4.5 Stars

This book was absolutely incredible. It swept me up, and didn’t let me go until the very end. The writing is absolutely incredible, and is probably some of the most beautiful writing I have ever read. The only thing that pulled me out of the story were the strange sex fantasies of the captain, but putting those aside, this novella is absolutely stunning.

This is an excellent novella to add to the Dracula lore. The queer subtext that has been prevalent throughout all vampire lore is put at the front in a lyrical and reflective way. I love the Dracula lore, so this was overall a really excellent read for me, and I'd recommend this book to anyone who is already familiar with Dracula and enjoys expanding on that legend. This really is a beautiful book, and I'd say my only complaint was the repeated usage of the racial slur for the Romani people. Some content notes to be aware of: homophobia, body horror, blood, death, gore, violence, and grief. Thank you to Netgalley and Innsmouth Free Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you, NetGalley and Innsmouth Free Press, for the chance to read this book.

The route of ice and salt is a translation by David Bowles and available for the first time in English and it's a reimagining of Dracula's voyage to England.
The story is told from the captain, who has handled dozens of crews and cargos, but this one is so different from the ones he was used to. Boxes of Transylvanian soil and slowly the voyage becomes more and more strange, with nightmares and Gothic omens and fears.
The captain fantasizes about his men, he wants to taste them, to satisfy his queer desire, but it's difficult and he tries to stop himself, while battling against these strange events.

The story is intriguing and interesting, but I couldn't get totally invested, because the writing style (or maybe the translation itself) didn't appeal to me. The captain's monologues were both captivating and a bit annoying, his thoughts predatory, sometimes, or that was my impression.

Overall the reading is a 3.5 stars, maybe a 4, because it's very peculiar and intriguing.

"Queer desire and pirates what more could you want?!" Well maybe actual characters with names? Sadly without them it can be a bit hard to follow otherwise it's a very well written book. Everyone has a different reading style so there is an audience for every book and some Queer will love it even though I had trouble diving in.

3/5 stars.

The Route of Ice and Salt is an interesting horror/thriller novel set on a ship called the Demeter where things quickly go awry in what should be a normal delivery. The writing, though difficult to get through really showed the eerieness of the story. Despite this, it was a struggle to get through because I found it hard to keep reading, having to take breaks multiple times which really created problems in the flow of the story.

While the writing really wasn't for me, it was sa compelling story I'm sure fans of horror and queer gothic literature will love.

DRC provided by Innsmouth Free Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Representation: gay protagonist.

Content Warning: internalised homophobia, homophobia, violence death, suicide.

The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zárate, and translated by David Bowles, is a prelude of Bram Stoker’s Dracula filled with queer yearning and eerie symbolism. Zárate narrates what happened to the oblivious captain and his crew on the Demeter, during the journey that will bring the famous Count Dracula to England.

Despite its short length, I had problems keeping my focus and I felt the need to stop reading for hours before starting again which impacted my overall reading experience.

I loved, though, the vivid imagery the metaphors created in my mind, and the captain’s inner conflict, the evocative descriptions of his most physical desire and the contrast between the salt of the sailor’s sweat, of the water that soaked them, with the ice of the colder routes that forced the sailors in less revealing attires and helped quashing the cravings the captain harboured. I liked the juxtaposition of the captain’s hunger for other men and the vampire’s thirst for blood; how the captain, in spite of his homophobic upbringing, realises the distinction between himself and the vampire.

I also really enjoyed both Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s foreword and Poppy Z. Brite’s afterword. The latter cited an essay I would really be interested in reading.

I unfortunately had to DNF this book. I was so excited to be approved for it and was expecting it to be a new favourite. I read Dracula this year so a story about what happened on Dracula's voyage to England was definitely an interesting take for me.

I really wanted to love this and kept pushing myself to read it, but I ultimately had to DNF it. I think that it absolutely has the eerie, gothic vibes so many Dracula fans want and I really enjoyed that part of it. What made me DNF was the captains internal monologuing. I love horror and angst, but I found some of his suppressed desires to be off putting and a bit too unsettling. I know that internalized homophobia and suppressed desire is something that a lot of people experience and something that would be even more prevalent at the time this book was set in, but I was finding a lot of the internal thoughts of the captain to be making me uncomfortable and it became a real struggle to keep reading.

