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A review by dhrish
The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zárate
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley and Innsmouth Free Press for giving me an ebook copy to review. All opinions stated are my own.
TW: Homophobia, internalised homophobia, graphic descriptions of gore moments (I don't think it is traditional gore though), sexual repression.
Where do I even begin?
As someone whose familiarity with vampires starts and ends with Twilight saga and pop-culture references, I wasn't too sure how I would understand this book from a horror perspective. I am also kind of weary of translated books, because personally, they may read as very flat most of the time.
However, I was eager to dive into this story purely because I am not familiar with how LGBTQIA+ works look like around the world as was interested to find out. Also from my understanding, "The Route of Ice and Salt" is a cult classic and I definitely understand why.
The majority of this book takes place on a ship, The Demeter, whose gay captain is tasked with bringing Dracula to England. There is a ton of repressed sexual dreams and fantasies in the first half of this book while disturbing at times, it genuinely helps with breaking the dense story-telling told.
The second half is far more interesting and it there that this story shines. We see a more traditional horror. It was definitely this section that sold the book for me. We see a captain and crew, who are terrified of the unknown but have no way of tangibly over a fear that doesn't seem to exist.
themes of love, loyalty and sacrifice mingle wonderfully well within the horror of this tale, especially because the novella jumps frequently between dreams, fantasies. the past and present.
I cannot emphasise how much I enjoyed the last two parts of this novella. David Bowles translations really shined during the ship logs and shorter chapters.
My highlights were the prologue, which definitely helped set the scene and author intentions for this piece. While the accompanying essay at the end by Poppy Z. Bright helped in tying together the thoughts for this novella.
This is not a campy read and I loved that.
TW: Homophobia, internalised homophobia, graphic descriptions of gore moments (I don't think it is traditional gore though), sexual repression.
Where do I even begin?
As someone whose familiarity with vampires starts and ends with Twilight saga and pop-culture references, I wasn't too sure how I would understand this book from a horror perspective. I am also kind of weary of translated books, because personally, they may read as very flat most of the time.
However, I was eager to dive into this story purely because I am not familiar with how LGBTQIA+ works look like around the world as was interested to find out. Also from my understanding, "The Route of Ice and Salt" is a cult classic and I definitely understand why.
The majority of this book takes place on a ship, The Demeter, whose gay captain is tasked with bringing Dracula to England. There is a ton of repressed sexual dreams and fantasies in the first half of this book while disturbing at times, it genuinely helps with breaking the dense story-telling told.
The second half is far more interesting and it there that this story shines. We see a more traditional horror. It was definitely this section that sold the book for me. We see a captain and crew, who are terrified of the unknown but have no way of tangibly over a fear that doesn't seem to exist.
themes of love, loyalty and sacrifice mingle wonderfully well within the horror of this tale, especially because the novella jumps frequently between dreams, fantasies. the past and present.
I cannot emphasise how much I enjoyed the last two parts of this novella. David Bowles translations really shined during the ship logs and shorter chapters.
My highlights were the prologue, which definitely helped set the scene and author intentions for this piece. While the accompanying essay at the end by Poppy Z. Bright helped in tying together the thoughts for this novella.
This is not a campy read and I loved that.