The Alaska Titan
in the Cruise Ship Theme Park
By Dick Callahan
The Alaska Titan
in the Cruise Ship Theme Park
By Dick Callahan
2007 Nautilus Book Awards Finalist
Adult Visionary Fiction Category
Harbor Seal Press
Juneau Alaska
2006 - Printed in the United States of America
If Alaska intrigues you, the cruise industry leaving their dirty trail in what had been, at one time, some of the most pristine land and sea in North America and the repeated reports of whales impaled on the bows of ships sends you into a rage, The Alaska Titan will make for great company on a cold, wind-whipped day.
Although, if adventure and misadventure intrigues and peaks your interest, you are sure to love the characters in The Alaska Titan. The book is full of adventurous, embarrassing, dangerous, life-threatening, inspiring days in the life of main character George Wentworth as he moves from boyhood to becoming a man, 3,000 miles from home.
Cruise Bruise visitors will find their interest peaked as cruise ships and their,
non-fiction, historically correct disasters have a way of working their way into the story line. Callahan, a seasoned salvage diver in real life, works in not only adventure on the high seas and in the backwoods of Alaska, but below the waterline as well.
If you don't turn another page this year, you'll want to open the cover of this book and take a look inside at the heart and soul of the people of Alaska. Because, while the tale is fictional, it couldn't possibly be more real.
The book is compiled from reflections of reality with dashes of personalities that would have fit nicely on the television show, Northern Exposure, the crabbing adventures of Deadliest Catch or the likes of Grizzly Adams. There is a touch of Cruise Bruise style disdain for things dumped into the sea illegally and crew member abuses, with a dash of National Geographic environmental realism, all combining to give an incredibly full version of life in America's sea towns of the great white north.
You are warned, that like raw, ground pepper on stir-fried shrimp, unsavory words from sailor's mouths are sprinkled heavily enough they'd make a sailor's preacher blush.
If that was the only seasoning in The Alaska Titan, the book would be simply entertaining. It is the action and interaction of characters in this story and a hair-splitting ending that turn what could have been a bland homespun recipe ala Northern Exposure into a Garam Masala serving of this teenager's adventures.
Though brash in a minor sense, the endearing George Wentworth, tugs from within the pages grabbing the readers and pulling them in, page after page. Once the adventure begins and the dull obligatory life of the younger Wentworth is told, it is impossible to put the book down.
George Wentworth is the product of a broken home who hitch-hiked from New England to the northwest as a teen of sixteen years, lands in Juneau, Alaska living the life of a troll under a bridge until he lands a job working as a greenhorn fisherman on a commercial fishing vessel from hell.
Life improves for Finn as he moves onto working aboard an American registered cruise ship. Money in his pockets, he takes off on the adventure of lifetime that nearly ends his life, if not for a hermit who becomes the most important male figure in Wentworth's life. The chance encounter with the hermit becomes a tale of mentorship and survival, every young man should have the good fortune to benefit from.
As Wentworth becomes a man, he tosses his alter ego George into the fire and becomes Finnbarr or Finn for short, a man who has passed the test of manhood and paid his dues, including a face-to-face encounter with a too-touchy-feely octopus at the bottom of the sea.
Callahan pens in some personalities that mirror the non-fiction of reality with a woman who stands up to cruise ship migration including the dropping of their anchors on Alaskan coral reefs and ruining local mom and pop businesses, while polluting the air they breath and the sea that supports their lifestyle.
The pig-tailed crusader is said to be single-handedly taking the cruise industry down by telling people the truth. The sandwich board she wears at the cruise ship dock has the title of seven cruise ship horrors not unsimilar to titles of the cases on Cruise Bruise. If she were not an element of Callahan's imagination, she'd be my best friend, beyond a doubt.
While the woman with a mission is fictional, as is the entire book, there lies much truth between the front cover and very reasonable $14.00 price tag on the back cover.
The tale crescendo builds from the beginning right to the surprise ending, when the author pulls out an unexpected nail-biter, leaving readers' hearts pounding harder than tribal drums at an Alaskan pow-wow.
Cruise Bruise gets a minor mention in The Alaska Titan, as a source. It is good to know that people coming to Cruise Bruise are getting information that enriches and fortifies their lives just a wee bit, one way or another. Reading Dick Callahan's The Alaska Titan, will further that enrichment in your life.
Callahan was a 2007 Nautilus Book Awards Finalist in the Adult Visionary Fiction Category. The Nautilus Book Awards recognize and reward a group of world-changing, award winning books and celebrate how they contribute to positive social change.
Thanks go out to Dick for sending me the CD of the Alaska Humpback Choir recording he made in the fall of 2008. The CD is a marvelous peak into the world of these great mammals.
To get a copy of The Alaska Titan visit one of these fine online bookstores:
Sellers who want wholesale can contact Dick Callahan directly
If you don't turn another page this year, you'll want to open the cover of this book and take a look inside at the heart and soul of the people of Alaska. Because, while the tale is fictional, it couldn't possibly be more real.
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