I think this book could be a 5 star for a lot of people, but sadly it wasn't the right one for me. I think I would need to be in a very specific headspace to read this. The book itself wasn't bad, it just wasn't for me at this time.

The Route of Ice and Salt was a fascinating queer semi-retelling of Dracula. Set during Dracula's voyage to England, this novel follows the Captain of the Demeter as he and his crew become unwittingly ensorcelled by Dracula's power.

The Captain was such an empathetic and intriguing character. He is gay during a time where people would run a stake through a queer person's heart, much like they would a vampire. In fact, in Poppy Z. Brite's afterward, it's mentioned how Zarate often correlated vampirism and homosexuality -- as well as Stoker, who may have been writing about the ruination of his friend Oscar Wilde. That was so interesting to discover!

Zatate's novel was powerful and so intense, I really encourage everyone to read it. Plus, it's short and quick, but packs one hell of a punch!

''Naked we are born, though we strive not to die thus.’’
’’ But I must see that man for the last time, tell him that hunger is not a sin, nor is necessity or appetite. What matters I repeat, is what we are willing to do to satisfy them.

First published in 1998 and translated into English in 2020, The Route of Ice and Salt tells the story of a Captain and his crewmates' journey from Varn to Whitby and what happened in between. The precious cargo? Fifty boxes filled with Transylvanian soil.
It is not a retelling of the classic Dracula, but the accounts of what happened during the journey.
Told by the Captain’s perspective, the story takes us on board a journey that was cursed from the beginning, and as the events unfold, we come to learn more about the captain and the tragic love affair he had had before the events told in this book.

All the elements of a good horror story in one book.

I have never read Dracula but still enjoyed my time with this novella. I don't think you need to read Dracula to understand what is going on. This story felt like a crazed horny fever dream while also being a philosophical piece on human nature and sin. One page the narrator wants to lick his crewmates' bodies and can't stop thinking about hickeys and the next he has these thoughts that could be heard in the room of a philosophy class.

"If I have appetites that I consider monstrous... aren't they all? Is the sin of others not as great as the one I dare not exercise, like the one I perform in secret."

"I know that Thirst is not evil in and of itself, nor Hunger a stigma that must be erase by fire and blood. Not even Sin. It is what we are willing to do to feed an impulse that makes it dangerous.

Are you kidding me?! Beautiful! *chefs kiss*

I appreciated the afterword because whenever I read short stories or novellas I doubt whether I "picked up" on everything. It felt an English teacher was included with the novella and was able to provide some history and context.

I have honestly never read anything in my life like The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zárate , translated by David Bowles. First published in Mexico in 1998, the book had a cult following, mostly because readers could not find gay gothic fiction, with solid literary appeal. While gothic novels available today are varied and exciting, there's something otherworldly about this one, like Moby Dick and Star Trek were commandeered by a gay writer. The story takes place in the 19th Century, on a schooner christened the Demeter. Our narrator is a nameless gay captain, who navigates his ship and crew with haunted distraction and lust for the young sailors who surround him. By his own admission, he is not a good captain, even though he maintains a sense of duty and superiority that can only be possessed by a sea captain. His isolation becomes fascinating, however, because of his propensity to write about sordid fantasies, detailed dreams, and even a biblical knowledge of his ship. As the reader moves with the ship, we understand that something strange is going on. The book is divided into three parts, with each one handing the reader clues, like breadcrumbs, to where it is leading us. It is a unique read, with an equally unique ending. To have its language, nuances and dramatic tension in perfect translation for an English-speaking audience is a credit to Bowles, a remarkable translator of the original Spanish.

The Route of Ice and Salt is a novella originally published in 1998 in Mexico by a small press trying to break into the local Science Fiction and Fantasy market with Mexican authors. The novella was an adaptation of a small part of Bram Stoker's Dracula, namely the shipment of Dracula to England on the doomed ship Demeter, with the story being told from the point of view of its ill fated captain, now reimagined as a gay man in the homophobic world of 1897. The novella apparently became a cult hit in Mexico (even though its publisher failed) and was translated into French at one point, but only now is being translated into English for English-speaking audiences.

