> From: Darin Higashiguchi <[log in to unmask]>
>
> One really famous hook is the opening line from Gibson's Neuromancer:
> "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead
> channel." Of course, it had a lot more zing back in the early 1980s. I can
> imagine a young kid today, who cut his teeth on Egan and Stephenson, looking
> at that line and wondering what all the fuss was about... Similarly, in the
> 1850s, when Herman Melville was writing Moby Dick, and folks read the bible a
> lot more, the novel's opening sentence:"Call me Ishmael (the son of Abraham
> whom he almost sacrifices to Yahweh as proof of his devotion)", would have
> had a lot more impact on the average reader ("What an unusual choice of
> pseudonym. There must be quite a story behind it...) than it does nowadays
> ("What the heck kind of a name is Ishmael?).
You're thinking of Isaac. Ishmael was Abraham's son by Hagar: he was
the elder son, but was displaced by Sarah's son Isaac.
Isn't there are sequel to Moby Dick written by Farmer? Featuring
future sky-whales?
And of course there's Joan Aiken's *Night Birds on Nantucket*,
featuring a long pursuit of the one and only pink whale.....
Stephen Clark
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