STARRED Book Review: North Sun by Ethan Rutherford

Reviewed by Erica Ball

A feverish historical novel on the hubris of the exploitation of the natural world

Told through the doomed expedition of a fictional whaling ship in the 1870s, North Sun: Or, The Voyage of the Whaleship Esther is about those who believe the world is theirs for the taking and those considered disposable enough to be sent to do the dirty work.

The expedition in question has two main missions: One is to retrieve the wayward son-in-law to the head of a whaling empire, a man who had refused to return after losing his own whaling ship in the crushing ice of the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea. The other mission is to fill the ship’s hold with as much as possible, despite the rumor and fear swirling in the whaling industry that the whales have already vanished, that they had already been hunted to extinction. 

Recruited to lead this expedition is the already traumatized Captain Arnold Lovejoy, himself newly returned from a disastrous voyage of his own. It’s a long and hazardous journey around the South American continent and north again through the Pacific all the way through the Bering Sea, but the Esther is a special ship, designed for just such dangers, and confidence begins high. On his successful return, Lovejoy is promised a life of riches and luxury. It’s an opportunity he can’t pass up, especially after he meets the lovely daughter of the empire, the one whose husband is missing. 

At various times horrifying, poetic, and heart-wrenching, it’s told with spare and often brutal turns of phrase in the form of short passages that bring to mind old sea captains’ logs. The details of the days, weeks, and months spent at sea by the crew of the Esther reflect on the unfeeling and unsympathetic forces of the natural world: How the ship is at the mercy of the wind; how the sky and sea can turn menacing in a heartbeat, or torture with sameness for unending days of blistering heat; how storms can create mountainous waves that make the ship a gut-roiling prison no one can escape.

Throughout it all, the tense watch for whales is as constant as the dangers. But all the watching and willing can’t make the whales appear, and for a long time the voyage is fruitless. When the hunts do finally occur, the brutality of this business becomes clear, and the vivid descriptions of the butchering of the great beasts is unflinchingly told, gory, and gruesome. It is exploitative and wasteful and not for readers sensitive to such scenes. Just as brutal are the many horrors that can and do meet the human body, as well, in such dangerous circumstances. Death comes unexpectedly, quickly, and without mercy.

In addition, the physical and psychological torture of such voyages cannot be overstated. The crew is reminded again and again that they are helpless when it comes to the elements, to accident, to illness, their confined quarters, and at times to each other. Any number of things can drive them human to their breaking point. 

With its strong foundation in the tradition of dramatic sea quests, this book is highly recommended for readers of adventure and survival fiction. Those interested in the American whaling industry of the late 1800s or its technologies and techniques will appreciate the detailed descriptions of the Esthers’s special design and specialized equipment and weapons. At the same time, the constant tension, exploration of human morality, insight into the psychology of its characters, and at times outright gore means it will also be at home on the shelves of thriller enthusiasts. The bird of the front cover offers an especially memorable, mythic feel to the novel too, so even fans of literary speculative fiction will be satisfied as well.

Sometimes descending into the stuff of a feverish nightmare, North Sun is a meditation on the reality of both the monsters within and the monsters without; both real and imagined. After all, when you’re floating untethered to the human world long enough, there is no line between truth and story and barely any between life and death.

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