The Seal in the Dolphin Pool, Kendrick Smithyman. Auckland, New Zealand: Auchland University Press/Oxford University Press, 1974. (poetry)
seaQuest DSV: The Ancient, David Bischoff. Orion Press, 1994. (FS)
The Seasick Whale, Ferenc Kishont. Translated from Hebrew by Yohanan Goldman. London: André Deutsch, 1965.
Sea Siege, Andre Norton. New York: Ballantine, 1987. (SF)
From the back cover: "The worst had happened . . . or so the survivors of the nuclear holocaust thought. But on an island in the West Indies a small group of American Seabees, scientists and natives knew otherwise, knew that a horror more terrifying than any man had ever known had been unleashed in the seas--and no on could stop it . . . "
Sea Stories of Dolphins, John Paul Barrett.
The Secret Oceans, Betty Ballantine. New York: Bantam, 1994. (YA, SF*^)
"David Schlessinger and the crew of the Turtle descended to the ocean depths with an ambitious objective--to establish communication with the whales. They had no idea they would encounter a species more intelligent than humankind, and even less could they imagine being captured for study themselves."Their captors were honorable and kind, and intended to eventually release them back to the wild . . . Professor Schlessinger was avid with curiosity. He saw the intelligence of the creatures he dubbed 'cetasapiens' as a path to communication.
"Unknown to them all, the cetasapiens were members of a high order of civilization and had been monitoring the activities of homosapiens for some time. The secret watchers had carefully noted the Turtle's test dives, assessing both the ship and each individual aquanaut, in preparation for an experiment of their own . . . .
"With only 1-1/2% of the oceans explored by humans, the cetasapiens had found it easy to keep their existence a secret for millennia. But secrecy was no longer a protection: Their very existence was threatened by human destructiveness-- and they intended to do something about it."
Lavishly illustrated with original paintings by twelve award-winning artists.
The Selchie's Seed, by Shulamith Levey Oppenheim. Illustrated by Diane Goode. San Diego, California/New York/London: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1996. (YA/F)
From the back cover: "'One legend has it that a man came upon the selchies leaving off their skins. He stole a skin and hid it away above his door. Soon there came a lovely young girl wandering, distracted, searching for her covering, for without it she could never return to the sea. They married, for she had no other choice, but the girl never ceased pining for the lost sealskin and for the sea. . . . All her descendants, so it is said, have within themselves the selchie's seed.'"One storm-wracked night, a magnificent white whale comes to the harbor by young Marian's house. The whale casts a spell on Marian stronger than that of family, stronger than that of home, a spell whose power is rooted in a dark family secret of which even Marian is unaware."
Trisha: If you liked the mysterious, foreboding quality of the jewel of a film The Secret of Roan Innish, you will enjoy this story as well.
Semo: A Dolphin's Search for Christ, Sara Gordon Harrell. Concordia Publishing House, 1977.
Shadows in the Water, Kathryn Lasky. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1991. (YA)
From the back cover: "Telepathy is nothing new to the Starbucks. All four Starbuck twins can teleflash -- talk to each other without saying a word aloud. But when the family moves to the Florida Keys, Liberty and July being to get mysterious telekinetic messages from the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The faint clicks in their minds grow stronger as the twins watch dolphins weave through the surf and leap above the waves. Could the dolphins be trying to talk to them?"In the second book of the Starbuck Family Adventure series, Kathryn Lasky takes readers into the magical world of the tropics. The Starbuck twins meet up with everything from dolphins and sea turtles to crocodiles as they follow the trail of an exciting ecological mystery."
Shindara: A Starquill Author's Special Edition, Brian Wizard. Part of the Brian Wizard 20th Century Anthology set. Wallowa, Oregon: Brian Wizard. Available from Web site or from Brian Wizard, P.O. Box 42, Wallowa, Oregon 97885.
From the Web site: "A dolphin's tale set off, and on, the coast of Australia. Written for everyone, with a target audience of the 14-year-old in us all. Come to Shindara, the home water for a community of bottlenosed dolphins, who are hosting this year's Harmony Festival. Fight along with Hap and his girlfin Shelly as they learn anything is possible with turtle magic! Join them for some high-spirited adventure, from the dolphin's point of view."
Shock Wave, Clive Cussler. New York: Pocket Star Books, 1996. (CF)
From the back cover: Tasman Sea, 1956. A british clipper ship bound for Australia's penal colony is crushed in a raging typhoon. A few pitiful survivors wash up on a deserted island. Among them are Betsy Fletcher and Jess Dorsett, who discover an immense supply of exquisite diamonds . . .Seymour Island, Australia, 2000. Dirk Pitt rescues Maeve Fletcher, a descendant of Betsy and Jess, after an unknown cataclysm kills thousands of [seals and dolphins in the Weddell Sea] plus nearly two hundred people aboard a cruise ship. Pitt traces the carnage to the global diamond operations of Maeve's father, Arthur Dorsett, and her callous sisters. From a chilling escape at a high-security Canadian mine to a tiny boat adrift on lonely, shark-infested seas, the ingenious Pitt is racing to thwart Dorsett's ruthless plans--before an unthinkable disaster claims millions of innocent lives!
The Sign of the Dolphin, Irene Byers. London: Hutchinson, 1956. (CF)
The Silent Sea, Patricia Rosemoor. Harlequin Intrigue series no. 283. New York/London: Harlequin Books, 1994.
From the back cover: "Even the silent sea holds secrets . . . Like the night Marissa Gilmore searched the shore for her beloved dolphin . . . and saw the sleek mammal, half-silvered in the moonlight - pushing a body ashore."Now, deep in the Florida Keys, the only witness to the murder was a dolphin. And only Marissa could unlock its secret.
"Marissa wanted to protect the dolphin; Riley O'Hare demanded to set it free . . . But then the accidents began . . ."
Background information on working and swimming with dolphins was provided to the author by John G. Shedd Aquarium, The Brookfield Zoo, Dolphin Research Center, and Dolphins Plus.
Silent Witness, Patricia H. Rushford. Jennie McGrady Mystery series, No. 2. Bethany House, 1993. (YA/CF)
The Silver Dolphin, Velda Johnston. New York: Dodd Mead, 1979. Novelette of same name by this author appeared in the May 1979 issue of Good Housekeeping.(CF, whaling)
The Silver Dolphin, Diana Lord. New York: Kensington Publishing, 1995. (CF)
From the back cover: "When heiress Carrie Debary abandons Houston high society for a simpler life in Hawaii, she never dreams she'll find love in the arms of marine biologist Alex Madison. Then a boating accident leaves her new husband badly injured . . . and Carrie is drawn into an illcit liaison with charismatic Jack Briskin. Returning to Texas to take over the family business, Carrie throws herself into a dizzying whirl of deal-making and parties with all the fervor of a woman who wants only to forget . . . "From the author (DawnReno@juno.com): "I have always loved dolphins and wonder about their intelligence--in the same way that I wonder about the love shared between human beings. When I began this story, I wanted to utilize what I know and love about dolphins and also explore how a couple deeply in love would deal with the tragedy of an accident that leaves one of them paralyzed. In my novels, I attempt to explore the lives of real human beings--such as Carrie and Alex. They are not always perfect, but then neither are you and I! . . . "
Trisha: This book falls within the "romance novel" genre and pits the heroine, who runs a whale-watching business with her husband before his injury and with the help of his friends after the injury, and environmentalist Jack Briskin against the dolphin-killing tuna industry, with a side story about Carrie's divorced mother and her new relationship. Has common cetacean fiction themes of dolphin intelligence, joy, and rescue of humans.
Excerpt from the book: "After what seemed like an eternity, she felt a strong, slippery body brush against hers and realized the dolphins had come back, surrounding her, pushing her, trying to help her. She dove with them, and finally found Alex's arm. As she pulled him to the surface, the dolphins pushed. The sea around her seemed full of them. To her right, Silver rose within inches of her face and met her eye to eye. She gasped, wiped the burning water from her eyes, and tightened her grip around Alex's chest. The dolphins edged closer, buoying her and Alex, chirruping among themselves.
"She tried to gauge how far she had swum from the boat. There, only ten or twenty feet away, yet in the turbulent sea it seemed miles. She hugged Alex close to her and stroked with her left arm, amazed that the dolphins were slowing their pace to keep Alex and her within their protective circle . . . Using every ounce of energy she had, she fought the waves, the pull of the water, and Alex's weight, keeping her eye on the dark teak hull. She was tired, and the dolphins seemed to sense it, crowding even closer, nudging her from beneath as well as from both sides.
"Carrie didn't pause to think of the miracle the dolphins were performing or to thank the gods they were there to help. She only wanted the nightmare to be over."
The Silver Dolphin, Anne Weale. New York/London: Harlequin Books, 1963; London: Bills & Boon, 1963/Ulverscroft Large Print Books, 1975. (CF)
Siren Song, Judy Gill. Loveswept romance no. 733. New York: Bantam Books, 1995.
"Returning after fifteen years to the isolated beach where orca whales came to play, Don Jacobs once more felt seduced -- by memories of a young girl who'd offered him her innocence, a gift he'd hungered for but had to refuse. Tracy Maxwell still bewitched him, but was this woman of secrets finally free to surrender her heart?"
The Sleepers in the Cave, and Yunus in the Whale. London: Ta--Ha, 1992.
The Snail Who Saved a Whale, Nana Maria. London: Espuela, 1994 (poetry)
Sometimes, , Mark van Sciver. (Fantasy)
Contains a passage in chapter 5, "Rhythms of the Sea," related to orcas and mermaids.
Song of the Dolphins: A South Seas Mystical Adventure, Derek Ryan. San Diego, California: Soular Publishing, 1998.
From the Web site: Song of the Dolphins is the . . . tale of the daring journey of [two] dolphins and their discovery of the secret teachings of the Great Whale Masters. Alive with the enchantment of the South Pacific, this . . . story is soon to be [an] . . . animated film . . ."This is the transformational tale of two bottlenose dolphins, Odin and Mira, and their journey to find a mysterious pod of enlightened whales. As they travel through the turquoise waters of the South Pacific they meet some remarkable beings: a weary dolphin who has just escaped from captivity, a human couple studying interspecies telepathy, and a female humpback whale called Uba. It is Uba who first transmists to Odin and Mira the liberating teachings of Jahdo, revealing the bliss of Self-Radiance available to all advanced mammals.
"When they finally meet Uba's master, Himo, they hear of his plans for the first interspecies vision quest, a sacred gathering of whales, dolphins and humans. THis gathering is being called to accelerate the global awakening on land and sea and to help stop the continued killing of dolphins. In order to bring together this vision quest, Odin and Mira must master their worst fears.&qot;
Song of the Humpback Whale, Paul Snow. Making Waves, 1987. (poetry)
From the publisher: "Meant for the entire family, The Song of the Sea series includes original color illustrations. The story, as sung by whales and dolphins, is finally understood by a deaf scientist, Sharing, the first human ever to understand the song of the sea creatures. A great conclave including all intelligent sea mammals is called to determine mankind's fate. This series is based on the same real-life incident that inspired the movie Free Willy."Trisha: Lavishly illustrated oversize hardcover books. Lyrical allegory about the relationship of humans with nature, approached through listening to the history of the earth as it is recorded by the whales.
Songs from the Inner Soul, R. G. Mills.
A " book of poetry with references to the sea and one [poem] in particular about a long-term relationship with a dolphin family."
Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices, Jodi Picoult. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1992. (CF)
"In Songs of the Humpback Whale, Jodi Picoult interweaves five rich narrative voices to tell a story of love, loss and self-discovery. The voices belong to a mother, her daughter and three very different men . . . Leaving [oceanographer] Oliver and his whale tapes behind, Jane and [her daughter] Rebecca set out to drive across America . . . Oliver, used to tracking male humpback whales across vast oceans, now has the task of tracking his tantalizingly unpredictable wife across a continent . . ."
Sons of the Whale, Cung Giu Nguyen. In Vietnamese.
Trisha: Thai Van Kiem, in his article "The Cult of the Whale" in Vietnamese Studies, V121, 1996, indicates that the burial of stranded whales, who are considered guardians of fishermen in Vietnam, follows the same rites as the burial of high-standing humans. One part of the burial ceremony involves chanting "a complex hymn to the spirit king of the waves", i.e., the whale. Thai then indicates that Cung Giu Nguyen tells the story of this chanting in his novel Sons of the Whale as follows:"They sang the traditional threnody, for which the rhythm is kept by drums and castanets and enthusiastically supported by the clapping of children's hands:
"'One hundred families mourning as if they had lost a mother or father
The Heart of man reveres and fears it
That is tradition! This is a spirit of great power
That comes to salvage ships battling contrary winds
Its protection extends to the seas and rivers
to the mountains and plains
Wherever her lovely image is celebrated and her glory sung . . . '"
Thai continues, "At nightfall, the villagers gather to assist in a theatre performance that lasts 24 consecutive hours, without any intermission. Henceforth, every year on the same day, a performance will be organized for the diversion of the divine whale as well as the deities."
Souls in the Great Machine, Sean McMullen. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1999. Also published in Australia in two volumes as Voices in the Light and Mirrorsun Rising. Adelaide, South Australia: Aphelion Publications, 1994, 1995. Adrian Esdaile, who reviews the book below, indicates there is supposed to be a third volume published in Australia.
