The Route of Ice and Salt

by José Luis Zárate, David Bowles (Translator)

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.

The cult vampire novella by Mexican author José Luis Zárate is available for the first time in English. Translated by David Bowles and with an accompanying essay by noted horror author Poppy Z. Brite, it reveals an unknown corner of Latin American literature.

Genres: Horror, Vampires, Queer, Fantasy, LGBT, Novella, Fiction

143 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Sus novelas de mayor renombre son "Xanto, novelucha libre" (1994), "La ruta del hielo y la sal" (1998) y "Del cielo oscuro y del abismo" (2001), que forman una trilogía, llamada por el autor "Las fases del mito", sobre personajes icónicos de la cultura popular. En ellas el Santo (el luchador/superhéroe fílmico mexicano), el conde Drácula y Superman, respectivamente, son vistos desde la perspectiva que tendrían los habitantes de sus propios mundos ficticios. Entre sus libros de cuentos destaca "Hyperia" (1999), que toma elementos de muchas vertientes distintas de la ciencia ficción y se convierte en un panorama muy completo de los intereses del escritor y del estado del género fantástico a fines del siglo XX.

Reviews

[Silvia Moreno-Garcia]

I am the publisher of this book, which is a translation of José Luis Zárate's "La Ruta del Hielo y la Sal," originally published in the 1990s in Mexico. David Bowles has translated it from Spanish into English and Poppy Z. Brite provides an afterword. It's hard for me to explain how unique this novella is. I was a young woman in the 1990s and I remember how conservative Mexican society was, how almost no one was 'out' - a friend of my family bought a wedding ring so he could pretend he was married to a woman and wouldn't lose his job.

Considering this climate, a novel with a gay protagonist was in itself a bold move. Bolder still was the fact that this was a horror novella inspired by Dracula.

José Luis Zárate seemed to be doing two things here: one, attempting to recast a classic text with a modern gaze. Two, he had ideas about tying together the political repression present in Mexican society with the sexual repression. Zárate, after all, was a child/teen in the 1970s when our government murdered activists during the Guerra Sucia. It also viciously repressed anything that could be seen as 'gay,' for example the 'hippies' with their long hair were seen as a sign of decadence and beaten for this.

Anyway, you could write a whole long paper about this stuff. Suffice to say this is an iconic and cult novella, and I decided to translate it because it is an important historical and cultural object. Latin American fiction is often only rendered in the vein of the magic realist to English-speaking audiences. Here Zárate does something entirely different.

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the water rises higher / I think I might just have to swim / And if the river grows wider / I think I might just throw myself in (Here It Comes – Hurray for the Riff Raff).

This book might be The Route of Ice and Salt, but I'm the only one salty for not having read this sooner! Sorry, I should dial it back because being Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky definitely wouldn't fit the tone of set by this book. And in that regard, it's really all you could ask for in a modernish retelling replicating one of the most popular works in gothic fiction; haunting, desperate, and poetic. So yeah, I really enjoyed this… well, maybe “enjoyed” is the wrong word, because I hesitate to flat out call this novella a book in the traditional sense, but rather an experience. I know, I know, that’s way too pretentious (“acting without acting” and all that), but considering we're inside the head of a captain going through a hell of a time on a small boat in the middle of the ocean, I'm not lying when I tell you that this story made me a little stir-crazy! With immense isolation, suspicion, and fear of the other as well as the self all being a constant throughout the narrative, I wouldn’t exactly call this a fun reading experience, even if I wanted to. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I went through a couple episodes of existential dread myself by the time I reached just the second chapter, which is telling because that was before the creepy Dracula showed up and started picking off the crew members! Is that a spoiler? I mean, this story chronicles the events that happen in the first third of the original Dracula novel, so it's safe to say that we all know that these characters are doomed the second we start the first page, right? Oh yeah, I should have probably opened with that, with telling you that this is a Dracula retelling of his voyage to England by hiding away on a ship. I love retellings as a general rule, but the best part of The Route of Ice and Salt was the fact that it doesn’t get caught up in the larger than life narrative of the original novel, but instead uses it as a backdrop to highlight and focus on a much different character arc through the Demeter’s captain. Flowery prose aside, it really leaves behind the lofty gothic fiction origins by grounding the story in a sense of gritty realism, with Dracula mostly just being the cherry-on-top of an already terrible journey across the sea, as most the horror is found here really is just realities of the time period.

