Freakin Fridays
Freakin Fridays is my own little meme. I’ll be posting about books, movies, and all things scary.
Feel free to join in and do your own Freakin Fridays posts!
Tune in every Friday. Get your scare on!
Let’s have some fun!
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Shiver me timbers, have I got a creepy one for you.
For today I’ll be telling you about The Whaler
by Steve Roach
My Review
Set in the 1800’s, a time when whalers spend as much as two years on board wooden ships, harvesting the blubber and oil from their kills.
A young man seeking passage home enters a bar. While asking the barkeep about available berths, an old salt with one eye tells him he knows of a ship. It just so happens his son is a captain and will be setting out in a few days. While they wait for him to arrive, they get to know each other.
The young man is curious about how the old man lost his eye and he obliges. Thus begins the tale of Captain Grice, the cruelest, most vicious whaler known on the seas.
“The only time I ever saw him crack a smile was when he was knee-deep in whale blood.”
When the crew spots an old whale, probably already dying, they harpoon it. Then Grice does what he loves best. He jumps upon the dying whale and hacks and slashes at it with his ax until he can swing it no more.
This is no ordinary whale though. It harbors something deadly. Welcome to the belly of the beast.
The author did his research. I can’t imagine how awful it was. The stench of death, the hardship, the endless sea, no horizon in sight.
And he gives you a real villain in Captain Grice. The man was evil. He wasn’t like Ahab, obsessed with a single whale. He hated all of them and reveled in their suffering.
As the old man told the rest of this tale, I could picture the scene. The lights would dim, background noise would fade away, and his raspy voice would chill you to the bone.
Classic horror is what this is.
4 Stars
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Click on these link for more about Steve Roach and his books.