From the publisher: "The great Calculor of Libris was forced to watch as Overmayor Zarvora had four of its components lined up against a wall and shot for negligence. Thereafter, its calculations were free from errors, and that was just as well - for only this strangest of calculating machines and its two thousand enslaved components could save the world from a new ice age. In Sean McMullen's glittering, dynamic, and exotic world two millennia from now, there is no more electricity, wind engines are leading-edge technology, librarians fight duels to settle disputes, steam power is banned by every major religion, and a mysterious siren "Call" lures people to their death. Nevertheless, the brilliant and ruthless Zarvora intends to start a war in space against inconceivably ancient nuclear battle stations. Unbeknownst to Zarvora, however, the greatest threat to humanity is neither a machine nor a force but her demented and implacable enemy Lemorel, who has resurrected an obscene and evil concept from the distant past: Total War."Adrian Esdaile (orinoco@cia.com.au):
Place: Southern Australia; Time: 3500 AD
Civilization has regressed to roughly early industrial-revolution levels, due to a mixture of global warming and nuclear and genetic warfare. Any electrical devices are destroyed from orbit by thousand-year-old military satellites. Coastal regions are rendered uninhabitable by "The Call," a psychic weapon developed by cetaceans as a final answer to humankind's predation. "The Call" periodically sweeps inland, causing any unprotected humans to enter a trance and walk to the sea; most of them die during the walk due to starvation.
Some of my favorite words to describe this trilogy: muskets, wenches, dolphins, aviads, wavy hair, muskets, cavalry, camels, dolphins, tankards, taverns, trains, muskets, dolphins, muskets, dolphins.
I reckon it is a terrific series.
Sounding, Hank Searls. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982. (CF^, whale major character)
From the back cover: "Sounding takes us into the extraordinary mind and emotions of the magnificent sperm whale, an aging bull roaming the waters of the Atlantic. Troubled and separated from his herd, the whale wants to fulfill his one obsessive desire--to communicate with the human race and learn why they can be both vicious hunters and frolicking playmates."Far away, on a doomed Russian nuclear submarine, Lieutenant Peter Rostov, the sonar officer and a classical musician, is spending what he's sure are his last days listening to the beautiful 'sounding' of the whale.
"In the amazing climax to this unique novel, man and whale come together-- and a magnificent destiny is fulfilled."
From a review in The Los Angeles Times: "From Aesop's fables to Watership Down, animal stories have entertained and enlightened us. But rarely have writers attempted to truly portray the consciousness of a non-human creature--and have even more rarely succeeded when they did. Here is just such a rare success."
From a review by Whitney Tilt in the May/June 1983 issue of Oceans: "In much the same manner as Sally Carrighar's portrait of a blue whale family in Twilight Seas, Searls takes the reader inside the huge head of the cachalot to examine how a sperm whale might perceive heaven (the 'Ocean of Thought') to Moby Dick. While the author might be hard pressed to substantiate this anthropocentric treatment of whales, the account is imaginative, moving, and a skillful blend of fact, history, and believable fiction . . . Sounding has one major theme: If whales are intelligent beings, how do they view the irrational actions of humans against the entire family of cetaceans? The novel gives the reader one possible insight into that question. It also ends on a hopeful note. Man appears to be heading toward a truce with whales, and in the 'Oceans east of tomorrow's sun, men's voices and whales were one.'" [This review was written in 1983, and now in 1998 it sadly appears that the hoped-for truce between whales and humans is not yet to be.]
Scott: A novel about "a Man and a Whale." Good research into the actual facts of whale biology.
Trisha: A+, excellent.
The Sounding Stillness, Kenneth Von Gunden. New York: Ace, 1993.
From the back cover: "Welcome to the water world of Cousteau . . . where humans and dolphins have been genetically altered to live in the alien sea. For decades, they have uneasily coexisted with the intelligent native life of the planet, huge whalelike creatures who dwell in the depths."But the 'whales' are becoming concerned about the damage that the colonists are doing to their planet. And the humans are at odds about how to deal with the threat.
"Enter Galen Yeager, secret agent, and his cyborg partner, Sam. Sent to investigate, they are pulled into the conflict. And with the help of some adventurous dolphins they discover the key to peace, far beneath . . ."
Nai`a: I found this book very dry and uninteresting. It's the story of a secret agent and his cyborg partner on the water world "Cousteau." Cousteauan humans have been genetically altered to breathe and spend much of their time underwater. The dolphins, which play a small part in the story, have also been genetically altered, and function something like sheep dogs in the running of underwater farms. They speak a very limited amount of English.
The Space Swimmers, Gordon R. Dickson. New York: Tor Books, 1987. (SF^)
The sequel to Home From the Shore.From the back cover: "Six years ago, Johnny Joya led the sea-born Cadets of the Space Academy back to the sea. He knew that the sea- and land-born must separate or clash. When the Cadets refused to return to the Land, the Sea-People were declared outlaws . . . hunted and killed like animals in a one-sided war without quarter.
"Now one of the hunters offers the Sea-People safety--but at a price: Johnny Joya must lead his people after the Space Swimmers, along the golden roads between the stars, but not for themselves--for the Land.
"The fuse is lit. Will Land and Sea smash in a final explosion or emerge into a future undreamed of by both?"
The Spy Who Spoke Porpoise, Phillip Wylie. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1969/New York: Pyramid, 1970. (CD)
From the dust jacket: "Ringling Wallenda Grove, semiretired millionaire, former circus acrobat, animal trainer and magician, is an affable, middle-aged man of simple tastes. He is also a master spy.In the serenely beautiful Hawaiian Islands, Grove uncovers a bizarre Russian plot, flushes an ancient, deadly enemy, and finds himself fighting for his life on the edge of a live volcano . . .
". . . It was a mission the President could not entrust to his own intelligence agency. Something was happening in the C.I.A. . . . something that needed looking into. . . .
"The President decided that a solitary man would have to do the job. A few weeks later R. W. Grove bought a house at the beach on Oahu, made a few changes and additions here and there, and moved in. Soon the favorite swimming instructor of the local children, Grove also made friends with another playful group--the porpoises in the Sea Life Park. These friends kept him informed of strange after-hour activities in the Park . . . activities that convinced him that he was on the trail of something big."
Starplex, Robert J. Sawyer. New York: Ace Books, 1996.
Frank: Dolphins are entirely supporting characters, but their presence is strong enough that I believe it deserves to be included in this bibliography. Particularly interesting is an exchange near the end of the story between one of the dolphins and an alien regarding the dolphins' attitude about past human treatment of cetaceans--they don't hold it against us. General human responsibility is not a normal concept to them; they judge us on an individual basis, particularly about the past. Basically, "No one of them has done any of that to me," said Longbottle . . . There is also an interesting observation (that may or may not have real-world parallels) that dolphins didn't realize we were intelligent back then either, and an explanation as to why . . .
Star Seed, David Andreissen. Norfolk, Virginia: The Donning Co., 1982. (SF)
Trisha: A new bacteria of unknown origin has wiped out all living things on Earth, with the exception of a few humans (including two preadolescents altered with cetacean genes to more readily spend time underwater) and their dolphin assistants, all of whom are living in an underwater research laboratory and have had no exposure to surface air. Not long after the plague, the whitetip sharks in the vicinity of the lab begin to attack intelligently, some of the few remaining humans lose their life or are severely injured, the lab's air filtration system's finite life becomes a problem, and most of those remaining set out in a small sub to find the source of a strange signal that's been broadcast ever since the plague began. According to "About the Author," Andreissen is an ex-Navy man and thus the background information about underwater submersibles, etc., provided in the book is authentic and based on first-hand research.I found the book a decent read, with a reasonably interesting storyline. Although, as you'll read below, the "New Dolphins" are claimed to be "not quite man's equal," you might find them otherwise. The ubiquitous-to-cetacean-sci-fi themes of dolphins as playful, mischievous, loyal, and telepathic are present in this volume as well. The dolphins have a role in about one-third of the book and are described as follows:
"Even the porpoises, civilized though they had become as a result of the Station's work, had originally--before they met men, in the sea--been little more intelligent, in a meaningful way, than the chimpanzees." The "New Dolphins" were "new not physically, but culturally, the result of the New Delphinology. Interaction with human beings, the careful gift of a structured speech, training in a thousand human concepts and ideas-- culture--had changed the once mentally-primitive Delphinus delphis, making its already potentially intelligent brain capable of logical thought. Making them not quite man's equal--but valuable partners in the sea, partners with a few remarkable talents of their own."
"Culture had not much modified some of the dolphins' attitudes; they were still deeply familial, religious in their strange way, still rejected whole areas of human knowledge like economics and politics and psychology as frivolous, if not misleading. And they still loved to play . . . "
"For a long time we thought the cetaceans hadn't any speech, because we couldn't break their code. But they did--telepathy. Apparently it works, at least occasionally, between all the higher animals, especially those capable of sympathy with one another. Even between dolphin and human--Ian and Deela [the altered humans] have been learning from them." . . . " The dolphin lived in a world of nearly pure verbs . . . The Delphinidae, he had discovered, used sound only as their secondary means of 'speech.' Their primary medium, evolutionarily advantageous in a vast and opaque sea, was telepathy . . . The psi-engineers and marine biologists and anthropologists and semanticists had gone down to the sea in subs, and the happy primitivism of the wild dolphin had been quickly transformed. Using thought, mind to mind, they have never evolved symbols; never progressed to speech; never used speech to create and transmit culture. Once communication had been opened, a common seaspeech had been devised for both species to use in the ocean. The dolphin learned from man, and man from the dolphin."
". . . And then without warning he was through, through Ian's mind, into the mind of the dolphin; and his own universe dissolved . . . And it was more than physical; he was in a different universe, not the primate universe of things-seen but the vast cetacean universe of sounds-heard, a most inhuman and unstable but brilliantly right kind of world that flowed through him and that he flowed with in a joy so intense . . . that he suddenly saw why porpoises always seemed to smile . . . "
Starship and Haiku, Somtow Sucharitkul. New York: Timescape Books, 1981. (SF)
From the back cover: "The millennial war left a sullen void where civilization once stood . . . But then the whales began their song--a mysterious song that reosunded throughout the polluted seas and told an ancient heartbreaking tale that moved the survivors to revive an honored ritual . . ."And at the vanguard stood Takahashi, self-appointed Death Lord--a man gone mad in the wake of the chaos. He saw himself an artist whose greatest creation was a living haiku, with a last line as exquisite as it was final--the end of all human life.
"Only one chance remained for Josh Nakamura, for his younger brother Didi, and for Ryoko, the beautiful daughter of a high minister of Japan. They must take the whale's legacy and leave the planet before they too [become] part of Takahashi's terrible poetic vision . . . "
Trisha: An interesting work, which explores the Asian relationship with order and death combined with a portrayal of whales as dreamers and as the ancestors of humans.
"They call it dreaming, the whales, he thought. What they mean is to see with utter clarity, beyond that limit which humans describe as uncertainty. They see the fabric of the universe, the very packets of mass-energy whose dance creates the illusion of reality, and are able to transform it."
Startide Rising, David Brin. New York: Bantam, 1983, 1993. Tenth
anniversary edition, with revisions by the author. (SF*^) (Hugo and Nebula Award
winner.) (This is the second book in Brin's first Uplift trilogy. For links to
information on the Uplift concept, see The Uplift War). Movie rights for this book have been sold, for more information
Trisha: Based on the input of alt.animals.dolphins readers, this novel from Brin's
Uplift series (see the entry for The Uplift War for links to more
info on the Uplift concept) is the all-time cetacean sci-fi favorite. It is as
grand as the cover quote indicates, and the dolphins, who have been genetically
uplifted by humans, constitute the primary crew aboard Streaker, including
the captain. Their portrayal is interesting and complex, including their personal
and species-related traits and their multiple levels of thought and communication:
the Whale Dream, Keneenk (combines "logical, human-style thought with the
heritage of the Whale Dream"), Primal Delphin, dolphin-Trinary, and Anglic.
Brin is a terrific writer, and I concur that this is one of the very best cetacean
novels.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Vonda N. McIntyre.
New York: Pocket Books, 1986. (SF*^) (See also the video of the same name in
the
The sequel to this work is entitled Probe and is described elsewhere
in this bibliography.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The official movie magazine.
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home comic. Star Trek Movie Special series no. 2. New York: DC Comics, 1987.
The Story of Jonah: Being the Whole of the Book of Jonah. London:
Bodley Head, 1968.
Strandia, Susan Lynn Reynolds. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1991.
(YA, F*^)
"Sand is taken in by some Midislanders, people who have no telepathic powers
or wealth, and she begins to make a new life for herself among women and men who
live and work as they choose. It is not long, though, before Sand is found, captured,
and punished for defying her duties as a raeth. When she is put to sea in an oarless
boat, it is M'ridan who comes to save her.
"She wakes up, barely alive, far away from Strandia, and unable to use her
talent. Sand misses M'ridan terribly, and she never stops yearning for Strandia--
in spite of all that happened. When she hears a warning that a tidal wave is
coming, she knows that somehow she must find her way to the island to tell her
people of the imminent danger.
"Sand's struggle and triumph in her search for independence and a home make
Strandia a stirring and exciting fantasy adventure."
Trisha: Good book.
The Strange Story of the Great Whale, also Known as Big Mac, Erih Kos.
Translated from Serbo-Croat by Lovett F.Edwards. New York: Harcourt, Brace &
World, 1962. (CF)
"In the end, public opinion turns against the whale's now vile-smelling
carcass, which must be rapidly removed from the summery city, but there is no
forgiveness for the hero because he was right; rather, one can see only more
trouble because he is different.
"Here is a comedy, pleasant to read as a well-paced, neatly plotted, and
sagely characterized story. Its enjoyment is not in the least diminished by
the subtle implications of the dangers inherent in any society that makes a
virtue of conformity for its own sake. It is not farfetched to suggest that
the hero would have earned a smile from Voltaire and a nod from Mark Twain."
The Struck Leviathan: Poems on Moby Dick, John Frederic Bennett.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1970.