Otherwise, this book really stood on its own by exploring themes of self-hatred, guilt, and suppression leading to inevitable release. Now, if that sounded kind of sexual, that’s because it is… this book is very horny, just not in a sexy way. The captain has spent his entire life repressing his urges, and as this is a queer retelling of an oft skipped over part of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it makes sense that we’d get several chapters dedicated to him Bram Stroking it. Badum tsss! In fact, the writing takes on an almost grotesque style while describing the captain’s voyeuristic attraction to the same sex, and it gets to the point where it’s uncomfortable to read through this man’s hidden thoughts, like we're peeking into a room we're not supposed to. And while I’d hardly call The Route of Ice and Salt a hopeful and redemptive tale, I still believe that this story is one of liberation nonetheless. The captain has lived a life of repression out of necessity, and his self-hatred eventually becomes this alive thing eating away at him until he’s eventually forcefully confronted with a mirror of his own monstrous nature through his encounter with Dracula. If I had read Moby-Dick, then I’d say something about the similarities between both captain’s obsession showcased throughout each story and make a super apt comparison about the nature of inevitability or something. But you know, seeing as I haven’t read that book, the only comparison I have authority to make is that they’re similar in that both the whale book and The Route of Ice and Salt follow men with rather... mopey dicks heh heh. Bad jokes aside, you could definitely argue that relating the classic portrayal of a vampire’s predatory nature so closely to queerness is offensive, but you could also say that LGBT+ fiction deserves to have protagonists who aren't always the ally's image of a picture perfect gay. Obviously, if the captain from this book were the only depiction of the queer experience, then it'd would be a problem, but I also believe that we also deserve a little nuance in our characters too, don't you think? Don't get me wrong, this dude isn't a good person, but that doesn't mean his story is meaningless and shouldn't be told. Besides, a more generous interpretation of the text might also say that the author is positing that being forced to live in secret on the outskirts of what society deems “natural” and constantly living in fear of being hunted can turn anybody into a monster more than willing to do anything for even the smallest pleasures.

So yeah, a controversial depiction or not, it can’t be denied that The Route of Ice and Salt is unapologetically queer, though I feel I should reiterate considering the typical LGBT+ fiction I normally read is a tad different than this, but this book isn’t of the “uwu smol bean” variety, but rather very matter-of-fact in its narration about a man who is in a constant struggle against his own closeted nature. In fact, I’d probably say that there’s almost no romance to be found at all unless you start getting real interpretive with the text. “Death of the author” or whatever that even means anymore. I always laugh remembering this, but there was this game called Dragon’s Dogma that had a really weird romance system where it would think the main character's love-interest was whichever NPC you interacted with the most throughout the game… and let me tell you that it was quite the shock when at the climax of the story the evil dragon captured some old ass shop-keeper who I apparently had a sordid love affair with without me knowing. By that metric, I think it's safe to say that that was more romantic and had more spice than anything you could find in this book here! Anyway, while the wordy prose and emotionally devastating themes make it hard to dive into this book the same way as any easily digestible horror story, it was nonetheless an effective depiction of the genre due to its immediate sense of foreboding in a way not dissimilar to the early chapters of Frankenstein. You know, the bit where that captain finds a half-dead Victor Frankenstein ready to tell a fantastical tale. But I also enjoyed how the book was styled as a captain’s log we just happened across because it fondly reminded me of the Fallout games, where you can read journals scattered around that always start out super happy like, “gee, I sure do love my new job! I can’t wait to get to know everybody and have a wonderful life!” and then a couple pages in we’re given a, “the mole people ate all my friends and now they're in the room with m–.” It’s simple, but it almost always works! Speaking of creepy, Dracula himself is used very effectively here because it takes it back to the basics and makes this dude scary as hell, always standing just far enough away to ominously haunt the crew members, “Return the slab” style. Out of context horror always makes me the most emotionally invested! Anyway, this book was a trip, and I wouldn't have it any other way. My main takeaway? The Route of Ice and Salt is a tale about prosecution, unfair or otherwise, and the lengths people will go to mask their fury and fear through justification and reason.