It's an impressive work, especially when given the context in which it was produced, in presenting a gay man in a homophobic time, confronted with horror and finding it in himself to proclaim his own value at the end in the face of that horror. I should add that this edition of the work comes backed with not one but three explanations of this context - a foreword by Silvia Moreno-Garcia explaining the context of its publication, a new foreword by the author as to why he would write a story about a Vampire and monsters, and an afterword by Poppy Z Brite on the literary connections between vampires and homosexuality and how that history applies to the novella. So it's kind of hard to miss what this novella is doing in this package given all that comes with it, but fortunately, what it's doing is fairly well done.

Quick Plot Summary: The Captain of the Demeter has a secret: he's a homosexual, in a world and time (1987) that hates and murders men for the mere idea of love of another man. Indeed, the Captain believes his own desires to be almost monstrous, desires that have gotten another man killed in the past, and works his best to hide them from his crew.

But when they take a commission to transport boxes of soil from Transylvania to England, the Captain and his crew of 9 begins to feel something strange and wrong on the journey - something dark and wrong. And when crew members begin to disappear, fear and terror will spread among the crew, until the Captain is left to faceoff with the nightmare himself, and to deal with a monster as it truly is.

Thoughts: Those familiar with Stoker's Dracula will have an idea of where this novella is going and who is going to survive, but Zárate changes things up tremendously by making the unnamed captain a gay man in a world where that carries a punishment of death. This is a man who has gone as far as to choose a crew and shipping route that will result in them wearing plenty of clothes, so that he won't be tempted by the sight of their sweaty skin. He doesn't just fear that he will be killed for acting on his desires, but that he might actually deserve to - that his own desires make him nothing more than a monster, no better than the terrifying rats that Dracula (unnamed here, but well you know) brings with him on the journey.

And so, even as the men die around him, even as the Captain's fate is sealed by Stoker's story, the Captain here still has his own journey that results in a triumph Stoker could never have given him. Zárate uses the horror of Dracula's actions, the creation of his hungry thralls, to create a contrast between what is and what isn't monstrous, and how it isn't desire itself that is monstrous, but what some people may do to feed it. I don't want to say more because summarizing this further will only ruin the impact of the revelation, one which arguably is not as necessary anymore in much of the world....and yet still is in others. And that makes this novella well worth reading, as an excellently crafted work with this message, which can reach more people now that it has been translated into English.

DNF
Got to be honest, this book made me so uncomfy. I'm sad cause I was really excited for this, I'm trying to read more queer books published before the 2000's. But I just couldn't with the sexual scenes, especially after the one involving his ship. I think some people would get alot out of this book, but I just couldn't

Tws: homophobia & homophobic violence, internalized homophobia, grotesque imagery, some of the protagonist’s thoughts can definitely be read as predatory, suicide, graphic sexual imagery, beastiality (kind of), cannibalism

4.5 out of 5 stars -

This novella left me so profoundly disturbed that it will likely stick with me for years. The slow and claustrophobic trudge through the murky, tortured mind of the captain took up most of the novella, the “plot” being more of a vehicle for a more introspective character study centered around the nameless captain, a repressed gay man who has internalized self-hatred and shame.
The captain is a fascinating character to follow because he is a man obsessed with keeping the lid on an overflowing pot, always keeping one eye open to make sure nobody sees the way it occasionally leaks. He is excessively conscious of his own gaze, words, and proximity to other men, framing himself and his desires as inherently predatory and monstrous. He doesn’t just fear being discovered because of the repercussions - he fears for others, who he feels are in danger from himself. For much of the novella, he is his own Dracula, the dangerous presence he fears aboard the ship being the aching sexuality he sees as chipping away at his very soul. It isn’t until he starts to recognize the genuine love and grief he feels toward his crew that he starts to separate himself from the monster, eventually accepting that it is those who engage in senseless violence who are genuinely damned, not victims who spend a lifetime being told that they’re to blame for it.
It should be noted that the captain spends much of the first part of the book in his own mind, often having vivid sexual fantasies that some people might not be a fan of. It becomes even more uncomfortable when his attempts to keep his fantasies at bay result in fantasies about objects and, err, rats, which gets pretty gross. As he grapples with self-hatred and desperate yearning, his mind wanders to some distressing places. If you’re triggered by that kind of content or just find it too upsetting, I would pass on this book for your own mental well-being. Personally, I was deeply engrossed in the psychology of the captain, especially since I felt that this was written with so much empathy and complexity that it left me thinking about it for hours after I finished the last page.