The Summer the Whales Sang, Gloria Montero. Formac Pub. Co. Ltd., 1995. (CF)
Sundiver, David Brin. New York: Bantam, 1985/Germany: Rainer Schmidt,
1995. (SF^) (This is the first book in Brin's first Uplift trilogy. For links
to information about the Uplift concept, see The Uplift War.
Superluminal, Vonda McIntyre. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin,
1983. (SF^)
"Now a young pilot with a new bionic heart, a man from a plague-ravaged
world, and a beautiful diver from the sea are about to discover that their
destinies--and their souls--are entwined. A voyage to a distant planet, a
message in a crystal, an accident and a love affair have suddenly cracked open
the known order of the Universe. Two women and a man are caught up in a mystery,
and now they are changing every world they travel in, and every life they touch!"
Trisha: I became a fan of Vonda McIntyre after reading her mesmerizing,
award-winning Dreamsnakes. Superluminal is also a creative,
good read, in which cetaceans (orcas) play a small, but respected role.
See also the novelization of the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home,
another McIntyre work.
Swimming with Dolphins, Adrian Oldenberg. Bucknell Series in Contemporary Poetry. Cranbury: Bucknell University Press, 2002. (Poetry)
World's Finest presents Superman and Aquaman no. 203. New York: DC Comics, June 1971.
". . . unlike a human, I grew fast! Instead of years, it took months for me to reach adolescence. I learned fast, too! Became adept in all subjects! Even learned to talk like a human. I also had wondrous sonic powers -- supersonic powers they called them -- I could use to project heat . . . to affect the minds of others . . . But mostly, just for fun, I used them to project beauty, like creating underwater rainbows. Despite all this, I was unhappy. My parents had deserted me because I was different, yet I realized that I could never fit in with humans, either. I loved the humans for raising me, for saving my life -- but, at the same time, I hated them! For I am clumsy and they all laughed at my awkwardness. Most of all, I was lonely, and something in the back of my mind -- like some inborn knowledge -- kept telling me there was a way I could alleviate this loneliness. Giving in to that inner knowledge I strained -- causing changes to occur within me. Suddenly, I split apart into two beings. I had created my own twin brother! He was like me in so many ways -- looking the same, possessing the same knowledge. Yet he wasn't exactly my twin -- for, though he had inherited my hatred for mankind, he possessed none of the love. It was then that I realized the horror of what I had done. I had set into motion a process that couldn't be stopped! Every few days, from then on, I would split in tow . . . creating another brother! And these new brothers also possessed no love. That's not all! Any of my brothers could force the fission-process within him, too! . . . They destroyed the lab . . . and now they intend to destroy the world -- or rather destroy it for humans. [They are planning] to flood earth by 'mind' power! They will mentally project sonic-heat at the polar ice caps -- melt them --thereby turning earth into a water world! Mankind will drown -- but not my brothers!" Then Superman, Aquaman, and the mutant who still has love move into action to save the day.
Swimming with Dolphins, by Erin Pizzey. New York: HarperPaperbacks, 1993.
(CF)
"But on Little Egg, Pandora finds refuge, understanding, and Ben--a gentle,
passionate lover who welcomes her into his heart. Strengthened by Ben's tenderness
and the island's captivating spell, Pandora begins to banish the ghosts of her past
and discovers an inner peace that will finally lead to her happiness."
Trisha: From thumbing through this book, it appears the dolphins play a very
small but summary role, as captured in a passage near the end of the book
after Pandora has swum with them for the first time: "When they got back
to the house, Ben was standing ankle-deep in the water. He looked at Pandora.
'You've been swimming with the dolphins,' he said. 'How do you know?' Pandora
asked, puzzled. 'Anyone who swims with dolphins shines like a light. It's the
joy they bring, and their knowledge of the universe.'"
Synesthesia, by Terrence McKenna and Timothy Ely. New York: Granary
Books, 1992.
Tavro Kassandry (The Stigma of Kassandra), by Chingiz Aitmatov.
Moscow: Eksmo, 1995. In Russian.
Trisha: Sounds similar to The Jonah Kit.
Then Upon the Evil Season, Noel Virtue. London: Arrow Books, 1990. (CF)
From the book: "All over Opononi there was a feeling of joy for the dolphin. People were shook by it all, just as Lubin was. He had never seen people acting like this even at a huge salvation crusade they had once been to, down in Auckland . . . As soon as he got back to Effie, he told her, 'It's a real dag. All these blokes with their wives carrying on like the dolphin was Jesus.'"
"Unfortunatley, Judge Aleria Farrell's fact-finding tour of the enchanted
seascape is soon tangled in a net of sensuality. Has she caught the bait and
gone for the lure? You get she has. And now it's up to her disgruntled bailiff
Jemall to find out how and why--before an amphibious adversary deep-sixes them.
But even his alien magic is outweighed by an octopus with one tentacle too many
. . . "
This Rough Magic, Mary Stewart. New York: Fawcett, 1964, 1987. (GR)
Trisha: A wild, friendly dolphin plays a small, but pivotal role, including
a salute in the closing line of this murder mystery, which spent
eight months on The New York Times bestseller list. The author
expresses her indebtedness to Antony Alpers, whose Book of Dolphins
provided "not only an inspiration, but also a great deal of information
for [the] book."
This Summer's Dolphin, Maurice Shadbolt. New York: Atheneum, 1969. (CF)
The Three Investigators in the Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale, Marc
Brandel. New York: Random Library, 1983. (CD)
Three Poems: Dolphin Skull, Rare Angel and Dark Brown, Michael McClure.
New York: Viking Penguin, 1995.
Tiki and the Dolphin: The Adventures of a Boy in Tahiti, Christopher
Lucas. New York: Vanguard Press, 1974.
But more than these, Tiki loves Toa, the baby dolphin he has found trapped in a
pool on the beach, separated from his family by the surging tides. Together, the
boy and the dolphin become almost as one, playing recklessly in the deep deep
blue of the ocean, communicating with each other, and, finally, in the turmoil
of colonial intrigue, endangering their very lives for each other in order to
outwit the authorities.
But Tiki has another friend: a strange white man who squeezes bright colors of
paint onto sackcloth. He teaches Tiki to look at the world with his own eyes,
to be unafraid of seeing something he does not know, to understand that a pony
can sometimes be red, sometimes blue, that tree trunks can be purple instead of
gray or brown. And it is only to this strange, intense man that Tiki can speak
his heart. The painter's name is Paul Gaugin.
In the terrible chaos of the hunt for the dolphin by authorities, Tiki and Toa
manage to escape. Gaugin's fate is otherwise--he must leave the island. But the
wonderment Tiki has learned from him remains. Tiki will also see with his own
eyes; he will always abide by the painter's advice: "Keep your feet on the
ground and your head in the clouds." Even when he must free Toa, even when
he feels the sharp pangs of loneliness for his missing friend, Tiki remembers,
and the understanding he carries within himself brings him new joys as he becomes
a man.
Time of the Dolphins, Lola Irish. Angus and Robertson.
Time's Dark Laughter, James Kahn. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982. (FS)
"Now Beauty's wife has abandoned him for the pleasures of a mind-link with
the mysterious Pluggers. Worse--before disappearing she removed the helmet that
protected Josh from the mental summons of the City With No Name.
"Soon Beauty and Josh's brother each set off to search for their relatives
amid the riotous decay of an Animal world with no use--and little room--for man."
Titan, John Varley. Berkley Publishing, 1979. (SF)
"After an unknown period of time, Rocky and her crew are disgorged into the Titan's incredible internal world -- an
organic kaleidoscope of a fairyland which they share with centaurs, harpies, angels, mudfish, not-quite-kangaroos,
whale-like things that sail through the sky and other indescribably products of a Disneyesque imagination. Though this
world seems benign, almost a paradise, Rocky is too well trained to accept it at face value. And too curious. She sets
about to find her crew, re-establish her command, and find out what makes Gaea tick.
"Rocky's story is an odyssey through the unpredictable world, a trip fraught with unexpected dangers and dazzling
discoveries, leading her ultimately to the intelligence that presides over Gaea."
Toga and the Kingdom of Croone: Frogs, Turtles, Dragon Snakes, Whales, and
Magic Mushrooms, John P. Feldman. Samantha Books. (F)
Transmaniacon, John Shirley. Zebra Books (Kensington Publishing Corp.),
1979. (SF)
"The Exciter: A dangergous and fragile device for the augmentation of the telepathic
transfer of mania. By seeking out and amplifying strong, hostile human emotions,
the exciter can turn a street brawl into a raging mob and a border skirmish into a
full-scale war. As soon as Ben has possession of it he will have the power to destroy . . .
"The Barrier: Conceived as the perfect defense against nuclear, biological,
and chemical warfare, it was activated in 1989--an invisible screen of densely
flowing ions entirely enclosing the continental zone labeled 'The United States."
Once the barrier is demolished Ben can escape Transmaniacon, the dangerous
grotesque, amoral world beyond the farthest reaches of chaos!"
Andrew Jensen, Great Books (GrtBooks@ix.netcom.com): This book is set in a
United States of the future that has survived a nuclear war because of an
impenetrable dome of energy. This dome has caused the United States to collapse
into bizarre city-states. Houston, Texas, is ruled by enhanced dolphins that
use electronic devices to enslave the humans of the city. The main character is
a professional agitator who is attempting to destroy the dome with a device
called the "transmaniacon," which amplifies pent-up psychic
tension. The dolphins do not play a huge role, but the main character does go
to the city, so you get to see how they run things.
Truly, Madly Viking, Sandra Hill. New York: Dorchester, 2000.
The Tumour in the Whale: A Collection of Modern Myths, Rodney Dale.
London: Duckworth, 1978. (humor)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne. First published in 1870.
New York: Bantam Books, 1962; Mahwah, New Jersey: Watermill Press, 1980. See the
videography for two new film versions that will air on television in 1997.
Richard Ellis, writing in his book Monsters of the Sea agrees:
In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Verne's skewed cetology
includes a gigantic narwhal that is accused of sinking all the ships that were
eventually shown to have been sunk by Captain Nemo and the submarine Nautilus,
and in a whaling scene, he describes sperm whales as "cruel and destructive
whales . . . ferocious whales [that are] all mouth and teeth!" Because they are
such nasty creatures, Nemo kills them with the Nautilus's sharp prow
and condones the slaughter by saying that "it was a massacre of harmful animals."
A different and surprising view from Capt. Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society:
Captain Nemo of the Nautilus was the fiction world's first heroic
champion of the oceans. He was a man of intelligence, dedicated to the
protection of the world's seas from the ignorance of humanity. He was a hero of
mine, and the book was very inspirational in giving me the confidence to pursue
the cause of marine conservation.
The Twilight Seas: A Blue Whale's Journey, Sally Carrighar. New York:
E. P. Dutton, 1975, 1989. (CF)
Endorsement by Annie Dillard: "The Twilight Seas is positively
intimate: my consciousness becomes the Whale's. It is good to spend time in the
mind of another creature; it gives you a new world. Here are continuous seas as
varied as any continent, seas of sounds, pressures, events, throngs. Here are
startling occasions--fire on an oil slick, an underwater avalanche, violent
death from whaling men, sharks, swordfish--all absorbed by the Whale's great
calm. And here especially is a new buoyancy, a sense of home. The Whale's
swimming is 'simply a wish become motion.' This is a life well worth living,
a life of restlessness and whim, of dim urgency, and of grace."
Scott: Beautiful illustrations by Peter Parnall [1975 edition]. A story, not
overly sentimentalized, about the life of a blue whale, around South Georgia Island.
The Uplift War, David Brin. New York: Bantam, 1987. (SF) (This is the
third book in Brin's first Uplift trilogy. For a discussion of the Neodolphins (Tursiops sapiens)
click here, for a discussion of whale uplifts click here, and for a consideration of the Uplift concept and the ethical treatment of nonhumans click here.)
"As galactic armadas clash in quest of the ancient fleet of the Progenitors, a brutal alien race seizes the dying planet of Garth. The various uplifted inhabitants of Garth must battle their overlords or face ultimate extinction. At stake is the existence of Terran society and Earth, and the fate of the entire Five Galaxies. Sweeping, brilliantly crafted, inventive, and dramatic, The Uplift War is an unforgettable story of adventure and wonder from one of today's science fiction greats."
Trisha: Brin has begun a second Uplift trilogy with the publication of Brightness Reef and Infinity's Shore.
Valley of the Eels: A Science Fiction Mystery, William Ty Heintze.
Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, 1993. (FS/YA)
Vers Libre for Dolphin, Elaine Weston. Belfast: Ulster Cancer Foundation,
1981. (poetry)
Vikan the Mighty, Jane Annixter. Holiday House, 1969.
The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories, Leo Szilard. New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1961. (SF)
Trisha: I found Szilard's writing style rather dull, but the story itself
is intriguing.
Voices in the Light and Mirrorsun Rising, Sean McMullen.
Adelaide, South Australia: Aphelion Publications, 1995. These two books comprise the Australian edition, in two volumes, of McMullen's Souls in the Great Machine. See the entry in this bibliography for the latter title.
The Week of the Whales and Other Stories, Leoncio P. Derida. Cellar
Book Shop, 1994.
The Wellfleet Whale and Companion Poems. Riverdale-on-Hudson, New York:
The Sheep Meadow Press, 1983. (poetry)
Wet Goddess: Recollections of a Dolphin Lover,
Malcolm Brenner. Malcolm J. Brenner, 2002. Complete novel available online. (CF, Adult themes and content)
Whale, David Holman. Oxford: Heinemann, 1989, 1991.
