Christopher Moore

Just why do humpback whales sing? That's the question that has marine biologist Nate Quinn and his crew poking, charting, recording and photographing very big, wet, gray marine mammals. That is, 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 saw a thing- not his longtime partner, Clay Demodocus; not their saucy young research assistant; not even the spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman Kona (ne 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.

Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

Fluke

Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings (Today Show Book Club #25)

Andrew John Kinney

I have read about five other Christopher Moore books, and this one, while entertaining, is not one of his best. If you want to read some of his best stuff, pick up Blood Sucking Fiends or A Dirty Job - both are laugh out loud funny, especially A Dirty Job. Nonetheless, by the time I got about 2/3 of the way through Fluke, I was hooked, and wanted to finish.

Colleen

I've been told by a couple of different people that I should read Christopher Moore. So he has been on the "I've been meaning to read that" list for a couple of years. Since reading one of his books would check off the "author with my initials" category of my reading challenge, he finally got bumped up the list. I picked Fluke because it was a standalone, I like whales, and well, it was available at my library. So Fluke it was.

The book has two parts. Two very different parts. Part 1 started out good. It goes into more detail on whales than the average person will probably be interested in, but I liked having the mostly accurate scientific background. My husband (who is a biologist) really liked informative nature of the story. So the story started off slowly, but I was interested enough in the background information to enjoy it overall. It slowly built up into what seemed more like your typical guy-action-Clive Cussler novel. In fact, they even reference Cussler in the story. I'd heard Moore described as an absurdist, so I was wondering at the overall normality of the story. And then I got to Part 2.

I won't spoil the details, but at Part 2 takes a sharp left turn and definitely ends up in bizarreville. It was still entertaining, but the change was fairly abrupt even though there were some hints leading up to it. Part of me wishes the book had leaned more to one side or the other instead of drastically changing halfway through. 

While the story was entertaining enough, there were a few things that keep me from giving higher than three stars. To start, the characters had a sameness to them. Particularly the two main characters, Nate and Clay. Though they are described as very different, their dialogue and actions blended together. I often forgot which one I was reading about and had to differentiate the two more by their circumstances that by their names or actions. A lot of the tertiary characters also felt flat. Several are mentioned as being from various foreign countries; but frankly, the guy from Greece talked the same as the Hawaiian locals as did the woman from Russia or the guy from Canada. The different backgrounds and ethnicities were thrown into the story, but it never felt like they added anything or really distinguished any of the characters from each other.

There was also too much awkward sexual innuendo. From the beginning, there is a lot of time spent by older scientists ogling the attractive, young assistant but pretending that they aren't and moralizing that it's ok because they aren't going to do anything. It left me with an icky feeling. The last time I so actively routing for two characters NOT to end up together was the Twilight series. (view spoiler)[And after the book passes into the weird part, you suddenly have to deal with cross-species sexual awkwardness which is something I hope to never have to read about again. The sexual harassment wasn't enough apparentely, so he had to through in some bestiality. Eww. (hide spoiler)]

The author then uses the gimic of avoiding explaining something by having the characters not know or care how it works. They just blindly accept everything as they skip around Gooville. Yes, Gooville. The word "goo" and all forms of the word "goo" are abundantly overused in this book. Really, Moore? You couldn't come up with something a little less cheesy sounding?

Still, it was an entertaining enough read, and I'm sure I will check out some of his other books at some point.

My favorite quote from the book:
“Actually, orcas aren't quite as complex as scientists imagine. Most killer whales are just four tons of doofus dressed up like a police car.” 

This review fulfills the "Book Written by an Author with Your Same Initials" category of the Popsugar reading challenge.
http://www.popsugar.com/love/Reading-... 

Postscript: This books is now responsible for my husband and I saying "Hey, Kevin! FISH!" at random times.

Fluke Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

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