“Anyone could be considered a monster. And monsters were assassinated with impunity.”

[K.J. Charles]

Intensely queer novella from the perspective of the captain of the Demeter, the ship that brings Dracula to England. Obviously the voyage goes poorly.

It's thrumming with hunger and desire, and the captain's fear of his own desire and recognition that it would be seen as monstrous. And, indeed, his acknowledgement that he's not the monster here (Dracula is almost irrelevant given the shitty human nature on display) and his courage in taking on the increasingly terrifying situation. Beautifully translated, haunting stuff.

[Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was interesting, not at all what I was expecting! I went into it mostly blind, besides just the basics: a queer vampire novella, originally written in 1998, translated from Spanish & published by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, the author of Mexican Gothic.

I haven’t read Dracula, which I think put me at a disadvantage, because the story follows the voyage of The Demeter to England. I know a couple of other reviewers had said you don’t need to read it before going in, but I was a little lost sometimes and didn’t really understand the context of what was happening until the end. That said, it was still an enjoyable read for me and I think anyone who’s a fan of Dracula, vampires or gothic horror would probably like this.

The writing is rich and incredibly descriptive. I obviously can’t compare it to the original because I don’t know Spanish, but for an English-speaker this feels like a great translation. The language builds in a way that gave me a growing sense of dread, where I was afraid to continue but also had to get to the end. It was genuinely scary at times, which I think is a credit both to both Mr. Zárate and Mr. Bowles.

Much of The Route of Ice and Salt focuses on desire that borders on a craving or hunger, which I believe is supposed to symbolize vampirism. As both the author and publisher have said, the fact that this featured a gay main character struggling to rein in his sexuality in a novella published in Mexico in 1998 is significant. I feel like other reviewers were better able to articulate this significance, so I’d recommend scrolling and reading some of those reviews. The text was a good deal more erotic than I was expecting, sometimes abstractly and sometimes more explicitly, if that’s something that will impact you’re enjoyment of the story.

In all, I’m glad I read this. It makes me want to go and read Dracula now that I understand how one fits into the other. It probably says something about modern fiction that my first introduction to vampires was the sparkly variety, but I’m glad there are authors who are putting out and making accessible the types that exist in this story. I don’t think this is going to be appealing to everyone, but for a specific type of reader it’ll probably resonate strongly.


*Thanks to Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Innsmouth Free Press & Netgalley for an advance copy!

**For more book talk & reviews, follow me on Instagram at @elle_mentbooks!

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sexually charged horror. Is the horror in the story filled with blood and rats, death or in what is beneath?

We wear clothes, norms, beliefs which hide the nakedness beneath, the reality of what we are is hidden away. But beneath we are still naked and we still have needs, thirsts, hungers and these are not the monsters. The monsters are what we become when we hide away our nakedness and pretend to be what we are not, to be part of the group. The group then turns into the super monster that patrols the nakedness of others, imposing and punishing to validate it's norms and shore up it's beliefs.

[jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

beautifully written though too horny for my personal taste

[Emmett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not long ago, I yearned for that now-gray flesh, to kiss those now-black lips, to drink the fluids stored inside that now-dead body.

Alright, this was GREAT. I must confess that I never actually read Dracula so the connection The Route of Ice and Salt had to the original story was lost on me. Needless to say, I enjoyed it anyway. (Though I did appreciate the link was explained in the afterword)

José Luis Zárate has written a novel[la] quite unlike anything I have read before and the translator certainly did it justice. Haunting descriptions, lush prose, overflowing eroticism, and one lustful captain- GOD DAMN, is he horny. [and I am here.for.it.]

Was this what I expected? Not entirely. Was I impressed? 100%. Would I recommend this? Hell yeah- get your yuck and your yum at the same time, I say.

Drop anchor. Pick up this creepy vampire voyage tale.
Drop your jaw. There is some grotesque imagery in here.
Drop trou. Like I said- this captain is one horny dude. 😉

[Gabi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novella describes the voyage of how Dracula came to England as cargo on a sailing ship. It is told solely as flow of consciousness of the gay captain, who is in an eternal inner battle of his desires against the bigotted morale of his time. Horror and lust intermingle as the mind drifts away from reality. The prose is poetic, wild and unhibited. There are graphic description of sexual desire and horrific parts concerning rats.
A journey through a tortured soul that I embraced with open arms.