Whale, Jeremy Lucas. New York: Summit Books, 1981.. (LH^, orca major
character)
"In Whale we come to understand the bonds of loyalty and the sources
of fear that define the whales' existence. And through [the author's] . . .
knowledge of ocean life, his concern for the whale in particular, and his . . .
descriptions of the sights and the dramas of the sea, we see in an altogether
. . . new way the life of the killer whale."
Whale! comic strip, Matthew McCurley, 2001.
The Whale: A Biblical Fantasy, John Tavener. London: Chester, 1969.
(Full score, Latin words, duration 35 minutes.)
The Whale and Other Uncollected Translations, Richard Wilbur, translator.
New American Translation series, No. 3. Rochester, New York: BOA Editions, Ltd.,
1982. (poetry)
The Whaleghost, Howard L. Hipp. Aegina Press, 1988. (CF)
Whale in Darkness, Brissenden. Australian National University Press
series. New York: Elsevier Science, 1980. (poetry)
Whale Music, Paul Quarrington. New York: Doubleday, 1990. (CF)
Whale Music: Three Plays, Anthony Minghella. A Methuen New Theatrescript.
London: Methuen, 1987.
Whale Nation, Heathcote Williams. New York: Harmony Books, 1988; London:
Jonathan Cape Ltd. (Also available on tape, read by the author, from
International Pr. Co.)
Endorsement by Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate of England: "The poem is overwhelming.
I can't tell you how much I admire it. You have a great theme, great subject
matter, but the way you deal with it seems to me brilliant, cunning, dramatic,
and wonderfully moving.
"I don't know anything like your poem. It's a breakthrough of some sort--
that cosmic scope and arena, and that remorseless deployment of the poetry of
fact, and the overall beauty of it . . . . I really treasure it."
Scott: An Extraordinary collection of items related to cetaceans, which follows
a very beautiful and powerful book-length poem about the history of the
whale/human story. Excellent, highest recommendation.
Whale of a Rescue, author unknown. Crestwood House, 1988. (CD)
A Whale of a Rescue, Eleanor Hudson. New York: Random House, 1983. (CF)
The Whale of Victoria Cross, Pierre Boulle. New York: Vanguard Press,
1983. Also published as The Falklands Whale. Star Book, 1985. (CD)
Whale on the Line, Nuala Archer. Dublin: Gallery Books, 1981. (poetry)
The Whale People, Roderick Langmere Haig Brown. London: Collins, 1962.
The Whale Rider, Witi Ihimaera. Auckland, New Zealand: Octopus
Publishing Group, Ltd. (Mandarin Paperbacks), 1992. See the Cetacean Videography for the film based on this book.
From the description for the film version of the book: "Set in the fascinating native New Zealand culture of the Maori,
this is the contemporary story of the attempt by a 12-year-old, Pai, to become a Whale Rider, a tribal distinction and
position traditionally reserved for males only. Pai is the only living child of the son of her tribe's chief, after her
mother and brother die in a horrible accident, with her father fleeing New Zealand altogether. It is a belief of the
Whangara people that their entire culture descends from a single ancestor a thousand years ago, Paikea, who escaped death
when his canoe capsized in the ocean by riding back home on the back of a whale. Ever since, Whangara chiefs (aka the
first-born male sons of the previous chief) have been Whale Riders. And so young Pai wants to bring life back into her
family by fulfilling her destiny and community, regardless of her gender, to ultimately become the tribal chief as well as
Whale Rider."
Trisha: This books writing is not top-notch, but I thoroughly enjoyed it for its mythic content.
Whale Riding Weather, Bryden MacDonald. Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada: Talonbooks, 1994. (CF)
The Whales Are Burning, Stephen Ajay. New Rivers Press, 1985. (poetry)
Whales at Play and Other Poems of Travel, Sanford Pinsker. Northwoods
Press, 1986. (poetry)
Whale's Canoe: A Folk Tale from Australia. Blackie, 1993.
The Whale's Footprints, Rick Boyer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1988.
Whalesinger, by Welwyn Wilton Katz. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books,
1990/New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1993. (YA)
"When Nick and Marty learn that the conservation project is a front for a
scheme to plunder the treasure of Sir Francis Drake's sunken frigate, a tense
confrontation occurs that brings all the strands of this remarkable story together.
"Love, hate, anger, and forgiveness fill this many-layered, deeply felt,
and vividly written novel by one of Canada's leading authors."
The Whales in Lake Tanganyika: A Novel, Lennart Hagerfors. Grove Press,
1989. (CF)
Whales of the Mystery Sea, Bart McCarthy. Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2000.
"Hralekana is a rare all-white whale. With intensity and breathtaking prose, the author weaves a different tapestry of a whale's life. We are utterly and completely drawn into the world of the ocean as we experience the steps taking Hralekana through trials, triumphs, laughter and lessons on love, nature and sacrifice. In being so close to him as we read of his days, we somehow grow with him.
"This is truly a very, very special and unforgettable book."
From the Chinaberry Books catalogue on The Ice at the End of the World:
"Siegel continues the story as Hralekana . . . must lead his pod on a
dangerous journey under the ice at the pole to find food. A disastrous oil spill
has caused their regular feeding ground to dwindle to such a state that it
cannot support the entire pod. Working together to make it through the ice, the
whales survive the arduous journey and find krill on the other side. The danger
continues as the whales are chased by huge fleets of whalers on their return
journey. Hralekana destroys one of the whaling boats and then saves the harpooner who was trying to kill him. Soon the whales are joined by the Rainbow Whale, the boat of Mark and Meg, Hralekana's human friends. The Rainbow Whale accompanies them out of the polar region to make sure they are safe from the whalers. Mark then comes to spend some time studying and living with the whales. Eventually Mark asks Hralekana to help prevent a worldwide nuclear catastrophe. Hralekana's actions make him a true hero.
"Siegel's lyrical prose and the rich poetry of the whales' songs lure the
reader deep into the gentle world of whales. This very special book is a brilliant ending to a trilogy of books I wish every person would read."
Whale Sound: An Anthology of Poems about Whales and Dolphins. Greg
Gatenby, ed. Toronto, Canada: Dreadnaught/North Vancouver, Canada: J. J.
Douglas, Ltd., 1977.
The Whale Spirit, Charles Hall. New York: Writers Club Press (an imprint of iUniverse.com), 2000. (CF, Ebook)
Trisha: There are various punctuation, grammatical, and spelling errors on the back cover, which does not bode well for the editorial quality of the contents of this Ebook.
The Whale's Scars, Brian Swann. New York: New Rivers Press, 1974.
(poetry)
The Whales' Tale, Angela McAllister. Aurum. (CF)
The Whale's Tooth (Les notaire des noirs), Loys Masson. Translated from
French by Antonia White. London: Chatto & Windus, 1963.
The Whale's War, Tom L. Eisenman. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1997. (Christian fiction, all ages)
"There they meet the wise dolphins Goerfin and Tiafin, the loyal sea horese Porce, the courageous walrus Crylan and the many watery citizens of Sunside, who all bear allegiance to the great whale Thale. But like the upper world, the underwater kingdom is sick. Pollution and the evil work of the shark Baldark have threatened its very existence. Thale has called the children to aid him in a great crusade to defeat the minions of Baldark and secure the future of Sunside."
The Whale Tale, John Stevenson. New York: Random House, 1981. (CF)
What the First Dolphin Said to the Second Dolphin, John Ross.
Pub. Cir. Co., 1998.
When the Whale's Back Blazes, Fatih Abdulsalam. Trans. by Bashar Abdulah. Publisher unknown. First published in
Arabic in 1993. (CF)
Where the River Runs Black. (See also film of same title in
videography.)
White as the Waves: A Novel of Moby Dick, Alison Baird. St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada: Tuckamore Books, 1999. (CF)
The White Dolphin, Michael Katz. New York: Psychology Help Publications, 1999. (CF/New Age, Ebook)
From the back cover: "The White Dolphin is the . . . coming of age adventure of prince Merlux. Born in this
apocalyptic age, the sea and his dolphin nation nearly destroyed by the two legged demons of the surface world, Merlux discovers
that he has inherited the psychic powers of the kings.
"Hunted mercilessly by the unscrupulous human Dirk Rudra, Merlux is witness to his own family's destruction within a
dreaded 'purse seine' net. The young white dolphin flees to save the lineage stretching back to Apollo the skygoer. Then
driven by the desire to avenge, and amidst plans for war, he is inexplicably conflicted by feelings for the human environmental
activist Gabriela that destiny and a series of haunting dreams [have] placed in his path."
The White Dolphin, Geoffrey Morgan. West Seneca, New York: Ulverscroft
Large Print Books, 1996. (CF)
The Whole Whale Catalog, Barbara Brooks. Waukegan, Illinois: Greatlakes
Living Press, 1978.
A Wind Named Anne, J. Allan Bosworth. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970. (YA)
"A half-grown killer whale . . . some looted lobster pots . . . an old sailor, beached and measuring out his life ashore . . . a boy with a streak of Yankee independence and a reverence for living things . . . a New England town in the process of joining the twentieth century . . . and a wind of hurricane force called Anne on the weather charts . . . these are some of the strands J. Allan Bosworth has woven together into a beautiful and compelling novel."
The Wind Whales of Ishmael, Philip Jose Farmer. New York: Ace Books,
1971. (SF)
"Yet even here a whaler from another age could find a home . . . for
this was an Earth of mighty whales that soared through the air; of whalers who
flew their boats more than sailed them--here, too, was the key to mankind's new
beginning, or its end."
Winds Across the Sky: A Love Story, Chris Foster. Santa Rosa, California:
Aslan Publishing, 1992. (humpback whales) (CF/New Age)
Scott: A gentle and sensitive story of the interactions and connections between
a redwood tree, a humpback whale, and several people. Simple, yet accurate in
its science, this book is sweet and subtle. Recommended.
Winter of the Whale, Robert Carse. New York: Putnam, 1961. (CF)
A Wonderful Use for Fire, Hayden Gabriel. Forthcoming. Author email: hayden.gabriel@talk21.com. (CF)
World of Ptavvs, Larry Niven. New York: Ballantine, 1966. (SF)
Trisha: Dolphins play a secondary, but "legally human" and interesting,
role in this fast-paced alien space chase, replete with Niven's thrints, ptavvs,
bandersnatchi, etc. One of the main characters in the story, Larry Greenberg, is
a human telepath who has trained for alien contact via human-dolphin
mind-melding telepathy, and Charley, the main dolphin character, provides input
on Larry's character when humans try to rescue Larry from an alien mind meld gone
bad. The one dolphin trait emphasized over and over again is that of playful
mischievousness, but dolphins also are characterized as "very able
bargainers. Fortunately or not, the dolphins' rigid, complex moral code had
adapted easily to the walker [human] concept of trade." And what does
Charley bargain for on behalf of dolphins in exchange for the info about Larry?
The right to join humans in building communities on other planets.
The X Files: Cam Ranh Bay comic, John Rozum. Volume 1, No. 38, March 1998. New York: Topps Comics.
The Year of the Whale, George Mackay Brown. London: Chatto & Windus/
Hogarth Press, 1965. (poetry)
The Year of the Whale, Victor B. Scheffer. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1969. (CF, sperm whale major character)
"To tell his story of the 'Little Calf,' the author uses a unique device.
In two kinds of text, he combines an absorbing marrative of the whale's
adventures through the full circle of the year with straightforward scientific
exposition. Together the texts offer a detailed study of how [humans] feel
about whales, what they do to whales, and what whales do to [humans].
"Month by month, the reader follows the Little Calf from the moment of his
birth in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. In the process he learns about the
migrations and the courtship of whales, the fierce battles they wage in the
sea, and their protective attitude toward their own kind. The book is filled
with intriguing facts and figures . . . and these emerge gracefully through
the tale or through the alternating factual text."
Scott: An award-winning book on the life cycle of the whale, which established
a new style in writing about natural history. Well done.
Yesterday's Hero, Debbie Macomber. New York: Silhouette Books, 1986. (R)
"Why not? They both desperately wanted to be part of this expedition. The choice was clear. Neither one of them expected the marriage to have any effect on their lives. Yet somehow an invisible link existed between them . . . and both of them knew they would never be the same."
The Younger, H. A. Maxon. Rocky Mount, Va.: Briarwood Publications, 1999. (CF)
Young Man on a Dolphin, Anthony Thorne. London: William Heinemann, 1952/Pan Books, 1959.
Zia, Scott O'Dell. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1976. (YA)
Zodiac: The Eco-Thriller, Neal Stephenson. New York: The Atlantic
Monthly Press, 1988.
"Boone had this thing about whaling ships. He liked to sink them. He was
a founder of GEE and hero of the Soviet invasion, but he'd been kicked out
seven years ago. Off the coast of South Africa he had filled a Zodiac full of
C-4, lit the fuse, pointed it at a pirate whaler, and jumped off at the last
minute. The whaler went to the bottom and he went to hide out in some weepy
European social democracy. But he kept dropping out of sight and whaling ships
kept digging craters on the floors of the seven seas."
This book is a much lighter read than Stephenson's later works, Snow Crash
and The Diamond Age, but if you like his pithy, bull's-eye
observations on Western culture and its players, you'll want to read this one
as well.
For a review by Paul-Michael Agapow click here.
Zu, El Angel Anfibio, Ramon Jose Sender. Barcelona: Planeta, 1970.
(In Spanish.)
"Aldebaran and the Falling Star," Bobby Bridger.
"The Buddha and the Whale," H. Waddell. In Stories for Girls,
Kathleen Lines, ed. London: Faber & Faber, 1957.
"But Do They Ride Dolphins?," Frederick S. Lord, Jr. IsaacAsimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July-August 1978, pp. 84-96.
"The Case of the Pain of Whales," Jim Nollman. In an issue of
Orion magazine.
