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.

Boneshaker Review

Sitting in an airport is excellent source of two things: anxiety and spare time. At least for me. I'm a huge fan of arriving at airports extremely early to handle the inevitable delay and/or big fat airport problem which always occurs whenever I come within 300 yards of the place with the intent of picking up a boarding pass. That being said I also am a big fan of crossword puzzles and books.

There's a point to this, I promise.

I recently spent a grand total of 11 hours in an airport or airplane and found a considerable amount of time available to read. I brought a book with me: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest.

I am so happy that I did.

It's got Zombies! It's got Steampunk! It's got History! It's got Drama!

When gold is found in the Klondike of Alaska, the Russians employ a man named Leviticus Blue to create a machine to bore through feet of hard permafrost to get to the precious metal in the earth. On the machine's (dubbed the Boneshaker) first test run it goes amok, wrecking much of Seattle and killing throngs of people. As people begin to pick up the pieces, attempting to find Leviticus (who has conveniently gone missing) the dying begins again as a near-invisible gas begins to eek from the hole in the earth the machine caused. The gas--if it doesn't kill you--causes you to become a flesh-hungry zombie. As people flee in terror, they construct a wall around the ruined parts of the city, walling the zombies and the gas--called "Blight"--inside.

It's nothing if not creative. I've never read a story like this before.

It's the duality of zombie literature and steampunk that real draws my fascination.  I'm a recent fan of steampunk so I don't really have much of a comparison but I found Priest's fantastical creations both amusing and creative.  The zombie aspect left a little to be desired, but then again the novel wasn't wholly about zombies so I may just be splitting hairs. It's not like she was attempting to make a horror/scary novel.

But it's the displacement of time period (somewhere around the American Civil War though the dates had been moved around, cleverly I might add) and the combination of the steam-powered water filtration and giant dirigibles and the like that really made me turn the page with fervor.

I also really enjoyed the characters. Our heroine is the wife of Leviticus Blue, who is on a mission to rescue her ill-informed son who has managed to climb the wall into a zombie-infested Seattle. I really enjoyed Priest's style of dialogue; it was easy to read and wasn't cheesy or unbelievable.

All in all I found the novel extremely enjoyable and would really recommend it to anyone.

Happy Reading!!


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By Blood We Live Review

Let's get something straight. I am not a freak. I do not drink blood. I do not dress in all black and wear liquid paper on my face mooning after my immortal soul.

I am not a vampire wannabe.

I just like vampires.

So when I wandered into the library last week and found a new vampire short-story anthology edited by John Joseph Adams called By Blood We Live, lets just say I was intrigued.

First things first. If this were a movie, it would have an all-star cast.

Lets just name a few of the authors shall we?

Neil Gaiman--a personal favorite of mine, the man is a legend in film, comic book and fiction arenas.

Joe Hill--a creep-master to the extreme, Joe Hill created the eerie series Lock & Key. Joe comes from a long line of awesome authors---HIS FATHER IS STEPHEN KING!!

Stephen King--need I say more?
Anne Rice--basically reinvented the vampire genre with her Vampire Chronicles series. Interview with the Vampire--both novel and film--are epic

Sergei Lukyanenko--an awesome science fiction and fantasy author out of Russia, Lukyanenko's books have been made into films that equally as mind-meldingly awesome

Garth Nix--a favorite from my childhood, Garth Nix created the Old Kingdom series about a completely awesome teenage female necromancer.

Tanith Lee--a prolific horror and fantasy author, I don't have enough space here to list all her awesome novels and short-stories

L.A. Banks--written so many vampire/werewolf novels I've lost track. Also one of the first African American paranormal authors.

Kelley Armstrong--prolific werewolf author whose novels are the guilty pleasure of many a geeky teenager.

Jane Yolen--a fabulous award-winning author for young adults, Jane Yolen's novels have graced my bookshelves since I first learned to read.

David Wellington--fabulous author of the extremely interesting and addictive Zombie Trilogy--also wrote for the Marvel Zombies series.

O.M.G.

This is a list of some of the most hardcore, award-winning, genre changing, mind-bending authors.