[Queralt✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you power through the initial 22 chapters where the narrator talks about erections and such this is an okay book about Dracula terrifying a ship.

[charlotte, · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rep: gay mc

CWs: internalised homophobia, homophobic violence

Galley provided by publisher

I’ve been stuck on how to review this book for a while now because it’s a difficult one, really. To review it at all properly requires splitting it into the book and the translation (although not having read the original text makes that...hard to say the least). So, this is a review for why you should pick the book up in general, regardless of which language you’re reading it in (and why English-speaking readers should be very happy they can finally read it too).

The Route of Ice and Salt fills in the gap between Dracula’s departure from mainland Europe and his arrival on the shores of England, following the captain of the Demeter as he gradually comes to realise not all is as it seems aboard his ship.

As the introduction notes, vampirism is often taken as an allegory for gayness, and this novella interweaves the two explicitly and incredibly well. The Captain’s former lover is killed in a manner that would befit a vampire; he often thinks of his desire as somehow parasitic. But it also pulls apart the allegory, dissects the comparison and throws it away. The Captain comes to realise there is nothing wrong with his being gay, but there is something wrong with a creature which feeds off the living, as it has done its crew.

In addition to this — and I think this is a point about the translation as well as the original work — the writing is intoxicating and tense. It pulls you in in the first part, with the Captain’s fight against his own desires, hooks you then, and proceeds to slowly and steadily intensify as each crew member disappears mysteriously on the voyage. You go through the book almost as in the dark as to what’s coming as the characters themselves (I say almost because you are at least aware of Dracula’s presence). Granted, some of this may have been that I haven’t actually read Dracula, but in terms of building the tension, the point stands.

So, even if you haven’t read (or don’t care to read) Dracula, this novella should definitely be on your radar (and also, not having read the other is no barrier to reading this).

[Becky Spratford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review in January 2021 Horror Review column for Library Journal: https://www.libraryjournal.com/?revie...

Three Words That Describe This Book: classic retold, unnerving, absorbing

Draft Review:
First published in 1998 in Mexico, appearing in English for the first time thanks to Silvia Moreno-Garcia and with an afterword by horror LGBTQ pioneer Poppy Z. Brite, this novella overtly contemplates the ever present themes of gay sexuality in vampire literature. By focusing on the pivotal but often overlooked section of Dracula featuring the doomed trip of the Demeter, the ship that brought Count Dracula to England, found with no crew and the dead, unnamed captain lashed to his wheel, desperately grasping a rosary, Zárate succeeds in crafting an eerie, disorienting and hypnotic tale that fills in the uninspired spaces of the classic novel’s “Captain’s Log” by recounting the Captain’s personal, diary entries, the things he couldn’t officially report, that begin as homoerotic desires for his men, ultimately transforming into a absorbing and detailed look into their fate. Verdict: A necessary and engaging addition not only to the the always popular subset of Dracula adjacent tales such as Dracul by Stoker and Barker, but also, to the growing pantheon of retellings of horror classics from a marginalized perspective such as The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle.

[Mindy Rose · Rating 1 out of 5]

the most upsettingly horny man that's ever existed is the captain of a ship that is infested with a dracula. this was our march book club pick and i thought it was going to be like sexy gay vampire shit but it.. was not that. the writing itself was 100% insufferable, i had no idea what the fuck the author was saying half the time.. I'm not sure if it was that he was genuinely trying to be historically accurate or if he's just pretentious as fuck but either way i hated it. the story was nothing?! if you took out all the ridiculous rambling old timey wordy bullshit the story itself would have been like a page & a half long. everything the captain does and thinks just made me feel like the author was a homophobic dude who thinks gay men are fucked up depraved disgusting hornmonsters but the author is a gay man! if he thinks the shit he wrote in this book is like.. relatable in any way i feel like he genuinely should be getting help from a clinical therapist. this fuckin guy is literally nonstop obsessing about fucking his crew, he has a very intense fantasy about fucking his actual damn ship, he gets all horned up thinking about the RATS that infest the ship.. bro. no. this line about hiring sex workers was also particularly disturbing - "i choose the youngest ones, small-bosomed, resembling more children than females." bro. dude. absolutely not. horrible stuff all around, i absolutely hated it, do not recommend, yikes etc. 1/5.