Since the cetacean revelations of 2024, osmotic tuning has revolutionized the
way civilization experiences the natural world. Whereas a century ago human beings relegated the stewardship of nature to their nation states, and inevitably to the scientific establishment, now each individual is capable of feeling the network of Gaia as an inner pulse.
In 1986 a Ph.D. candidate darted orcas to take a 2"x3" plug of flesh to study
their DNA. Since the concept of osmotic tuning was only hinted at at that time
by some of human culture's more eccentric mystics, the government observer of
the darting could not have had any idea that the distress introduced by the
darting would create a dissonance in the orca's osmotic focal point, which
would upset that individual whale's own life purpose as well as the entire
planet's nanopsi balance. Twentieth-century humanity had no way to perceive
the intellectual and emotional responsibility assumed by the whales in tuning
the metabolism of the earth.
In the year 2000, whale vocalizations were understood as an amalgam of music,
pure experiential mathematics (akin to a Bach fugue devoid of the limitations of
gravity), and osmotic game-playing.
All participants in the drama known as life on earth are tuned as a musical
instrument. The actions of all beings affect all beings all of the time. We are
osmotically connected and interpenetrating, and eventually shamanic biology,
with its focus on planetary healing through tuning, replaces so-called objective
observation.
"Ceti Was a Whale," Noel Loomis. Fantastic Adventures, March 1953, 15(3):90-98.
"On that day the whales could have become masters of the Earth. They were the largest and most powerful creature on the Earth, and they had far the biggest and best brain on the planet. But they had used that brain; used it in the way that had been decided on by the first intelligent Cetaceans: toward development of philosophy and an inner spiritual fullness that had made them probably the most contented creatures in all the galaxy.
"Ceti had not wanted the whales to be masters of the Earth. That mastery would have involved complications that would have completely upset their way of life--but he had not foreseen that there would have to be rulers of some sort.
"In the thousands of generations succeeding his mistake, he had seen the whale brain become larger and larger, and much more convoluted than the Man-brain. It had enabled the Cetaceans to find a contentment that Man never dreamed of--but there was a price. The Cetaceans had weeded out all their tendencies toward ambition and aggressiveness, and by the year 100 A.D., Ceti faced the brutal fact that they were defenseless against the sharp weapons of Man, who had driven himself relentlessly until he had acquired a terrifying instrument for the utilization of what feeble mental powers he possessed--that instrument was the opposed thumb."
On humans, when they were still lemur-like: "The incessantly aggressive lemur-things were not intelligent enough to be happy. They were always on the go, trying something new, striving for greater physical powers. The Cetaceans, on the other hand, directed their great mentality toward intellectual extension rather than physical--and it made a very full existence."
In the beginning of Ceti's life, Lotu, an energy being from Betelgeuse, gives Ceti one wish on behalf of the Cetaceans (and likewise gives one wish to the humans and to the dinosaurs). The Killer whales wish for an organ to hold a weapon--"If we could grasp and hold a tool we could rule the world," warning that if the Cetaceans do not rule the world some other creature will. But Ceti was opposed to anything that would depart from the long-established policy of their ancestors and decides: "we could ask for a better brain. Then, if some other species becomes dictatorial, I am sure we could outwit them, no matter what they choose." Ceti hopes for "greater philosophical development than ever before." Lotu tells him it is a dangerous choice, as "the little furry animals have asked for an opposed thumb." When Ceti expresses an interest in seeing how it all turns out once evolution has taken its course, Lotu grants him as long a life as he wishes, telling him he will die only when he loses the will to live.
In the end Ceti confronts the "mistake" he made those millions of years ago.
"Change of Heart," George Whitley (pseudonym of A. Bertram Chandler). In seon Manley and Gogo Lewis, eds., Baleful Beasts: Great Supernatural Stories of the Animal Kingdom. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Col., 1974.
Trisha: In this unusually themed story as cetacean stories go, dolphins control the larger whales and can command them to destroy human ocean-going vessels. The dolphins themselves then "rescue" the humans and attempt to force them to do their bidding. When the humans fail to comply, the consequences are dire.
"Collaboration," Mark C. Jarvis. From a 1982 issue of Analog. Also available on audiotape: Listen for Pleasure, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada.
"The Death of the White Whale," Herman Melville. In Best Stories
of the Sea, Thomas Woodrooffe, ed. London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1945.
"The Deep Ones," James Wade. In Tales of the Cthulhmythos,
Vol. 2, H. P. Lovecraft, ed. Publisher unknown, 1969.
"The Deep Range," Arthur C. Clarke. In Beyond Tomorrow,
Damon Knight, ed. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1965.
"The Dolphin," Melina. (Homoerotic)
"The Dolphin." In Three Greek Epigrams, for Soprano, Voice and
Piano, by Priaulx Rainier. English words translated from the Greek of Anyte
of Tegea by Richard Aldington. London: Schott, 1951.
"A Dolphin Contribution to the New Age: An Alien Love Story," Jerry
Doran. (New Age)
"Dolphin Mission," George J. Annas. Analog, July 1979.
"The Dolphins," Herberto Sales. In The Werewolf, and Other Tales
(O Lobisomem e Outros Contos Folcloricos). [Retold by] Herberto Sales, translated
[from Portuguese] by Richard Goddard. London: Collings, 1978.
"The Dolphins Made Me Do It," Jay Swackhamer.
"Dolphin's Way," Gordon R. Dickson. In Danger-Human, Gordon
R. Dickson. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1970. Also in the June 1964 issue
of Analog.
"Like learning to communicate with an alien culture--a culture like that
of the dolphins," . . .
Mal, however, feels up against "the environmental barrier" in his
attempts to communicate with the wild dolphins who, mostly in twos, visit his
research center over the years (in the story, attempts to communicate with
captive dolphins were not successful, and so the research center pool was
opened to the sea), and he explains the environmental barrier as
follows:
"There's not a great deal to tell, . . . Like most big problems, it's
simple enough to state. At first, in working with the dolphins, it seemed the
early researchers were going great guns, and communication was just around
the corner--a matter of interpreting the sounds they made to each other, in the
humanly audible range, and above it; and teaching the dolphins human speech . . . [These things] were done--or as nearly so as makes no difference. But then we
came up against the fact that communication doesn't mean understanding . . . You
and I talk the same language, but do we really understand perfectly what the
other person means when he speaks to us? . . . Well, . . . that's essentially
our problem with the dolphins--only on a much larger scale. Dolphins, like
Castor and Pollux, can talk with me, and I with them, but we can't understand
each other to any great degree . . . We agree on denotation of an auditory or
other symbol, but not on connotation. I can say to Castor--'the Gulf Stream
is a strong ocean current' and he'll agree exactly. But neither of us
really has the slightest idea of what the other really means. My mental image of
the Gulf Stream is not Castor's image. My notion of 'powerful' is relative to
the fact I'm six feet tall, weigh a hundred and seventy-five pounds and can
lift my own weight against the force of gravity. Castor's is relative to the
fact that he is seven feet long, can speed up to forty miles an hour through
the water, and as far as he knows weighs nothing, since his four hundred pounds
of body-weight are balanced out by the equal weight of the water he displaces.
And the concept of lifting something is all but unknown to him. My mental
abstraction of 'ocean' is not his, and our ideas of what a current is may
coincide, or be literally worlds apart in meaning. And so far we've found no
way of bridging the gap between us . . . We've got to learn to think like the
dolphins, . . . or the dolphins have to learn to think like us . . . know the dolphins are trying just as hard to get through from their side--if I could only recognize what they're doing, how they're trying to make me understand!"
Inspired by John Lilly's Man and Dolphin, the story comes to an
interesting conclusion, as Mal finally understands that the dolphins'
communication process "is an incredibly rich one . . . as if you and I
communicated by using all the instruments in a symphony orchestra. They not
only use sound from four to a hundred and fifty kilocycles per second, they
use movement, and touch--and all of it in reference to the ocean conditions
surrounding them at the moment . . . their process of communication is . . . a
multivariable method utilizing sound, touch, position, place and movement. Now
that we know this, we can go into the sea with them and try to operate across
their whole spectrum of communication. No wonder we weren't able to get across
anything but the most primitive exchanges, restricting ourselves to sound.
It's been equivalent to restricting human communication to just the nouns in
each sentence, while maintaining the sentence structure--" Simultaneous to
Mal reaching this understanding, alien contact ensues.
Good story :-), and one that is also representative of early 70s works (and
New Age mythology) that portray dolphins as saintly ("He thought again
of what he had told Jane Wilson about the dolphins' refusal to attack their
human captors, even when the humans hurt or killed them . . . In the dolphin
culture there was no visible impulse to war, to murder, to hatred and
unkindness"), which we know, from observations in the wild and incidents
in captivity, not to be true.
"Eeeetz Ch," H. H. Hollis. Analog, November 1968.
"The End's Beginning," Vonda N. McIntyre. Analog, September
1976.
Epilogue to Islands of Survival, Wade Doak. Publisher unknown.
"Extreme Prejudice," Jerry Pournelle. Analog, July 1974.
"Flipper's Oceanarium," M. Brent, "Phantom," and "Feral Ferret."
"Future Myth," Sandra Murphy.
"The Girl and the Dolphin," John Boyd. Galaxy, March 1973.
An excerpt from Happy, who serves as the narrator of the story: "In my
fourth week I taped, via a translating machine, the first monograph authored by
a dolphin, Delphinic Idioms and Speech Patterns. Despite its historical
value the Institute's publications department refused to publish it because it
lacked footnotes, this despite a paragraph in the dissertation explaining the
absence of the concept of 'foot' in Delphine."
"The Great Gray Dolphin," Ben Schumacher. Lanalog, June 1978.
"The Handicapped," Larry Niven. In Neutron Star, Larry Niven.
New York: Ballantine Books, 1968.
An excerpt: "Consider the days when it was first suspected that the cetaceans
were Earth's second sentient order of life. It was known, then, that dolphins had
many times helped swimmers out of difficulty and that no dolphin had ever been
known to attack a human being. Well, what difference did it make whether they
had not attacked humans or whether they had done so only when there was
no risk of being caught at it? Either statement was proof of intelligence."
"The Hidden Witness." In The Return of Gorgo comic, Fall 1964, no. 3, pp. 1-20.
"House of the Whale," Gwendolyn MacEwen. In Fourteen Stories High,
edited by David Helwig and Tom Marshall. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1971.
From the story:
"Well," you said, the first day we were in the city, "Welcome to
the House of the Whale, Lucas George."
"What do you mean?" I said.
"Didn't you tell me about Gunarh and how he went to the bottom of the sea
to rescue his wife who was in the House of the Whale?"
"Yes, but--"
"Well, I'm telling you this is the House of the Whale, this city,
this place. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies. This. This is where
you'll find your psyche."
. . .
We stood looking at City Hall with its great curving mothering arms protecting
a small concrete bubble between them. Behind us was Bay Street and I turned and
let my eyes roll down the narrow canyon toward the lake. "That's the Wall
Street of Toronto," you said. "Street of Money, Street of Walls. Don't
worry about it; you'll never work there."
"So what's down there?" I asked, and you pointed a finger down the Street
of Walls and said, "That's where the whales live, Lucas Georg. You know
all about them, the submerged giants, the supernatural ones . . . . "
"Ishmael in Love," Robert R. Silverberg. In Parsecs and Parables:
Ten Science Fiction Stories, Robert R. Silverberg. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday, 1970.
"I am a member of an intelligent aquatic mammalian non-primate non-human
species, Tursiops truncatus, a bottlenosed dolphin . . .
"I am a lonely mammalian organism who has committed acts of heroism on
behalf of your species and wishes only the reward of a more intimate relationship
('love') with Miss Lisabeth Calkins. I beseech compassionate members of H. sapiens
to speak favorably of me to her. I am loyal, trustworthy, reliable, devoted, and
extremely intelligent. I would endeavor to give her stimulating companionship
and emotional fulfillment ('happiness') in all respects within my power.
"Permit me to explain the pertinent circumstances . . . "
Trisha: This short story provides a scholarly dolphin's perceptive take on
some of the peculiarities (from a dolphin's point of view) of human anatomy
and at times inanities (from anyone's point of view) of human behavior.
"Jonathan and the Space Whale," Robert F. Young. The Magazine of
Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1962, 22(3).
"Johnny Mnemonic," William Gibson. In Burning Chrome,
William Gibson. New York: Ace Books, 1987. (See also the full-length book
of the same name by Terry Bisson and the video of the same name
in the
Cetacean Videography.)
"Judgement Day," Jack C. Haldeman II. In Bruce Coville's Book of
Aliens, Bruce Coville. New York: Scholastic, 1994.
"Kjwall'kje'koothailll'kje'k," Robert Zelazny. In An Exhaltation
of Stars: Transcendental Adventures in Science Fiction, Terry Carr, ed.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.
"Liquid Assets," Dean Ing. In High Tension, Dean Ing, 1979.
"Little Whale, Varnisher of Reality" Vasilii Pavlovich Aksenov. In
The Steel Bird, and Other Stories, by Vasilii Pavlovich Aksenov.
Translated by Rae Slonek et al. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ardis, 1979.
Mette Bryld: The author, usually written Aksyonov in English, is a well-known
and well-established writer who for political reasons had to emigrate to the
United States around 1980. He now lives both there and in Russia. The short
story, "Little Whale," was written in 1964, but the title is misleading
insofar as it refers not to a whale, but to a three-year-old boy who is
nicknamed "whale" (in Russian, "kit") by his father. The
Danish translation does not translate "Kit" in the title. The story
describes the conflict between the fantasy world, shared by the immature
father and the small boy (here no evil can exist) and the harsh world of
reality. It's very short--only 12-14 pages--and quite well written (the
subtext is, of course, Soviet politics and ideology which conjured up a happy,
magic world). The choice of the name "Whale" for the boy is
suggestive--in a way, it does connect wishful thinking or a dream world with
the cetacean. Cf. the title, which is "Little Kit," "lakirovshscik
(= painter of lacquer = embellisher) of reality."