These are vampire stories written by people who genuinely love the genre. Which is what makes this anthology what it is:awesome. This is not some cheesy, lame, Twilight-inspired, overly emotional  romp about almost-grown-ups falling in love with PG vampires. Whoever collected this list knew what he was doing, because these authors are all serious vampire FANS. And anyone who knows anything knows that FANS who have TALENT are much better than FANS who are UNTALENTED or NONFANS who are TALENTED when it comes to tackling anything of importance.  It'd be like George Romero making a stoner flick and Judd Apatow making a Zombie movie--both talented but in the wrong film genre.

Still worried about the stories being lame?

Allow me illuminate you with some examples:

Neil Gaiman's story involves a vampire, slightly necrophiliac version of Snow White.

David Wellington's is about pioneer vampires in the Roanoke Colony in Virginia (history buffs will know where that story may end up).

Joe Hill's story is about Van Helsing--which is totally badass.

I mean these aren't stupid stories. Even the stories written by lesser known authors are completely three-dimensional and fulfilling without being top-heavy with suspense and symbolism. These are grown up, scary and real vampire stories that actually have STORIES. They're not lovey-dovey twilight wannabes. They're not about high school and stupid teenager drama. Conversely, when I say they're grown-up I don't mean they're pornographic either. They're not the usual "I'm secretly smut" plot lines. Overall the entire collection is completely worth reading and makes me want to check out more the series.

ENJOY!

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The Rising by Brian Keene

Books are my preferred medium for zombies mostly because it keeps zombies where they can do the most damage----YOUR BRAIN. So when I found Brian Keene in an issue of Previews (he's coming out with a zombie comic book, which I will probably review in a few months wink wink) I was drawn to read his first zombie novel The Rising.

There are good things and bad things about this novel. We'll start with the good.

Firstly, Brian Keene is extremely good at being creepy. The whole novel is littered with eloquently eerie descriptions of gore, decaying musculature and the visceral rending of human flesh. This coupled with some horrendously evil human bad-guys whose list of misdeeds includes feeding an offending body part through a hole in the wall of an enclosure filled with hungry ghouls.
Like all really good zombie media the real draw is the living not the living dead; Brian Keene obviously understands this theme and uses it to its advantage. You find yourself rooting for the zombies in order to teach the depraved villains a lesson.  From the gory aspect, Keene's book has all the required elements

Secondly I really enjoyed his writing style. You come to feel like you know these characters and all of them are three-dimensional and very different from one another. A lot of times in horror literature (especially literature without the benefit of pictures like comic books have) the characters are the same basic frame with a different name. Not so in this novel, each character is very different, dialogue and behavior defining each person totally. The writing style also made the book an easy read without making it boring.

Now for the things I didn't like.
The Zombies. GAH! Why is it when someone comes along who is obviously a zombie fan they have to make some huge change! The Zombies in this novel THINK. They are capable of STRATEGY. Capable of using TOOLS!  It totally ruins it for me. While that in itself makes the zombies all the more frightening, it simply diminishes to zombie-ness. It makes the novel about something else. Zombies are mindless eating machines. Not evil undead masochists. Not only are the ghouls capable of speech, that have an odd black humor that is in itself horrifying, because often times the ghoul is a dead family member of the person they're speaking to and are using their relationship with the living to torment (undead fetus...enough said). But I reiterate...they aren't zombies, at least not to me.

Beyond that distinction, animals are also capable of becoming Zombies. Bunnies, gophers, lions, birds, monkeys, mice, dogs and cats. All zombies, all capable of speech (kind of) and of strategizing with the human zombies in order to coordinate attacks with the human population. Granted this is fantasy but that just seems extremely for lack of a better term "out there".

Another thing I dislike is IT JUST ENDS. The book ends at an extremely climatic scene which in itself may not be a bad thing (especially since I don't have to wait for the next book to be released, all I have to do is go buy it. I can't imagine what this must have been like 4 years ago when the book was released initially). And while it is a common thread in Zombie media to let the film, book, comic etc just end leaving the audience hungering (pun intended) over what happened to their heroes, I HATE IT WHEN BOOKS DON'T HAVE CLOSURE.  To me its just lazy and it irritates me.

Taking that all into account this was a interesting read and a good horror novel that completely creeped me out....in a good way. Judging from this book Brian Keene has a talent for the creepy and an affluent desire to create a wholly new zombie style. I will read his other books with fervor and enjoy them immensely.