[Andy Weston · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novella, initially published in Mexico in 1998, is a reimagining of Dracula’s voyage from Transylvania to Whitby on board the ship, The Demeter. I really enjoyed it.
It is narrated by the captain, whose job it is to transport fifty crates filled with Transylvanian soil to England, but the captain is not what you might expect of the period, he is wracked by guilt, an internalised homophobia brought about by his own sexuality; he is gay, his lover was murdered by a mob, hence he has taken to the seas, and as captain, has appointed his entire crew according to their looks and promiscuousness.
It takes a while until the vampire comes into the story, past half way, but this doesn't deter from the enjoyment of the reading at all. This latter part is more plot driven than what preceeds, but Zárate manages an atmosphere of gothic creepiness throughout. So, monsters abound, but where exactly, Dracula on his voyage, or those brutally persecuting everyday folk, like the Captain's lover. At times dark and disturbing, but always rewarding, this is inventive and a lot of fun.

[Gyalten Lekden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intense, atmospheric, dense, and beautifully lyrical, this short novella engulfs the reader, relentless and demanding. This is not a vampire story; yes, vampires make an appearance, but this is a novella about hunger, about desire, desperation, and frustration. In a beautiful nod to Dracula this novella is told through journal and captain’s log entries, a fervent, confessional first person that is painfully intimate. The atmosphere and world of the story are gorgeous and lush, the scratch of the salt in the air flavoring your skin as you read. The story moves quickly, starting in the mind of our main character, the captain, before things start going wrong, where the greatest danger, the incipient storm being one of memory and desire and guilt. Soon his inner nightmares are made flesh as his sailors begin to disappear from his ship, racing ahead to an inevitability. The story always feels like it is moving, helped by the very short captain’s log entries in the middle section of the story (as opposed to the journal entries of the first and third sections), and it feels remarkably effective. What really shines, though, is the depth of language, how it is contemplative and corporeal at the same time, a language of sensuality and thirst and command. Zárate ends his introduction by asking, “What does it feel like when you sail towards a shipwreck?”, and that mix of turmoil and morbid curiosity, of guilt and devotion, really anchor this short novella deep in the psyche.

The horror is not supernatural but psychological, found in the empty spaces a sailor leaves when he disappears, in the fleeting touches you are too afraid or ashamed to steal. “I know that Thirst is not evil in and of itself, nor Hunger a stigma that must be erased by fire and blood. Not even Sin. It is what we are willing to do to feed an impulse that makes it dangerous.” I am not sure what I had expected when I picked up this story, but I know what I found was much more compelling and affecting.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a gay fan-fic on an episode in Bram Stoker's Dracula, when the Count was delivered from the Continent to the British Isles. In the original novel, almost all info we know is

“ 9 August.--The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It turns out that the schooner is Russian from Varna, and is called the Demeter. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargo, a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould.” There is also a ship’s logs with strange disappearances and that only dead captain was found there.

I read it as a part of monthly reading for November 2021 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group. While the original novella was published in Mexico in the 1990, the English translation with a preface by Silvia Moreno-Garcia was published only in 2021.

The story is from the point of view of Demeter’s captain who is a gay in a masculine homophobic crew, so he has to hide his urges. While the prose is quite poetic, the problem with the protagonist is that he is lecherous man, with dreams about licking bodily fluids from bodies of his crew (which may sound icky, but I guess one shouldn’t judge fantasies of others) but also imposed himself on some of the laborers in port, which is not okey, even if all he did was kissing one worker in his neck. There is some more gross stuff and constant comparison of how traditional societies prosecuted real gays and mythical vampires, killing both as unclean.

While I fully agree that gays were (and sadly still are in a lot of places) unjustly persecuted, I disagree that the comparison with (fictional) murderer, who really hurts society is adequate. Overall, a talented book, which I deeply dislike.

[Adri · Rating 4 out of 5]

CWs: Descriptions of death and murder, references to cannibalism, sexual assault, allusions to predatory sexual behavior, outdated racial epithets (Romani slurs), graphic descriptions of sex and sexual fantasies, some blood and violence.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

CW: homophobia, blood, death, Romanii slurs, (mentioned) child sexual assault

Apologies for the least professional review possible but all I have to say is: ;sadlfkadhg;alfkdjksf;a sdf HOLY SHIT this book is good.

