A marine biologist named Nathan Quinn discovers a whale with "BITE ME" on its tail fin. He sets out to investigate the cause of this mystery and ends up getting tangled in the affairs of monsters and the like.
This novel provides examples of:
- Artistic License – Biology: Biological improbability of both whaleships and whaley-boys is acknowledged both In-Universe and in the author's afterword, which also points out to other differences between the novel and current state of scientific knowledge.
- Half-Human Hybrid: There are some whale-human hybrids with four fingers floating around.
- Living Ship: Living submarines, based upon existing whale species.
- Organic Technology: The novel begins with a marine biologist trying to convince others that one of the Humpback whales he is trying to study and save has markings on his tailfin that remarkably resemble the phrase, "Bite Me". Turns out that the bottom of the sea is inhabited by a being known as The Goo, an ever-changing sentient mass of organic material. It is able to create organic devices from itself and has spawned anthropomorphic whale drones and Living Ships disguised as normal whales; Bite Me happens to be one of these. Oh, and it had sex with Amelia Earhart and the result of the tryst is one of the other protagonists.
- Rape and Switch: A pair of female marine biologists are at sea researching the mating patterns of humpback whales when their tiny boat is caught between a female humpback and a pair of males. After being
savagely beaten by ten-foot-long penises and covered in gallons of whale semen, they promptly decide to become lesbians. - A Rare Sentence: "Shoes off inside the whale! And don't try and make a break for the anus." As the narration states, Nate might have said that he'd never hear these two sentences in a lifetime of conversation, had he been asked about an hour earlier.
- Shout-Out: The title is to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
- Single Specimen Species: The Goo is an enormous, unique, single-celled organism on the bottom of the sea. It's also the god that whales pray to for plankton, which it provides.
- Stoners Are Funny: Cloudcuckoolander Surfer Dude Kona (
Faux-Hawaiian Dreadlock Rasta Pelekekona Keohokalole a.k.a. Preston Applebaum from New Jersey).
