Cachalot (novel)
Encyclopedia
Cachalot is a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
written by Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster is an American author of fantasy and science fiction. He currently resides in Prescott, Arizona, with his wife, and is also known for his novelizations of film scripts...
.
Plot summary
Cachalot is an ocean planet where humans have begun building floating cities. It is also the same planet where all of Earth’s cetaceans were transplanted six hundred years ago after the Covenant of Peace was enacted with all intelligence-enhanced ocean dwellers. Five of these cities have been destroyed when a middle-aged scientist and her late-teen daughter are dispatched to the planet to discover the source of the attacks.The novel title comes from the Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
word cachalote, a common term for head. This word was applied to the sperm whale
Sperm Whale
The sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus, is a marine mammal species, order Cetacea, a toothed whale having the largest brain of any animal. The name comes from the milky-white waxy substance, spermaceti, found in the animal's head. The sperm whale is the only living member of genus Physeter...
when the mammals were actively hunted in Earth’s oceans.
The novel features a new musical instrument called "neurophon" producing not only tunes but also nerve sensations on human skin and irritating alien creatures found on the planet.