The Route of Ice and Salt

By: José Luis Zárate, David Bowles - translator, Silvia Moreno-Garcia - introduction

Narrated by: Gabriel De Leon

A reimagining of Dracula's voyage to England, filled with Gothic imagery and queer desire.

It's an ordinary assignment, nothing more. The cargo? Fifty boxes filled with Transylvanian soil. The route? From Varna to Whitby. The Demeter has made many trips like this. The captain has handled dozens of crews.

He dreams familiar dreams: to taste the salt on the skin of his men, to run his hands across their chests. He longs for the warmth of a lover he cannot have, fantasizes about flesh and frenzied embraces. All this he's done before, it's routine, a constant, like the tides.

Yet there's something different, something wrong. There are odd nightmares, unsettling omens and fear. For there is something in the air, something in the night, someone stalking the ship.

Contains mature themes.

©2021 José Luis Zárate; English translation copyright 2021 by David Bowles (P)2022 Tantor

Blood, Sex, and the Sea

The best retellings or revisitings of old stories demonstrate the author understands the story, its original themes and questions. This short novel does just that even though Dracula himself is little more than a shadow. There is lust, craving, and the juxtaposed urges to suppress and to release the secret self. An intriguing story.

Went over my head

The creepiness of the ocean voyage while the crew disappears matched other novellas I’ve heard about Dracula. Ditto for the horror related sensuality and lust. The LGBTQ slant was new, I suppose, but I didn’t really get whether there was any deeper meaning.