Fiction_L Archives Moby Dick and Space Dates: 1/8/03,11:33 AM  through  1/9/03,10:19 AM  (5 postings) Search for: Select one or more indexes to search: 2011-current     2009-2010     2004-2008    1995-2003    (Matches from each index will be displayed separately in the results page.) Return to January 2003 thread menu   |   Fiction_L Archives Menu

FROM: "Joy Summers" <[removed]@hancockpub.lib.in.us>
REC'D: 1/8/03, 11:33 AM

A patron came upon a reference to a retelling of Moby Dick with a space
setting and now would like the title. They believed it was written by
Ray Bradbury. Thanks for your help.

Joy L. Summers, Reference Librarian
Hancock County Public Library
700 N. Broadway
Greenfield, IN 46140
Phone: 462-5141 ext. 24
Fax: 462-5711
Email: [removed]@hancockpub.lib.in.us
Webpage: www.hcplibrary.org

FROM: "Jones, Alissa" <[removed]@uhls.lib.ny.us>
REC'D: 1/8/03, 12:37 PM

>Ray Bradbury wrote a play called "Leviathan 99" which is a space
retelling
>of Moby Dick.
>http://www.uta.edu/english/V/students/collab5/bradbury.htm
>
>Alissa Jones
>Reference Library Clerk
>Guilderland Public Library
>2228 Western Avenue
>Guilderland, NY 12084
>518-456-2400 x7

FROM: Dove <[removed]@bellsouth.net>
REC'D: 1/8/03, 1:20 PM

>A patron came upon a reference to a retelling of Moby Dick with a space
>setting and now would like the title. They believed it was written by
>Ray Bradbury. Thanks for your help.
Bradbury actually did a fictionalized account of his experience of writing the
screenplay for Moby Dick, called Green Shadows, White Whale. Instead, maybe
your patron is thinking of the Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Kahn. The movie is
well-known in the science fiction community for its references and allusions to
Moby Dick. Kahn quotes from Moby Dick quite a bit, and some of the plot
elements of the movie are similar to the Moby Dick. (Some people are willing
to go as far as calling The Wrath of Kahn a retelling of Moby Dick, but of
course there's no one to call Ishmael and no literal white whale...)

Dove Engle
West Asheville Library
Asheville NC

FROM: "christine jeffords" <[removed]@hotmail.com>
REC'D: 1/9/03, 7:33 AM

There is an sf novel titled "The Wind Whales of Ishmael," by Philip Jose
Farmer.

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FROM: Dennis Lien <[removed]@tc.umn.edu>
REC'D: 1/9/03, 10:19 AM

Another Melvillian piece by Bradbury is his poem "Old Ahab's Friend, and
Friend to Noah, Speaks His Piece."

Besides the Bradbury material, the STAR TREK episode and the Farmer
book already mentioned, I think Robert F. Young's novel STARFINDER
(or at least one of the short stories written into it) may be
relevant (it's definitely a whales-in-space story in any event). I
have a very vague memory that one of Fred Saberhagen's "Berserker"
series short stories may also play off the MOBY DICK plot.

Roger Zelazny's short story "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of
His Mouth" and John Kessel's novella "Another Orphan" are more
clearly relevant:

http://www.bestsf.net/reviews/nebula1.html

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/orphan.html

Jack Vance's BLUE WORLD (expansion of his novella "The Kragen" is
slightly relevant, but it's really more a version of JAWS than of
MOBY DICK (isolated human colony on alien planet wins desperate
battle against seemingly unkillable sea monster).

There's a short short story whose title and author I've forgotten
which features the floating Ishmael getting picked up a different
ship, the kicker being that this ship turns out to be the Flying
Dutchman.

I suspect, however, that the book your client is looking for is
indeed Farmer's WIND WHALES OF ISHMAEL, as that's the only
novel-length sf version of MOBY DICK I can think of. Blurb/covers at

http://users.castel.nl/~nuniz01/NovCol/NCwwoi.htm

Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // [removed]@tc.umn.edu

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