Table of Contents: Kraken in a Coffee Cup
A completed serial, this story takes chunks of Moby Dick, mixes them up, and blends them with new material.
You’re familiar with retellings of famous stories. You remember the trend of slapping zombies and sea monsters into classic novels. This—isn’t—either of those.
Kraken in a Coffee Cup takes chunks of Moby Dick, mixes them up, and blends them with new material to create a story about a ship that sails beneath the waves, capturing the souls of drowned sailors.
While retellings plays with the story but throw out the original text, Kraken plays with the original text but throws out the story. It’s fun. It’s experimental and deep—ocean-bottom deep—and it’s free to read.
In addition to the text taken from Moby Dick by Herman Melville, the opening image was inspired by Cornelius Matthews and his story, “Noadiah Bott; or, Adventures with A Governor and a Widow”; from his The Motley Book (1838).
I’ve also used passages from the book of Jonah beyond those quoted in Moby Dick and taken passages from the hymn, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood” by William Cowper (1772).
The serialized novella, Kraken in a Coffee Cup, begins here.
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Cornelius Mathews, The Motley Book: A Series of Tales and Sketches.(United States: J. & H.G. Langley, 1838)
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851)
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1st 3 Chapters: Kraken in a Coffee Cup
You’re familiar with retellings of famous stories. You remember the trend of slapping zombies and sea monsters into classic novels. This—isn’t—either of those.
—Thaddeus Thomas
