The cover of this book features a bright pink, one-eyed, tentacled monster and claims that it is a “Sapphic Moby Dick in Space!” I pretty much fell in love with it in the first sentence, which is, “Call me . . . call me whatever the fuck you want.” The person who is not Ishmael is female, raunchy, and a very good writer. She has no problem poking fun at Moby Dick while remaining true to its nihilistic heart.

Not-Ishmael’s story might be similar to Melville’s but her words, attitude, and philosophy are entirely her own. For one thing, everything happens in the far future after humans have colonized the solar system. For another, there is a lot more sex. Yet, the story is a progressive descent into Hells inherent both in an uncaring universe and in the unreliable human heart. It is also, frequently, laugh-out-loud funny.

In a moment of despair brought on by a combination of restlessness, self-deprecation, and poverty, the unnamed narrator signs on aboard the hunter-ship, Pequod. She signs on with her sometime lover, called only “Q”, a mysterious Terran woman who is a harpooner and speaks mostly in incomprehensible Latin phrases. They are hunting Leviathans deep in the uncharted skies of Jupiter. The cerebrospinal fluid of those Leviathans (called spermaceti, which the narrator thinks is hilarious) provides the power to keep alive the failing colonies of exiles from a ruined Earth.

It is dangerous and foolhardy mission, made even more dangerous and foolhardy by the captain’s obsession with tracking down the Möbius Beast, the legendary white Leviathan that she claims is responsible for the loss of her leg. Of course, Not-Ishmael is helplessly, and somewhat pathologically, sexually attracted to “Captain A.” This does not stop her from observing and sometimes sleeping with the rest of the crew, as their voyage leads them deeper into the skies of Jupiter. They all go somewhat mad long before they stab at the unconquering Leviathan from hell’s heart.

Yes, you have heard this story before. But not like this. Hell’s Heart is not fanfiction that adds lesbians and makes everything funny. This is a reverent (and irreverent) retelling that uses science fiction to add modern ideas to an old story. Nor does it fix all the mistakes. The conclusion is right there in the cover copy, “Spoiler: We lost.” And yet it is still glorious. The best science fiction deals, directly or indirectly, with what it means to be human. Perhaps we are the most human when obsessed with vengeance and grappling half-mad with the incomprehensible maw of death.

“Here is Hell’s Heart. Here is the face of every god and none.”