1991, Bantam, NY, 436 pages

Doc Lawler has set sail on a ‘sorrowful deadly journey’ across the watery face of the planet Hydros, which is something of a penal colony set thousands of years in our future. Small settlements of humans, operating on floating islands manufactured by ‘Gillies,’ a local sentient life form, conduct business as much like people as possible. Lawler, however, feels uprooted from Earth, despite that fact that his family line left the home planet hundreds of years ago. He still has Earth artifacts, such as a coin imprinted with ‘In God We Trust.’

The Gillies are angry with the humans for the deaths of another species of sentient aquatics being exploited by the local shipping magnate. This, among other causes, propels these humans on a pilgrimage across the planet toward a mysterious place called The Face of the Waters. Almost immediately the planet shows its teeth in the form of a sentient jelly fish that crawls up on deck, and pretends to be a net. As Doc Lawler unsuccessfully tries to save Captain Gospo Struvin from a hideous death as he is dragged overboard, the lethality of Hydros and its alien nature begins to weigh on him.

In terms of the story telling craft and the mechanics of execution Robert Silverberg is perhaps the best science-fiction/fantasy writer to have published in either genre. The Face on the Waters is more than well crafted prose, but a venture into the transformative human experience—a Moby Dick for Postmodern Man.