The Fishspear priority queue algorithm is presented and analyzed. Fishspear makes fewer than 80% as many comparisons as heaps in the worst case, and its relative performance is even better in rnany common situations. The code itself embodies an unusual recursive structure which permits highly dynamic and data-dependent execution. Fishspear also differs from heaps in that it can be implemented efficiently using sequential storage such as stacks or tapes, making it possibly attractive for implementation of very large queues on paged memory systems. (Details of the implementation are deferred to the full paper.)