Despite the short length, there were moments where I felt like the novella dragged a bit, especially in the beginning. To the credit of the translator, however, I found the writing to be so intelligent and confident that I reveled in the language, finding the experience of reading this to be genuinely enjoyable. I can’t say how well it captured the voice and tone of the original since I don’t know Spanish, but I really enjoyed the writing as an English speaker relying on the translation.

Seeing a hidden gem like this get a proper translation is really exciting and I hope that it paves a path for more content like this in the future. I appreciate Netgalley and Silvia Moreno-Garcia for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for a review!

This is an exploration on desire and shame. Told very stylistically and through the use of the Dracula story. You are following the Captain of the Demeter, unbeknownst to him and his crew, they are transporting Dracula to London. However, the story is not about Dracula it is about the Captain and the shame he carries for being gay and his lover having been killed. He desires his men but will not act on his desires.

There's so much to dig into and analyze in this story but it is not for everyone. If you don't like highly stylized writing and atmospheric stories this won't be for you. But if you do, you are in for a treat.

This was a dreamlike novella, taking an episode from the novel Dracula and exploring it from the point of view of the characters on the ship that transports Dracula to England. This novella is dense and challenging, both in terms of the content (the captain's past, the growing unreality of the voyage) and the prose (lyrical, repetitive). Zárate's themes of eroticism, repression, and guilt/absolution that flow through this novella are strong and consistent. This was a strange and interesting book!

This is a wonderfully penned tale of the journey Dracula takes from his home in Wallacia to London. Set on board the ship and told in the Captain's voice, we are given a look at what makes a person evil. In a time when one's sexuality could classify you as evil, and coming from an author who has been there, this novella explores how these thoughts dictate a person's judgment of themselves.

Harboring his own desires, knowing he has to be surrounded by the one thing he wants at all times, this ship Captain walks the line of being a good Captain and wanting to take what's in front of him.

This novella is chock full of erotic imagery and desire. It plays well into the themes we all know from the original tale. With the twist of reading this from the perspective of a gay man. Add to that a gay man who is forced to act as if he isn't enticed by the sight of the sailors laboring around him night and day.

The ending of this novel was bittersweet and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My only complaint is that it does get overly repetitive in places, which was bad enough to have me setting the novel aside for a while.

**I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley**

When I found out Silvia Moreno-Garcia published the translation of this book and that it was a take on the Dracula lore, I knew I had to read it.

Originally published in 1998 and now available in English, The Route of Ice and Salt explores a captain's repressed sexuality, desire, and guilt on his doomed sea voyage to England.

Poetically written with just the right amount of spookiness, I found this book intriguing, and at times heartbreaking. There has been a lot of exploration of homoerotic undertones in vampire fiction, and this book weaves them into its narrative. The narrator ultimately absolves his guilt and comes to the conclusion that he, as a gay man, is not a monster, unlike the vampire haunting him.

The Route of Ice and Salt is definitely worth checking out for horror and literary fiction fans alike.

It's been a while since I've read something this thoughtful and meditative, and I really enjoyed it. The narrator is a passionate yet pensive figure, and much of the novel is focused on his struggles with queer desire and the morality of desire. This is a book about bigotry, mob mentality, and attraction, and the creeping unease with which it builds its horror is a good match for a narrator who knows how thin his safety is, and how contingent it is on his passing for heterosexual.

The book is very beautifully written and has a rich vein of symbolism. I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot, but what I am able to understand is quite potent and poetic, to the credit of both author José Luis Zárate and translator David Bowles. It's easy to see how this became a cult classic: I know I'll be chewing it over and returning to it for some time to come.

A slow burning tale, written in a beautifully lyrical style, where menace increases as the voyage moves on. A sensual story of the hidden, the monstrous, and fear.
Spawned from the classic Dracula, this book explores the sea voyage from the viewpoint of the captain in an original and haunting way. It will no doubt be initially confronting to some readers in the candid directness of the captain's thoughts but it brings a fullness to the narrative that is vitally important.