"Mack," R. J. Butler. IF, January 1964.
"Think . . . of all they [the dolphins referring to the humans] gave us. A symbolic language. The ability to develop our
own culture. Even a chance to explore space with them . . . Before Homo sapiens discovered that dolphins had brains as fully
developed as man's, the dolphins were an intelligent, but cultureless, species. They played, fed and bred with only a primitive
language of a few basic meanings. Man had made something more of them, and Mack wanted a chance to prove it . . ."
"Making Waves," Malcolm Brenner. Penthouse, October 1978.
"Never Kill a Dolphin." In Never Kill a Dolphin, and Other Short
Stories, compiled by the Writers' Guild of Queensland, Brisbane: Fortitude
Press, 1959.
"No Less than Trees and Stars," Tess Williams.
"One Whale, Singing," Keri Hulme. In One Whale, Singing, and Other Stories
from New Zealand, selected by Marion McLeod and Lydia Wevers, London:
Women's Press, 1985, 1986.
"The Origin," Tursi.
"Pinocchio," Stanley Schmidt. Analog, September 1977 and in
Lifeboat Earth, Stanley Schmidt. Publisher unknown, 1979.
"Planet of the Whales." An ongoing collaboration/contest for readers of the Great Whales
Foundation Web site. (The Great Whales Foundation Web site may now be defunct.)
Write the next chapter in this story--anything from a paragraph to a page
in length, and send it to the Great Whales Foundation either via e-mail:
gwf@elfnet3.elfnet.com, or snail mail: 111 Hancock Street, San Francisco, CA
94114. For details, visit the Web site by clicking on the story title
above.
"A Private Whale." Brian Aldiss. In Alan Ryan, ed., Perpetual Light. New York: Warner Books, 1982, pp. 407-435.
Excerpt: "But Feng Xi from infancy watched not the [whalers] but those leviathans with lips like God, . . ., believing in their invulnerability, in the sure power of some mighty whale-god who had granted them eternal ocean, eternal life, to their last failing thrash . . . It was an intense part of Feng Xi's belief that the whales could swim beyond the waste of horizon-waters into the waste of western stars, rising, rising smiling into the heavens, their great rudders steering them beyond the polestar to places where the universe was oceans deep, and the oceans deeper than whole universes."
"Routine Patrol Activity." In The Alien Condition, Stephen
Goldin, ed. 1973.
Trisha: This story is about two dolphins, Tag and Trill, whose job it is to patrol a certain area of the ocean, and the
language use Tracy refers to above is delightful. "Stupidteeth" refers to sharks, and
seals are referred to as "barking vitalities," and seagulls are "white
splatterers" :-). The dolphins don't just swim, they "spangletrek"
"snowbeam," "opalbeam," "cobalt cycle," and
"brake-ebb."
The dolphins are able to "probe awarenesses," and were at some time in
the past taught by now-vanished "Teachers," who were wise humans. In
this story, they encounter some "yellow-eyed intelligences" on a ship--the bad guys--poaching barking vitalities.
When Tag and Trill report about their night's activities to Gobl (another
dolphin), Gobl asks them if there was anything "utilitarian" about the
poachers, and they reply: "Negative. Very busy awarenesses, too crowded to
be useful. No universalities. Didn't know any songs. Didn't think up any new games. Strictly subutilitarian. We took appropriate countermeasures."
"Sea Spirit." In Ghost Stories comic, November 1967, no. 20.
"The Second-Class Citizen," Damon Knight. In Off Center, Damon
Knight. New York: Ace Books, 1965. The story was first copyrighted 1963,
Galaxy Pub. Corp.
"Shiva: A Captive Whale's Odyssey," Shari 'Star' Dewar.
"Le souffleur de nuages." In the comic book Yakari. France:
Casterman. In French.
"Songs of a Sentient Fluke," Frank Herbert. In Harlan Ellison, Medea: Harlan's World. New York:
Bantam Books, 1985.
"Sun-Planet," Greg Bear. Galaxy, April 1977.
On the speech of setties: "Setties must have been running ten channels at once . . . it's amazing the overtones and
interphasing they can do when they put their minds to it . . . their speech takes fifteen dimensions
to chart . . . about as many as a standard genetic distribution diagram . . . Green had seen a computer schematic of settie
speech before, and been struck by the triple-spiral complex the screen had shown. Now he understood its full use -- a good-sized
literature could be passed from one settie to another in a few hours. Centuries ago, terrestrial whales had broadcast entire
song traditions in much the same way."
"Surfacing," Walter Jon Williams. In The Mammoth Book of Modern
Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1980s, Isaac Asimov, ed. New York:
Carol and Graf Publishers, 1993.
Trisha: Good story, delightful/intriguing Dweller and humpback language and
communication, but I found the ending somewhat unsatisfactory. It is the
kind of ending that screams sequel, but I don't know if one was ever written.
For another interesting fictional look at whale communication, see the book
The Oracle of Whales by Paul Lloyd Warner, described in the book
section above.
Excerpt from the short story: "The Dweller language, Anthony had discovered,
had no separation of subject and object; it was a trait in common with the Earth
cetaceans whose languages Anthony had first learned. 'I swim toward the island'
was not a grammatical possibility: 'I and the island are in a condition of
swimming toward one another' was the nearest possible approximation.
"The Dwellers lived in darkness, and, like Earth's cetaceans, in a liquid
medium. Perhaps they were psychologically unable to separate themselves from
their environment, from their fluid surroundings. Never approaching the surface--it
was presumed they could not survive in a nonpressurized environment--they had
no idea of the upper limit of their world.
"They were surrounded by a liquid three-dimensional wholeness, not an
air-earth-sky environment from which they could consider themselves separate."
. . .
One of the humpbacks describes his encounter with a small boat he used as a back
scratcher: "I and a small boat discovered each other earlier today. We
itched, so we scratched our back on the boat."
"Susie," M. Brent.
"Story," M. Brent.
"Temptation," David Brin. Available online: http://www.kithrup.com/brin/temptation1.html.
"She found it worrisome to hear Primal from Brookida, one of her few companions with an intact psyche. Most of the other dolphins on Jijo suffered to some degree from stress-atavism. Having lost the cognitive focus needed by engineers and starfarers, they could no longer help Streaker in its desperate flight across five galaxies. Planting this small colony on Jijo had seemed a logical solution, leaving the regressed ones for Makanee to care for in this gentle place, while their shipmates sped on to new crises elsewhere.
"She could hear them now, browsing along the same fishy swarm just a hundred meters off. Thirty neo-dolphins who had once graduated from prestigious universities. Specialists chosen for an elite expedition -- now reduced to splashing and squalling, with little on their minds but food, sex, and music. Their primitive calls no longer embarrassed Makanee. After everything her colleagues had gone through since departing Terra -- on a routine one-year survey voyage that instead stretched into a hellish three -- it was surprising they had any sanity left at all . . ."
"The Three Dolphin Club," G. Harry Stine. Analog, April 1990,
p. 106.
"The Tides of Kithrup," David Brin. Analog, May 25, 1981, pp. 12-42. Dolphin cover illustration by George Angelini. (This story is the precursor to Brin's novel Startide Rising.)
"To Be a Champion, Merciful and Brave," Richard S. Olin. Analog,
October 1972.
"The Whale: What Would Greenpeace Say about this Problem?," Wolfgang Baur. Dungeon: Adventures for TSR Role-Playing Games, May/June 1992, Vol. VI, No. 5, Issue #35, pp. 36-38.
"Whalekiller Gray," William C. Cochrane. Analog, October 1973.
"Whale Song," Leigh Kennedy. In Ben Bova and Don Myrus, eds., The Best of Omni Science Fiction No. 2.
New York: Omni Society, 1981, pp. 32-36.
"Whale Song," Terry Melen. Analog, 1974.
"The Whale, the Cluck and the Diving Venus," James M. Cain. James M. Cain (Roy Hoopes, ed.), Career in Major C and Other Fiction. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986, pp. 113-129. (CF)
"The Whale Tooth," John Griffith London. In The Whale Tooth, and
Other Tales (Zab wielorybi, i inne opowiadania), Warszawa, 1921. In
English and Polish.
"Whaling through Jonah," Kelly L. Segraves. 1975.
"When the Whales Leave: A Modern Legend," Yuri Rytkheu. Translated by
Eve Manning. Soviet Literature, 1977.
This beautiful, cautionary, seventy-page tale would be a fine piece for an oral
storyteller. It recounts the original, mutally respectful relationship between
the whales and the humans and the humans and their environment and the
eventual degradation of these relationships by the humans, who laugh at the old
people's stories and begin, through greed and lack of the old wisdom, to
destroy the ecological balance of their environment, eventually killing a
whale--their ancestor. Themes of human-whale, whale-human transformation are
woven throughout the story. (Side note: Chukchi's presently kill over 100 gray
whales annually, with a large portion of the kill being used to feed foxes
who are then killed for their fur.)
"The most important thing--never forget that you have mighty relatives
in the sea. From them you are descended, and every whale is your relative,
your blood brothers . . . "
"The White Pilot," Mikhail Yemtsev and Yeremey Parnov. In Mirra Ginsburg, ed. and trans., The Air of Mars and Other Stories of Time and Space. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1976. ("The White Pilot" was written in 1969.)
"The White Whale," Winifred S. Harvey. In The White Whale, and
Other Stories, Winifred S. Harvey, London: G. G. Harrap & Co., 1931.
"Why Dolphins Don't Bite," Theodore Sturgeon. In Harlan Ellison, Medea: Harlan's World. New York:
Bantam Books, 1985.
"Willy and the Whale," Zena M. Carus. In The Green Glass Bottle:
Folk Tales from the Isle of Man, as retold by Zena M. Carus. Glasgow:
Blackie and Son, 1975.
Title unknown. In Leza Lowitz, Green Tea to Go: Stories from Tokyo. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2004.
Rex Kahler says there is a good story in a science fiction collection about a
flying saucer that was avoided by all ocean life except dolphins. Title of both the story and the collection and the author's name needed.
Frank Glover recalls that a story entitled "The Dolphin That Wanted to Be
a Whale" appeared in Analog. Date of the Analog issue and name of the author needed.
Compilation provided by:
Trisha Lamb (Note: I will be in meditation retreat from September 2005 through January 2009 and
will be out of communication during that time.)
Back
to Cetacean Bibliographies, Audiography, and Videography
From the back cover:
"The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed on the uncharted
water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic
history. Above, in space, armadas of alien races clash in a titanic struggle to
claim her. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion
and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret--the fate of the Progenitors, the
fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars."
In the 23rd century a mysterious alien probe threatens Earth by disrupting
weather patterns and somehow suppressing all energy sources in its vicinity.
It threatens to evaporate the oceans and destroy the atmosphere unless it can
make contact with the humpback whales, thought to be the most intellectually
advanced life form on Earth, who are now extinct. In their frantic attempt to
save humankind and the planet, Kirk and his crew time travel back to San
Francisco in 1986 to find humpback whales and return them to the future.
Includes a complete photo log of the mission, information on all the cast
and Gene Roddenberry, etc.
The story of Jonah and the whale taken from the Authorized Version of the
Bible.
From the dust jacket: "On the island of Strandia, the women of the landholding
raeth class are revered for their 'talent'--the ability to send telepathic feelings
to the doraado [dolphins], asking them to herd fish into the men's nets. But, for Sand,
this talent goes much deeper, and she can actually mindspeak, with a doraado named
M'ridan. Sensing that her people might fear this special gift, she has always
kept M'ridan a secret. And now, faced with an arranged marriage that for Sand
represents all the privileged trappings of her class--and means she would have
to abandon her freedom and her friendship with M'ridan--she decides to run away.
From the dust jacket: "This social satire opens simply enough--a whale is found
off the Adriatic Coast and is sent on a tour of major Yugoslavian cities, at
last going on exhibition in Belgrade. Everyone in town wants to see this
extraordinary creature, a monstrous curiosity--everyone, that is, except an
unimportant civil servant. He is at once the narrator and hero, and takes the
reader through a series of misadventures that soon take on a most outrageous
character. Because he will not ardently join the enthusiastic crowds visiting
the whale, extolling the exhibition, and praising this slowly disintegrating
corpse--because he will not join the others he antagonizes [others] . . .
and precipitates an explosive situation in his office.
From the back cover: "In all the universe, no species has ever reached for the stars without the guidance of a patron--except perhaps mankind. Did some mysterious race begin the uplift of humanity aeons ago? And if so, why did they abandon us? Circling the sun, under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in our history. A journey into the boiling inferno of the sun . . . to seek our destiny in the cosmic order of life."
From the back cover: "From the ocean's emerald depths, where whales and
adapting humans live in harmony . . . to the rigors of inter-dimensional travel,
the universe is order, and laws; the universe is hierarchies, evolution and
space . . .
Trisha: A scientist creates a mutant human-dolphin baby and gives it to dolphins to raise. The dolphins abandon it, however, because it is a mutant, and it is found by humans and raised as if it were a human child an oceanography lab. It has an unfortunate flaw, however, as recounted by itself:
From the back cover:"There's something special about the Caribbean island
of Little Egg that makes Pandora feel that she might be able to escape the
emptiness in her heart. For as long as she can remember she has lived in the
shadows of people who don't really care about her--from her tyrannical mother to
a series of abusive husbands--and now she fears there is hardly anything left of
herself.
