The Godwhale [Mass Market Paperback]

T.J. Bass (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 281 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (June 12, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345310950
• ISBN-13: 978-0345310958
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,751,765 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the MOST memorable, December 10, 1999

By 

David A. Watson (Nashville, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Godwhale (Mass Market Paperback)

I read this book when it was new and reread it again several years latter. Though about twenty years has passed it still stands in my memory for it's vision and feeling. The ideas and predictions for the future were frightening and thought provoking. It had the same kind of effect the hobbit and Stranger in a strange land had on me. It brought me to look at things from a different perspective and "changed me". What more can a novel do? I've spent the last couple of decades asking for more stuff from this writer when I go in the bookstore. Alas, I've found no more. Can anyone tell me why?

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Imspired Science Fiction, September 27, 2001

By 

David_A_Stever "David Allen Stever" (SAINT PAUL, MN, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Godwhale (Hardcover)

Half Past Human and The Godwhale are the sum total of Thomas J. Bassler's SF output, but even after 20 years, they remain two brilliant points of light, pointing to what might have otherwise been a long and brilliant career. I would love to see him come back and take up fiction again- these books rival Cordwainer Smith and Jack Vance in the richness of the world they create. If you read this book years ago, pick it up and read it again. It is nothing sort of stellar.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars T.J. Bass-where/who are you?, June 14, 2000

By 

Craig Stewart (Comox, British Columbia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Godwhale (Mass Market Paperback)

In The Godwhale T.J Bass posits a future that is a realistic extension of present trends in population growth and technology. People have devolved or evolved--depending on your viewpoint--into three-toed "nebbishes" subsisting on protein "flavours". The great cities have become "hive" societies--impersonal microbe-heaps that have subjugated the earth and humanity for the greater good of the collective. As men/women relinquish their individuality/viability for the sake of the "hive"--a very few break free from the hive and meet the marine "protein rake" otherwise known as Rorqual Maru-- the Godwhale!

I've read this book several times and have always been struck by the originality and vividness of Bass' vision of our future as portrayed here. While many would dismiss a book of this sort as "wild-eyed" pulp science fiction, it is actually a brilliantly drawn narrative that merely extrapolates a future from current trends in population growth and social/biological engineeering. Clairvoyant and fun to read--T.J. Bass--who are you?