Just Finished Reading: Fevre Dream by George R R Martin (FP: 1982)

Captain Abner Marsh has a dream – to own and command the greatest, fastest and most luxurious steamer on the Mississippi. So when his boats are destroyed in the winter freeze he realises that his dream will never come true. Downcast and desolate he accepts a meeting at midnight with the enigmatic Joshua York who offers Abner the opportunity of having his dream far sooner and far grander than he hoped. But there are conditions attached and the most important of them is that Abner never asks Joshua questions about his past, his behaviour or his friends. Months later when the Fevre Dream is built and is starting to gain a reputation on the river Abner begins to regret his deal with the devil. Joshua keeps strange hours, strange appointments and stranger company. Unscheduled stops along the river begin to affect the company’s timetable and rumours of unexplained death follow the boat downstream. When he cannot stand it any further Abner confronts Joshua demanding an explanation and gets far more than he bargained for, for the story Joshua tells goes back to the very beginnings of humanity and to creatures that have haunted humanities nightmares for just as long – Vampires!

This is yet another book that’s been on my shelves for quite some time now. Thankfully I’ve finally got around to reading it. Yet again an author has played with the vampire myth and has produced a first class work of horror and adventure. He produces an interesting back story to explain vampires (and other creatures) that certainly on the face of things feels realistic enough. The main characters of Abner, Joshua and others are fully realised and very believable as is the background of the river and river society running up to the American Civil War. How realistic the portrayal is I will leave to those who know far more about the area and the era than I do but it certainly had the feel of realism. I did feel, despite being only 350 pages long, that it was a little too laboured in places and a little slow in others. But the menace and strangeness of the book was pervasive throughout. It’s not one for the squeamish though. As you might imagine with vampires – OK, apart from Twilight – there’s plenty of blood, death and destruction. In fact there’s often buckets of blood and much tripping over the bodies of the recently and messily deceased, but if that doesn’t bother you too much this is often a fascinating and indeed gripping read. A definite positive addition to the vampire library of any enthusiast. Recommended.