[Malice · Rating 3 out of 5]

He imaginado varias veces cómo transcurriría el viaje en el que Drácula llegó a Inglaterra: las muertes, el terror, las desapariciones. Aunque esta interpretación ha estado bien, no ha terminado de encantarme.

Creo que la prosa es lo que más me ha gustado, pero no tanto el desarrollo.

[Allison Hurd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is horny on main. But also very angry in a classic horror way. I absolutely applaud the sideways look at the vampire myth this gives us.

CONTENT WARNING: sexual assault, queer antagonism, serial killer, suicide, limited masculinity, extreme homophobia, harm to children, murder.

Things not to love:

-Gay man as predator. The only thing I think that was perhaps not as sophisticated as the rest was that we see our main character force himself upon his lover. His lover ends up reciprocating, and I think we're meant to explore what it means to want something forbidden, and how a cursory "no" shifts villainy from one person to another (see also: Baby It's Cold Outside) but this is a delicate thing since there is such a living stigma around gay men being predators vs. just being people who love in ways that someone else finds objectionable.

Everything else:

-Language. This book is beautiful. Even in translation the parallels, imagery, and subtle allegory are masterworks in the use of language.

-Exceptionally smart. So, something about me, I cannot but love books that use folklore/myths to explore the core fear that monster represents. Vampires are beings of lust. They're horniness in a world that shames those who enjoy their bodies, they're sexual assault/predators, they're ecstasy in victimhood. Every culture has a vampire-esque creature, because this is a core human experience, and while we may focus on slightly different things, it's the same set of fears--our confused and eternal struggle being sexual beings in a world that has put so many rules around intercourse, and insufficient protections around those who do not reciprocate, or who reciprocate too readily. This book swan dives into this rhetoric in a way that paints no heroes, no winners, and no one worthy of Hell.

-The horror. My second favorite thing was the multiple avenues of horror this book explores. First and most in line with source material, imagine what it would be like to be the ship's captain on a ship that is seeing deaths of his crew every night and not being able to attribute a source. Sailors are a superstitious lot as a rule because the sea is capricious and awesome in the sense that it cannot be viewed without awe. On top of that we have a man who has a guilty conscience and a desire for love he cannot express. We have parallels and contrasts between being closeted gay in a time when homosexuality is a death sentence and being an actual predatory monster, and how isolating and maddening it would be to have human desires for love and fulfillment and yet be seen in the same light as an undead and soulless monster.

I think this is a must-read for those who enjoy spec-fic as a space to explore hard topics, or who love horror-as-social-commentary.

[Rogier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Artist inspires Artist and media inspires media. The Route of Ice and Salt ( La ruta del hielo y la sal) was originally published in 1998 by a Mexican comic publisher Grupo Editorial VID, it didn't take root and but it became cult classic. It's now in English for the first time through Silvia Moreno-Garcia's efforts.

This novella reimagines Dracula’s voyage to England on The Demeter. The Route of Ice and Salt gives the nameless Captain a voice as gay man in this time period. This book is really about hunger, the captain 's hunger for love and physical touch, his sexual fantasies regarding his crewmen and Dracula's hunger where each crewmember is attacked one after an other. The captain realizes that he has a feeling besides hunger for his men, love and he will fight for them. This novella is about the captain 's emotional trauma he experienced as a young man, his internalized homophobia and accepting himself. . Zárate does this by writing poetically , i had to re read sentences more than once because they were beautiful but also because i had to keep track if the captain remembered a memory or if was present time. It felt like a fever dream at times, a beautiful one but still fever dream. The Route of Ice and Salt is horror, poetry and philosophical. The latine SFF community knows of it's existence and I'm happy English readership can experience this emotional weird queer gothic story

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horney, angsty and horrific.

The captain of the Demeter transports something horrific, but doesn't realize things are real bad at first because he's too busy having horny thoughts and fucking his ship (yes, you read that right—he puts his woody in a woody) and then it's too damn late.

Not gonna lie, I spent much of this book laughing at inappropriate parts, because I'm an awful person.