Scott: I was fortunate enough to read, hold, and intimately examine this extremely
limited edition book. In presentation, it is exquisite--a handmade book of sewn
pages of fine paperboard with illustrations, inside covers of fabric-covered panels
of blue, with a silver beaten amulet bound onto its front, in a black fabric box.
Severe and Enticing, Sumptuous and Startling, I was delighted to find McKenna's
quote "Question for Dolphins: What do they read?" A beautiful book.
Mette Bryld: The setting is very international, involving an elderly American
futurologist who often dreams of whales and a Russian cosmonaut (an ex-geneticist
who in the Soviet days produced babies for the state by artificial insemination,
i.e., babies without "real" parents and love). From his lonely position
in the space station, this cosmonaut now discovers that an increasing number of
embryos all over the world signal resistance to being born: the evil of history,
and perhaps particularly of this century (Stalin-Hitler), has accumulated in their
genes and deprived them of the will to live. In a mystic way, they sense an
up-coming apocalypse emerging from the prevalence of Evil. The Atlantic whales
function in a similar way: they beach themselves as they--"the cosmic radars"--
intuitively sense an impending catastrophe. Both the futurologist and the
cosmonaut die in the end, uniting in this way with the whales.
Trisha: A story of human and dolphin joy and tragedy set in the town of Opononi, famous for the lone friendly dolphin Opo. The life and death of Opo is woven into the human story.
From the back cover: "Something is fishy on the water world of Kahiko--and
it isn't just the web-footed inhabitants! Some denizen of the deep has sent a
telepathic distress call from across the interstellar void--and now a sentient
ship of the confederation has arived in search of the sender. An entire aquatic
species (meek mollusks? cautious crustaceans?) is in danger of extinction--but
which one?
From the inside front cover: "Take one pretty young British actress,
transport her to a sun-struck island in the Ionian Sea, and let her practice
her own special sorcery . . . Add Sir Julian Gale, giant of the English
theater, who is bemused by the strange notion that the island actually was the
enchanted site of The Tempest . . . Introduce his son, composer of
brilliant theatrical scores--and a handsome addition to any scene . . .
Heighten the sense of enchantment with one engaging dolphin . . . Mix well
in the summer's heady atmosphere, spice with adroit dialogue, fire with
passion, then suddenly--uncover a corpse . . . and you have This Rough
Magic . . . "
From the cover: "An island off the New Zealand coast, not so much a resort
as a refuge for people running away--from something, from someone, from
themselves. . . Into their midst swims a dolphin, that most human of non-human
creatures, wanting to play, demonstrating his historic affinity for mankind.
This is his cove, to which he returns day after day, and his effect
on the people who inhabit this bit of shoreline--his people--forms
the basis of this finely wrought, disturbing story." "[The story] grew
out of [the author's] personal experience of a wild dolphin which charmed its
way into the human race on the New Zealand coast."(CF)
From the cover copy: The son of a poor fisherman, Tiki lives with nature
and loves the island's craggy peaks, its rich green hils, its plunging ravines hung with cascades, its turquoise
lagoon.
From the back cover: "Five years have passed since Josh Green the Scribe
and Beauty the Centaur set out across Southern California to find the creatures
who had destroyed their homes and carried off their Human wives.
"In Titan, Varley has embarked on a masterwork, the creation of Gaea, the Titan, an astronomically huge
creature in orbit around the planet Saturn. Captain Cirocco 'Rocky' Jones and her crew soon realize that the awesome
object they have found can only be an artifact of alien intelligence. Abandoning all previous plans, the Ringmaster
sets about investigating the enormous wheel-shaped structure. But before they even have a change to establish orbit
around it, Gaea sends out tentacles, pulls the Ringmaster apart, and draws the crew deep inside its bowels. There, they
remain, isolated from one another, in a state of near-total sensory deprivation, while Gaea works her mysteries on their
minds.
From the back cover: "Ben Rackey: Foremost Professional Irritant, remarkable
in acting both as burglar and inciter in the bizarre and pleasure-seeking world of
the 22nd century is a fearless, ruthless man of ingenuity, completely overwhelmed
with his own strength. His latest and most dangerous assignment is to steal . . .
This time travel romance tells the "story of Rolfe's (main character from Hill's Last Viking) brother, Jorund. Jorund goes on a search to find his brother after he disappeared in the sea off the coast of Iceland. What Jorund finds instead is the killer whale named Thora that takes him against his will to the year 2000. Jorund is a Viking from the year 998. He doesn't realize he has traveled through time and he is now in the 21st century until he is placed in a mental hospital by a doctor Maggie McBride, who he thinks is called Dock-whore Mag-he Muckbride. This is where the story gets funny. Jorund tries to convince Mag-he with 'the man-hair' that he is a 10th century Viking, but she thinks he is delusional. Suffice to say the tale gets funnier and more crazy as it goes along until Mag-he with the 'man-hair' and the 'sex-voice' finds herself madly and truly in love with the Viking named Joe (this is her nickname for him). Jorund must find why he was sent to this time and place and why. When Maggie finally realizes he is telling the truth, they must find out why he is there and if he will return to his time."
Scott: A surprisingly boring story which allows Verne to pontificate on the beauties
of the Natural world and to exhibit his exhaustive but seriously flawed
knowledge of the creatures of the Sea. His portrayal of Whales is particularly
offensive . . .
"Takes the reader on one of the most joyous, and ultimately tragic,
journeys in modern literature: the birth, life, travels, and adventures of an
immense young Blue. Born in a storm off Africa, nurtured within the gale-driven
waters of the South Atlantic, growing by some two hundred pounds a day during
the many months of its young manhood, surviving numerous threats and crises on
its ten-thousand-mile migrations, ever curious about the strange creatures of
the icy seas around it--Sally Carrighar's gentle and intelligent giant becomes
her most stunning creation . . . "
From the back cover: "David Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War . . . together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being 'uplifted' by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved. Who uplifted humankind?
From the back cover: "This science fiction mystery involves three surfer/diver
teenagers, a dolphin that talks, an alien youth living in a glass dome under the
waters of the Gulf of Mexico off Corpus Christi Bay, a villainous character
dumping toxic waste into the Gulf, and a salty old sailor who manages the local
Dive Shop. The dolphin leads two of the boys out to the alien's dome, where they
become fast friends with Lanor, a boy from the planet Lios. Several plot lines
blend together at the end with the vilain getting his due, the alien leaving
Earth for his home planet, and the boys left with a 'mission' to guide their
lives. This is the first in a science fiction trilogy."
Scott: The title story is a fascinating prediction written about what it would take
to rid the world of Nuclear weaponry, which the Dolphins assist in accomplishing.
Written by one of the men responsible for the development of the Atomic Bomb.
Recommended.
Trisha: The poem "The Wellfleet Whale," by Stanley Kunitz, also is
included in the cetacean poetry collection The Dolphin's Arc (see
above). A few lines from "The Wellfleet Whale": "Sometimes a
disembodied voice/breaks in, as if from distant reefs,/and it's as much as one
can bear/to listen to its long mournful cry,/a sorrow without name, both more/
and less than human. It drags/across the ear like a record/running down . . .
you seemed like something poured,/not driven; you seemed/to marry grace with
power."
In this book, the author "brings the reader as close to the experience of
another creature as is possible in literature. For in Whale he tells us
the story of Sabre, the killer whale, from the moment his parents lift him to
the ocean's surface so he can take his first breath, to the day he takes over
the leadership of his own pod of whales. It draws us into adventures of courage
and endurance alongside creatures of great intelligence, allowing us to witness
with startling clarity their savage and wily hunt for food, and the remarkable
care and loyalty they show towards one another. It is the story of a perpetual
struggle for survival, of the hunter versus the hunted, and of the deadliest
hunter of all, man.
From the cover: "You're the biggest rock star in the world. You can dash off a
number one single the way some people dash off postcards . . . And yet, as the
hits get bigger, your world gets smaller . . . Until it consists of little more
than your bedroom, your basement recording studio, and your swimming pool . . .
There is nothing to do except . . . work on the one thing that gives your life
any meaning: the Whale Music, your symphonic tribute to nature's most majestic
mammal. You're Desmond Howl, and you were once a pretty majestic mammal yourself.
Now? Now you're Whale Man--and you're about to swim through the most turbulent
waters you've ever navigated."
Trisha: Contains both an exquisite and powerful long prose poem by Williams--"a
hymn to the beauty, intelligence, and majesty of the largest mammal on earth"--and
a remarkable selection of excerpts from various texts on the nature of whales. (See also
Williams's Falling for a Dolphin for an equally beautiful long prose
poem on dolphins.)
Wildlife conservation and whaling themes.
From the publisher: "The whale rider was Kahutia Te Rangi. Ancestor of the people of Te Tai
Rawhiti, he traveled from Hawaiki, the Place of the Ancients, to the East
Coast of New Zealand. Then there was Kahu. The first great-grandchild of the
whanau, she was loved by all her relatives except the one whose love she needed
most--her great-grandfather. Moving effortlessly between mythology and realism, pathos and comedy,
The Whale Rider is a book that will delight readers of all ages."
This is the fifth Doc Adams novel by Rick Boyer. In it Jack, Doc and Mary's
son, is studying whales in Woods Hole on Cape Cod. He brings a friend, Andy,
to their summer cottage in Eastham. Andy is an attractive and ambitious young
man who seems to have a very bright future, until he is found dead in his bed the
morning after he arrives as the Adamses' cottage. With Doc's help, the police
discover that the death was a murder. Then, to add horror to the tragedy, they
accuse Jack of killing Andy, and Doc must marshal the evidence to clear his
son's name.
From the dust jacket: "Hurt and angry after his brother's tragic death,
seventeen-year-old Nick escapes the pressures of his family in Vancouver by
working as a research assistant for a conservation group on the beautiful Point
Reyes coastline of California. There he meets Marty and, against his will, finds
himself drawn to her quiet, intense manner. Shy and intuitive, Marty discovers
that she is able to communicate with a mother gray whale forced to summer nearby
with her sick baby.
From the Chinaberry Books catalogue on White Whale:
"Begin this book, and you better have put your life on hold for a while
because you won't be able to put it down . . .
"Whale Sound is a Canadian anthology of poems and drawings related
to the themes of marine ecology in general, and whale survival in particular. It
represents a seriously concerted effort to meld fine art with social concern . . .
56 poets and 29 visual artists . . . freely contributed his or her work, most
of which was specifically executed for this anthology."
From the back cover: "Controversy over whale hunting by the Native American Makah tribe in Washington State after a seventy-year ban hit the national news in 1999, when the tribe [killed] a whale. The author uses a myth among the Makahs that the 'Whale Spirit' has protected its warriors in every war they have fought in under the U.S. flag. Set in the rainforest of the Pacific Northwest and the jungles of Vietnam, the book is a combination [of] culture, action, adventure, romance, and suspense."
From the back cover: "Mark, Shirl and Dennis's mother is very ill. An increase in pollution and nuclear testing has made her and many others around the world sick. As the children watch an ugly red ooze and dead fish wash up on shore, a mysterious whale appears in the cove. He seems to beckon them, and they follow on an unforgettable undersea adventure to the kingdom of Sunside.
The author lived for 30 years near the old wall of the Assyrian kingdom that existed 5,000 years ago. One day
he entered an old cave near this wall and was inspired to write this novel as he discovered the possibility of reviving
that lost time. When the Whales Back Blazes elaborates on the moment of collision between an old Orient that has
lost its glimmer and a new West with its lights strongly shining. It also portrays the dreams and facts surrounding a love
story that has long since faded, and it depicts a set of shattered human relations, which are in the process of reuniting.
The characters of this novel seek spiritual salvation for the universe. They invent a way to lengthen human life so as to
overcome the universal crisis and to face the unknown.
From the publisher: A haunting tale of a boy raised by river dolphins in the
jungles of the Amazon . . . A touching tale of a child's love for freedom and
craving for justice that deals with human innocence and nature's purity.
From the back cover: "White as the Waves is a modern retelling of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, but with a twist: in this version the story is told using the viewpoint of the whale, rather than that of Captain Ahab. The book follows key events in the whale's life, from his birth off the Galapagos Islands to the loss of his mate in an attack by whalers, to his own desperate assaults on the whaling vessels that are driving his species to extinction."
"An action-packed thriller featuring the psychic relationship between an unusual dolphin and an environmental activist.
This novel will appeal to fans of action adventure, as well as those concerned about the destruction of the world's natural
resources."
"A comprehensive collection of fact, folklore and fiction about whales and
whaling, from the art of scrimshaw to the legend of Moby Dick. Featuring essays,
historical and literary references, industrial and commercial uses, photographs,
drawings and etchings."
From the dust jacket: "'Go among them with harpoons and the will to harm, and whales are something to reckon with. But if paths merely cross, it's as if heaven were upside down . . . below instead of above, because they come like sea-angels and play. . . .'"
From the back cover: "Ishmael, the lone survivor of the PEQUOD, and now
of the RACHEL, fell through time and into the skies of a future Earth . . .
where most life had taken to the air, which was slowly disappearing.
From the dust jacket: "The story revolves around four characters driven to
extrmeity by the turbulence of today's social, political and ecological upheavals:
a female humpback whale who survives a massacre at sea, a 2,000 year old redwood
threatened by logging of ancient California forests, a bitter, suicidal
Vietnam veteran, and a glamorous French-Canadian movie star. As their stories
and their lives interact and intertwine in unexpected ways, they find a
dawning awareness of the vastness and the mystery of life being born
unexpectedly within themselves."
From the author: "The book has a marine mammalogist as its central character who is working in the field of cetacean
conservation."
