Fevre Dream: Book Review.....OF DEATH

isn't that a cool cover?!

I like media. I like visual stimuli. I like books and comics and movies and television shows and music videos and video games. 

Books though. Books are my true passion. And when I saw this lovely, slightly beat up first edition hardcover book by George R.R. Martin at a local used book sale, I a) snatched it up like the last Christmas ham at Bi-Lo and b) realized that I had never read it before.

Now George R.R. Martin is one of the most prolific Science Fiction authors of the last thirty years. His name has about 50 titles attached to it (the least of which not being A Game of Thrones, which is being released as a TV series on HBO this upcoming spring) along with a respectable of awards including the Hugo and Nebula awards (like Oscars for Sci-Fi/Fantasy writing).

So when I saw his name scrawled across the top of a perfectly preserved 1st edition I leapt on it with the pre-described fervor.

Fevre Dream: vampires and the Mississippi steam boat trade.

This novel recreates a world that I never really thought to explore beyond my forced reading of The Adventures of Huck Finn in high school (never was the Mark Twain fan that the public school system wanted me to be). The novel takes place on a steam boat during the antebellum period in the United States (1850-ish).  The main character, a gruff, ugly and overweight gentleman named Abner Marsh is hired by the pale, mysterious stranger named Joshua York to supervise and co-captain the construction and operation of a steam boat on the Mississippi. Later we find out that Joshua York, who only comes out at night and who can see far out along the river at night, is up to something quite sinister all the while trying to save the world.

A art selection from the 2010 comic book based on Fevre Dream

Now, I will stop you here to admit something. I didn't do any research on this book before I read it. In doing so I felt a little like I was plunging into a dark room. I kind of liked it. So, you'll be shocked to know, I had no idea this book was about vampires. Which is rather dumb actually, considering the cover has a vampire on it (this attests to the powers of my observation).

I will say two things about this book:


This is not a real vampire movie. This is bad.



1) I adored it. George R.R. Martin has always been a favorite of mine and reading this book just further cemented him in my list of best authors. It was rich with detail yet simple and easy to read. So often books that create or recreate a world delve deeply into what things look like, what smells, what sounds--they explain so much that they don't rally further the story (cough Twilight cough). Not so with this book. You're thrown into it, just like I was without figuring out what the book was about before I read it. You pick up and understand things as you go along. I don't insult your intelligence by being too simple but isn't so completely inane you feel like using the thing to prop up the short leg on your coffee table.

2) Not only was it a good book....it was good vampire book. Clever associations and explanations of vampire culture and existence (like Modern Vampire where vampirism is an STD and Crips members make good vampire hunters). The descriptions are campy and are to be perfectly honest: scary. Not only that, the book wasn't predictably vampiric in ending. Good vampires + bad vampires and all that. The book holds surprised that leave you guessing, making the book all that more enjoyable.

Read this book, its thoroughly fantastic.