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Guests | October 15, 2009

Michelle Wildgen: IMG A Few Initial and Not-Comprehensive Meditations on Group Novels



I am a sucker for a book about a group. What reminded me of this was Joanna Smith Rakoff's A Fortunate Age, her homage to Mary McCarthy's endlessly re-readable... Continue »

Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

by Christopher Moore

Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Just why do humpback whales sing? That's the question that has marine behavioral biologist Nate Quinn and his crew poking, charting, recording, and photographing very big, wet, gray marine mammals. Until the extraordinary day when a whale lifts its tail into the air to display a cryptic message spelled out in foot-high letters: Bite me.

Trouble is, Nate's beginning to wonder if he hasn't spent just a little too much time in the sun. 'Cause no one else on his team saw a thing — not his longtime partner, Clay Demodocus; not their saucy young research assistant; not even the spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman Kona (né Preston Applebaum). But later, when a roll of film returns from the lab missing the crucial tail shot — and his research facility is trashed — Nate realizes something very fishy indeed is going on.

By turns witty, irreverent, fascinating, puzzling, and surprising, Fluke is Christopher Moore at his outrageous best.

Review:

"Moore is endlessly inventive in his description of the rubbery, watery world of Goo, and his characters are perfectly calibrated, part credible human beings and part clever caricatures. This cetacean picaresque is no fluke — it is a sure winner." Publishers Weekly

Review:

"One of the finest pieces of imagination since Anatole France's Penguin Island or George Orwell's Animal Farm." Denver Post

Review:

"If the ghost of Jules Verne had conspired with Rudy Rucker and Tom Robbins to produce a novel, Fluke might very well make them hang their heads in defeat." Washington Post Book World

Review:

"Humor that seamlessly blends lunacy with larceny?.Habit-forming zaniness." USA Today

Review:

"Hilarious, educational, and original?.It is difficult to put the book down, for there are astonishing new developments on every page." BookPage

Review:

"Wonderfully strange and fall-down funny as always, Moore delivers, with moxie and wit, a satisfying collage of science, magic, comedy, fantasy, and Save the Whales propaganda." San Diego Union-Tribune

Review:

"You're not likely to stumble across another book like [Fluke]?.This cetacean picaresque is no fluke — it's a sure winner." San Francisco Book Review

Synopsis:

In his wacky new whale tale, Moore "writes in laid back fables straight out of Margaritaville, on the cusp of humor and science fiction." --Janet Maslin, "New York Times."

Synopsis:

In his wacky new whale tale, Moore "writes in laid back fables straight out of Margaritaville, on the cusp of humor and science fiction." --Janet Maslin, "New York Times."

About the Author

Christopher Moore is the author of ten novels, including the New York Times bestsellers You Suck and A Dirty Job. He lives in San Francisco, California.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 4 comments:
Davey929, August 26, 2008 (view all comments by Davey929)
You have to let this book grow on you. At times it gets so strange and weird that you feel like you should just give up, put it down, and get a normal book, but it is completely worth it.
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(13 of 23 readers found this comment helpful)
katherine stevenson, October 13, 2007 (view all comments by katherine stevenson)
This wasn't my favorite book of Moore's, but still pretty good. An interesting imagination into why whales exist and what is really going on. I enjoyed the first part of the book much more than the last part ..but i think that is just cuz i couldn't quite get my mind around Moore's image of the underwater world. Although the killer whale folks seemed kinda creepy!
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(22 of 46 readers found this comment helpful)
Jennifer Moore, August 12, 2007 (view all comments by Jennifer Moore)
"Fluke" is a story that takes readers down a deceptively straightforward path, only to plunge them headlong over a cliff into wacky, whale-infested waters. It gets wierder with every page, but is irresistably funny and smart.
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(27 of 58 readers found this comment helpful)
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780060566685
Subtitle:
Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
Author:
Moore, Christopher
Author:
by Christopher Moore
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
Subject:
Humorous
Subject:
Psychological fiction
Subject:
Humorous fiction
Copyright:
Publication Date:
June 2004
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
321
Dimensions:
7.92x5.58x.82 in. .55 lbs.

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