Fictional Ship's Cats
There are three books with the title "The Ship's Cat", by Jock Brandis, Richard Adams and James Aldridge.
In a central episode in Jan de Hartog's novel The Captain, taking place on board a ship engaged in the dangerous Murmansk Convoys in the Second World War, a young officer is killed in an effort to save the ship's cat and her playful kittens during a Luftwaffe attack on the ship. This profoundly affects the main protagonist, the ship's captain, and is one of the factors leading to his later becoming a conscientious objector.
A modern, fictional example is that of Jones, from the 1979 film Alien. Lt. Ripley is so attached to a tabby cat that she makes a specific point of rescuing him from the exploding Nostromo.
In the video game Halo, there are posters for a missing cat named Jonesey on board the human ships. This is a possible reference to the cat from the science fiction film Alien.
Lucifer Sam by Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett) makes reference to Sam being a Ship's Cat
"Below Decks" was a fictitious cat aboard the submarine USS Miami. Shortly after she was commissioned in 1990, one of the ship's radiomen with a penchant for comedic postings placed a "missing cat" poster in the ship's passageway while the ship was underway. The poster described the cat as a black and white cat, about one year old, and answering to the name "Below Decks."
A number of science fiction writers have transferred the institution of a ship's cat to interstellar spaceships of the far future. One of the earlier examples is Cordwainer Smith's short story "The Game of Rat and Dragon". For example, in her novel The Zero Stone, Andre Norton features ship cats which are also telepathic. David Weber's Honorverse novels feature 'treecats' that can bond with naval officers and accompany them aboard spaceships, and at least one instance of a ship having a real cat aboard, the cat in question was named Dicey a Maine Coon. Dicey was owned by the Admirals steward. Joe Haldeman's Forever War also features a ship's cat.
Spot, a cat owned by Lt. Commander Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation, could be considered the ship's cat of the Enterprise-D, despite not being the only cat aboard the ship.
Cat, from the British sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf, is another example. See Cat (Red Dwarf). The character has no name other than "The Cat" or simply "Cat". He is the humanoid descendant of a modern domestic cat called Frankenstein who had been Dave Lister's pregnant pet cat. He may be the last remaining member of his species, Felis sapiens.
The children's book The Mousehole Cat by Antonia Barber tells the story of a cat who owns an old Cornish fisherman who accompanies him on Sea Voyages.
In an episode of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., Gomer brings a pregnant cat on board a navy ship while on sea maneuvers.
Fish Head is the eponymous character in a 1954 children's book by Jean Fritz, a cat who is known in a fishing town for stealing fish from the local market. He accidentally ends up aboard a ship in an attempt to flee the angry store clerk. While at sea, he tangles with the captain and struggles to earn his 'sea legs', and in the end, becomes a member of the crew.
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Famous quotes containing the words fictional, ship and/or cats:
“One of the proud joys of the man of letters—if that man of letters is an artist—is to feel within himself the power to immortalize at will anything he chooses to immortalize. Insignificant though he may be, he is conscious of possessing a creative divinity. God creates lives; the man of imagination creates fictional lives which may make a profound and as it were more living impression on the world’s memory.”
—Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)
“To place absolute trust on another human being is in itself a disaster, both ways, since each human being is a ship that must sail its own course, even if it go in company with another ship.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“At noon, you walk across a river. It is dry, with not this much water: it is just stones and pebbles. But it rains cats and dogs in the mountains, and towards afternoon, the water descends wildly and she ravages all in its path, the madwoman. That is how death comes. Without our expecting it, and we cannot do a thing against it, brothers.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)