As readers we love cool, imaginary non-human species. ET, Jacob Black, Simon from the Mortal Instruments. I've got news, though. I've written a book about the coolest non-human species, and it ISN'T IMAGINARY. Here it is.
It's unfortunately called the sperm whale, which is a stupid name, because we used to think its head was filled with sperm. Go figure. It gets worse. We hunted these amazing creatures in their thousands to get the 'sperm' out of its head, so we could burn it, or grease watches with it.
Ridiculous. So I prefer to use the French name 'cachalot.' It sounds like Catch A Lot, which is what it does. It's the biggest predator EVER, bigger than dinosaurs, and what does it live on? Giant squid. It hunts them two kilometres deep, in complete darkness and pressures that would squash you flat.
It's as weird and distant as if it was hunting aliens off the plains and valleys of the moon. Most of what we know about giant squid is from the scars we've seen on cachalots, and the remains found in their stomachs.
The more I knew about cachalots, the more I knew they would make an awesome story. I worked out a way to have them interact with teenagers, and pressed 'cook.'
The NEW news is that it's free on Amazon Sunday and Monday the 3rd and 4th of March. Check it out, the story's quirky, the kid is cool, and you'll learn tons of amazing stuff. If you know a teenager who likes animals, or is a bit geeky, or maybe just curious, point them at it. They'll like it
Bizarrely, we know more about vampires and werewolves than we do about cachalots. We don't know what the stuff in their heads is for, we don't know why they have the biggest brains on earth, and we don't know why they make the LOUDEST noise of any animal ever. Louder than a jumbo jet.
The cool thing for a writer, about all these 'don't knows' is making up reasons. I made up tons of cachalot backstory, and some of it might, one day, turn out to be close to the truth. Check it out.
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