Fevre Dream

Fevre Dream is a fascinating little book from an author overwhelmingly associated with his (both famous and infamous) fantasy franchise. A work of horror and historical fantasy that exalts in its setting--Mississippi trade prior to the civil war--our main character is a curmudgeonly old ship captain (Marsh) who, after losing most of his fleet and fortune to a harsh winter, is offered a chance to make his dream ship by the mysterious but charming Joshua. This book has many of Martin's typical hallmarks, albeit in condensed form. Detailed descriptions of large dinners and loving landscapes, an eye to song, rumor, and folklore, and occasional acts of intense violence that may put more than a few people off. Most of this book is spent traveling down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers with Marsh at the helm (or beside it) and his business partner Joshua acting increasingly mysterious as time goes on. These are occasionally interspersed with a group of vampires being vampires while their human thrall Sour Billy fulfills their bidding, which is usually random violence and getting them a fresh drink. This book does depict slavery, being set in the time period it is, and slurs aren't exactly an uncommon sight here. One issue I had is while it does bring up slavery regularly, it sorta treats it as an afterthought beyond the first few chapters or so. Marsh is depicted as being sort of ambivalent about slavery at first, and while this of course changes, the change isn't really built up or explored much. He just kinda turns to his cook and says "oh btw I think slavery is bad now" in a manner that feels almost perfunctory on the part of the author. This book doesn't need to be a manifesto on the evils of the slave trade in 19th century America of course, but there could have been more effort here since attention was specifically called to it. All in all, it's a very interesting book with a passion for history and fun twist on vampire mythology, but suffers a bit from its lack of commitment in other areas.