By Bruce Sterling. Wiki says "The premise is influenced by Moby Dick by Herman Melville" which is right; there is a distinct tang of mad sea captain in the air, and a semi-observerish narrator, and something approaching a Whale. But none of the detail fits MD.There is musing - in the storyline context, sane people get an extended life - about yearning for death. There are perhaps could have been more explored hints about the Elder Cultures. And the mystery of what lives down in the dust. And then there's the plot, which in some ways is less interesting.
I first read this oh most of forty years ago; and it has stayed unread on my bookshelf ever since, tagged in my mind as "interesting", and has survived numerous culls since then. But I had long forgotten in what way it was unusual, and now I find to my dismay that while a little unusual it is well within genre: strange things happening on a distant planet.
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