From the back cover: "Nothing quite prepared telepath Larry Greenberg for
mind-to-mind contact with an alien. In the interest of science, Larry tapped
the mind of Kzanol . . . and that was his first mistake! Kzanol was a thrint
from a distant galaxy. He had been trapped on Earth in a time-stasis field for
two billion years. Now he has on the loose, and Larry knew everything he was
thinking. Thrints lived to plunder and enslave lesser planets . . . and the
planet Kzanol had in mind was Earth!"
Trisha: About captive dolphins who suddenly begin turning on their trainers
and injuring or killing them--and then someone starts murdering the dolphins.
It turns out all of the affected dolphins were part of the swimmer nullification
program during the Viet Nam War and had microchips implanted in their
brains . . .
A natural history novel about the first twelve months of a sperm whale's life.
From the back cover: "Nothing was going to keep marine biologist Leah Talmadge or world-famous photographer Cain Hawkins from missing this chance of a lifetime--an expedition to study the rare whales of the Diamantina Islands. But when the governor of the islands denied permission for two unmarried people to live together, there was only one solution--marriage.
From the back cover: "Griot, the Keeper of the Legacy of all Dolphin-Kind--the myth, legend, law and history--summons the best young minds to a gathering to choose his successor and maintain an eons-old tradition. But as they begin to arrive, so does a disease that will destroy half of the in-shore bottle nose population and threaten the very foundation of this intricate and ancient culture. Can the Keeper entrust the entire history of the species to one of those who remain? Can they find a way to ensure that one remains to receive Griot's treasure . . ."
"A young Indian girl, Zia, caught between the traditional world of her
mother and the present world of the Mission, is helped by her Aunt Karana whose
story was told in the Island of the Blue Dolphins."
Trisha: Cetaceans and anti-whalers play an extremely small part in this story,
which is primarily about an employee of an environmental organization who
goes after corporate toxic waste dumpers, but the anti-whalers' attitude is
captured well in the following excerpt:
SHORT STORIES
From the website: "A children's fairy tale for adults, or an adult fairy tale for children. The three act work is an epic narrative consisting of fifteen songs interspersed amid text and dialogue rendered in Homeric couplet. Presented by a Balladeer, himself a sailor and storyteller. He has inherited the role of telling of this tale, having heard it from an old captain, when he was a child. The myth of the mysterious Captain Quince unfolds. Quince is the sole survivor of a bizarre ghost ship. Claiming to have gone down with his ship and crew into a whirlpool and returned. Quince appears insane so no one believes his strange story. Though shamed and outcast the once proud Captain Quince recounts his tale to pass it on to the children of the future. We follow Quince and a telepathic Dolphin on an enchanted journey over oceans of water and stars."
Trisha: The author of this story pits a great whale against a giant statue of
the Buddha as a means of explaining why there are two different standards of
measurement in Japan, one for hard goods and one for soft goods.
Trisha: This short story is not really about dolphins per se. The question "But do they ride dolphins?" is asked regarding
genetically altered aquatic human children in reference to whether or not they ever have any fun, and the answer is
affirmative.
Some themes from this wonderful story:
An excerpt about Ceti, a one hundred and forty million year old whale who is about to die: ". . . on a steaming hot day a hundred an forty million years before, he had made a tragic mistake. He had thought the Cetaceans, with their great brain-power, could live their own lives without taking any other species into account.
From the editors' introduction: "Unfortunately, man has not always been kind to animals. Suppose we were to speculate about a time when animals could turn upon us and attack. Perhaps the smarter the animal, the more vicious the attack; who knows? . . . [The editors then recount the ways in which the dolphin has always been portrayed as having extraordinary abilities to rival those of man and how they have endearing characteristics and a powerful bond of affection with us.] . . . Suppose, then, that these creatures that are so close to man should turn against humanity. 'Change of Heart' is not a Just So story such as Kipling might write, but rather a frightening just-suppose."
From the audiotape cover: "For intelligences to meet, they must share a medium of communication, and in Mark C. Jarvis's enchanting story 'Collaboration,' contact is established with a lone dolphin, aided by a sophisticated computer. The results are touching and full of hope."
For commentary on this story, see the entry above for the novel of the same
name.
" . . . relates an out-of-body experience in which [the author] encountered
'five blue skinned dolphins floating inside [a] starship.' The dolphins
identified themselves as part of the Stellar Community of Enlightened Ecosystems
which is directing human evolution toward attainment of a 'Group Mind which
includes the animals and plants of Earth, the Earth itself, the Sun and similar
enlightened star systems throughout the Cosmos.'"
Trisha: An unusual story written in the form of a discovered diary of a (fictional) Peruvian sailor and poet who had been presumed lost at sea. He survives on a small island where he befriends dolphins and trys to convert them to Christianity. Conflict develops when one of the dolphins brings ashore another shipwrecked man who thinks dolphins are meant to be eaten, since the Bible in Genesis commands, "rule over every living thing . . . upon the Earth."
Based on the Amazonian boto myth, in which the enchanted river dolphin
changes into a young man to tempt the maidens of the villages.
Tells of the day the author was abducted by delphic forces.
Trisha: Echoing the themes of Star-Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a
statement made by Carl Sagan in his book The Cosmic Connection
(Doubleday 1973), and New Age Sirian mythology, this story's main character,
Mal, holds the idea that ". . . if there is some sort of interstellar
civilization, it might be waiting for the people of Earth to qualify themselves
before making contact. And that test might not be a technological one like
developing a faster-than-light means of travel, but a sociological one--"
Wade wrote a science fiction piece about dolphins that was published as the
epilogue to the above title of his.
This was a NES (Never-Ending Story) that ran on M. Brent's BBS, Flipside, in
Ottawa, Canada. He was one of the three main contributors. The story begins
with Flipper, who is a morphic dolphin, opening his own Oceanarium, and goes
from there. The main characters include Flipper (the morphic dolphin) and
Flipper's girlfriend, Carolina Snowball (albino morphic dolphin).
Trisha: A good yarn about Celia Hammersmith, "the world's foremost linguist," and a dolphin named Happy, with
whom Celia learns to communicate by breaking the delphinic code. Their relationship grows beyond educating one another,
however, to that of romantic love and ends tragically (depending on your point of view).
Trisha: Written in the form of a translation from Cetacean of fragments of an epic about a pod of dolphins who rescue and raise a young sperm whale whose entire family -- mother, father, three brothers and sisters, three other calves, and five other females -- is decimated by whalers. They call him "The Great Gray Dolphin" and try to teach him that dolphins are always kind to humans. He remains a whale in his soul, however, and makes certain he keeps the vow he made when his family was murdered to take revenge on humans.
Trisha: An interesting exploration of why any handless sentient being would
ever develop a large brain. The case of the dolphin, the bandersnatch, and
primarily the grog are considered. The lead human character in the story works
for a company that manufactures Dolphin Hands for purchase by dolphins, which
they control via their tongues. (The dolphins run the fishing industry for the
humans, although this is told just as an aside; it is not an integral part of
the story.)
Trisha: By communicating with a porpoise named Cecil, who communicates with sea monster Gorgo, a submarine trapped at
11,000 feet is rescued by Gorgo. Humans discover that Cecil understands human speech by slowing down his utterances and
finding that porpoises attempt to mimic what the humans have been saying.
From the introduction: " . . . explores the Canadian reality in terms of
myth as an expression of identity."
The story opens: "Call me Ishmael. All humans beings who know me do. My
own kind does not make use of the unit-structural designation ('name') to
distinguish individuals, but this is the name the humans gave to me, and it will
do. I was named by Miss Lisabeth Calkins, for whom I feel protective-chivalrous-
sexual emotions ('love') . . .
Trisha: In this short story, Jones is a U.S. Navy cyborg dolphin who is a
computer code-breaking whiz. He is also addicted to heroin, and why?
"'The war,' she said. 'They all were. Navy did it. How else you get 'em
working for you?'"
Thanks to Julia (aka Nai'a) for telling me about this delightful short-short
story. It's difficult to say anything about it without giving the ending away :-).
Trisha: "Little Whale" actually refers to Aksenov's son, Aloysha, whom
he nicknamed "Whale" and who was born in 1960, making him the same age
as the young hero of the story. The story is an exploration of what is reality
and what is imagination, with whales generally symbolizing such things as freedom
of imagination, goodness (especially the dolphin), optimism, childlike innocence,
idealization, etc.
"Mack was one of the ablest dolphins serving with Earth Fleet, but, to the Admiral's way of thinking, the eight-foot
cetacean was a little too 'unmilitary' in his attitude. Too independent, bluntly. He thought the same of Anaka [Mack's human
partner], but there was no way around it. A man-dolphin team was the best way to keep tabs on the Tegels . . . Although the dolphins were nominally
under Fleet advisories, the Treaty of 1998 gave them absolute freedom from human interference. Their service was voluntary . . ."
About a human-whale relationship. Tess Williams's novel Sea as Mirror is based on this short story and her short story "Sea as Mirror."
A short story about dolphin-human transformation.
"Imagine a spacecraft of lightly armed humans crash-landing on a distant
planet. They find that the atmosphere is breathable and that most of the surface
of the planet is covered by oceans inhabited by whales. The whales have no tools
or weapon, and their only culture seems to be an oral tradition of elaborate
vocalizations and a complex system of situational ethics observable in their
social groups. The shipwrecked humans have small inflatable boats and are
running out of food . . . (What happens next?)"
Trisha: Perpetual Light is a collection of short stories that explore the theme of religion/God in sci-fi/fantasy, and Aldiss's story both mocks and embraces this theme in his story about God and technology. Whales play both a real and imagined part and may ultimately reflect the only kind of "whales" future generations will know given our current level of destruction of their habitat and the push to resume commercial whaling on a larger scale.
Tracy E. Blackstone (tracyb@ibm.net): It's my very favorite dolphin short story,
written entirely from a dolphin point of view and using terms and phrases that
would have meaning to dolphins (e.g., "Watch out for stupidteeth. They
love explosions!").
Trisha: A story about a sperm whale that destroys a whaling ship and then swallows the captain, killing him. Sadly, the whale is ultimately killed by another whaling ship, but they find more than one whaler in his belly.
Trisha: I *really* like this ten-page story--it's one of the few among
the dozens of sci-fi cetacean stories/books I've read that do not assume
cetaceans only have optimum value when genetically altered and/or mechanically
equipped to act like humans, or are otherwise somehow subordinated to humans.
It has the latter themes, but then requires us arrogant humans to take a look
in the mirror.
Yakari and the animals have a life in the woods, and they find a dolphin captured
in a small pond. After numerous adventures they finally invent a way to release
the dolphin.
The cetaceans in this story are called "setties" and were brought to the Sun-Planet twenty years after its
discovery. "They were genetically tailored from tissue samples taken from several species of cetaceans . . . Most aquatic
mammals, except for dolphins and some seal species, died out by the end of the twenty-first century -- combined cultural shock
and human destruction. But tissue samples were kept frozen in case anyone ever saw fit to reconstruct or grow them from eggs
in vitro. The genetic engineers who put the samples together designed the setties for endurance, strength, intelligence and a
certain bloody-mindedness. They're not an easy lot to work with -- but they're the ones most likely to survive on Sun-Planet.
And they were put here with a specific task in mind. Their culture was designed and fitted accordingly . . . Their job . . .
is to investigate, gather and correlate the information the Darks left on Sun-Planet . . . This is Grand Central for all
information gathered around Sun-Planet. It might be the biggest library in the known Galaxy. At any rate, it's unique -- no
books, no tapes or files, only setties, each chock to the brim with facts about the Dark patterns . . ."
Nai`a: This is a powerful short story about two scientists attempting to learn
the language of "Deep Dwellers," large, ocean-dwelling creatures on
a distant planet. Both of them had experience with researching the language
of humpback whales, and some humpbacks were within the oceans of this planet.
The descriptions and representations of the language that the humpbacks and
"Dwellers" use are delightful.
This is a love story between a man who gets stranded on a desert island and a
dolphin who finds him.
This is a silly conversation between Flipper and Dr. Phantom.
". . . The Trinary haiku was expressive and wry. At the same time though, Makanee could not help making a physician's diagnosis. She found her old friend's sonic patterns rife with undertones of Primal -- the natural cetacean demi-language used by wild Tursiops truncatus dolphins back on Earth -- a dialect that members of the modern amicus breed were supposed to avoid, lest their minds succumb to tempting ancient ways. Mental styles that lured with rhythms of animal-like purity.
Trisha: A half-alive stranded whale is the focus of bargaining for the many players in this game. Some want to kill it and eat it, others to let it go and have a friend at sea. Yet others (the PCs) wish to speak with the whale -- in exchange for its life and freedom, it would offer to teach the PCs a change-rune that allows them to assume whale form, etc.
"Hunting whales was their way of life -- and path to death."
Synopsis: A marine biologist works with an educated orca, studying the mysteries
of the endangered sperm whale. They are assisted by dolphins, who also supply
protection from sharks.
Trisha: A story with tragic consequences about putting into a swimming pool a whale who has been tangled in fishing nets.
A conservative Christian rendering of the Jonah story as told by the whale.
Trisha: Based on the Chukchi whale legends. The author was born in 1930 in
Uelen Settlement of the Chukotsk National Territory and listened to whale
stories "with a blizzard raging outside our 'yaranga,' . . . in the dim
light of an oil wick."
Trisha: This short story provides a fanciful explanation of the creation of a pilot dolphin like Pelorus Jack. The White Pilot mimics English and may even understand it and one day comes to the rescue of a human friend. When another human later injures the White Pilot, the dolphin's human friend murders the offending human, and the dolphin remains forever faithful.
Contains a short story with the following theme: A Zen koan holds the key to the death of a dolphin.
Can you help identify the following stories?
Whale-Watching Web:
Edi
tors