Young Jonah Padgett, fascinated by the romance of the open sea, signs on to the whaler Absalom, under the command of Captain Solomon. Upon rounding the Horn, the crew hears stories of a whale said to be as big as a mountain with skin as black as a bible, and in command of a harem of a hundred females. Captain Solomon wagers that his crew will be the one to make its fortune hunting down the elusive, so-called King Jim. But when the Absalom signs on the native called Koro as a harpooner, the ship is beleaguered by inexplicable disappearances and horrific death, which pits shipmate against shipmate for fear of their lives. While trying to clear Koro of suspicion, Jonah soon finds himself adrift in a fantastical world filled with dolphin-like merfolk and nightmarish were-sharks, endangered equally by inhuman creatures from the ocean’s depths and human fear and superstition, his very life at the mercy of something as old and mysterious as the sea itself. Absalom’s Wake will appear in serial format, in 6 installments.