[Ash | Wild Heart Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Route of Ice and Salt reimagines Dracula's voyage to England aboard The Demeter, breathing life into the unnamed captain of the ship and giving him and his story a voice. As the Demeter makes it's way to England strange and horrifying happening begin to befall the crew. The captain finds his dreams haunted, filled with longing and fear.

The Route of Ice and Salt may not be a long book but it packs a punch. The writing draws you in from the beginning and even as the horrors unfold and the dread settle over your shoulders, you cannot look away. Though I obviously know the legend of Dracula and various takes, I haven't actually read the Bram Stocker version so I went into this blind. But I found it to be an excellent rendition of the voyage to England, particularly in the life it gave to the captain.

In The Route of Ice and Salt, Zárate uses vampirism as a way to examine how queerness is treated. Through the captain's struggles to accept his queerness, to the fate of his lover and the understanding he comes to, the author does this very well and the Captains final revelations are beautiful to watch him come to.

I definitely recommend The Route of Ice and Salt, it is at time unsettling and creepy but the writing is just phenomenal. The creeping sense of dread, the horror melded with desire is so well done. It's hard to know what to write in some ways because it's so unlike anything I've read before but I am very grateful to David Bowles and those at Innsmouth Free Press for translating this book, it is highly unlikely I would have stumbled across it otherwise and I am very glad I got to read it.

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.

*I received a review copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own*

This review and more can be found at https://wildheartreads.wordpress.com/

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Category: horny gothic 😂
It's one of those books where you already know the ending but you're after the journey.
The afterword was nice. I learned about the connection of homosexuality and vampirism in literature. It's a good end to my Pride Month reads.

Coincidentally, in the other book I'm reading currently The Orphan Master's Son, the lead is at sea centuries later.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Route of Ice and Salt is a cult vampire novella by Mexican author José Luis Zárate that has been translated into English by David Bowles.

This novella is an richly descriptive, atmospheric, evocative, and erotic reimagining of Dracula’s voyage to England aboard the Demeter, from the Captain's (very) personal internal "diary". Shipboard life starts out mundane and then slowly begins to unravel as mysterious, outright creepy and then just terrifying, events begin to manifest.

[Siavahda · Rating 1 out of 5]

HIGHLIGHTS
~Lick it or fantasise about licking it, I guess
~suckerfish vampires
~don’t trust your dreams
~Dracula is a dick

Head’s up: minor spoilers ahead. Major spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read Dracula.

Well, I wish I hadn’t read that.

In a way, I guess that’s kind of a back-handed compliment: this is a horror novella, I generally avoid horror because I’m a wimp, and I found this utterly horrifying. That’s what a horror novella is supposed to be, right? Horrifying?

So.

The Route of Ice & Salt is the untold story of the doomed ship captain – and his crew – who, in the original novel, are hired to transport crates of the dirt of Transylvania to England for Dracula. In Dracula, the crew go unnamed and are discovered dead, their ship adrift, by the heroes; here, they get to be full characters, which of course makes their deaths even more tragic. It’s hard to feel real grief for the unnamed bystanders who are killed by the villain, but give them names and a chance to connect to them, and their deaths become much more powerful.

I absolutely hated it.

Critique the first: by all the gods, shut up already. The novella is first-person from the perspective of, you guessed it, the captain, and he is the most…pretentiously miserable/philosophical wretch. Every other sentence leads us into a paragraph of overly flowery prose (I’m not sure I have ever called prose too flowery in my life, I love purple prose, but this – just no) meditating on…anything his gaze lands on, I guess. The waves, the sky, the ways of rats. Pages and pages of this nonsense

The cold suffices until itself; the heat demands that we partake.

We can take refuge from the frost. It does not belong to us. We can cover ourselves with furs and approach the fire.

But what to do when the heat comes from within?

In the dead of night, our blood is like a sweat inside the body, warm sea nestled within our flesh, skin feverish and throbbing.

How to seek shelter from that which runs through our very veins?

That is one passage. From chapter one.

I will absolutely grant that there are some great images in there – I like ‘warm sea nestled within our flesh’, more or less – but the good gets drowned in the mess. Piled on top of each other, it crushes the whole. Sinks the ship. Whichever metaphor you prefer, the point is, it doesn’t work. Not for me.

Critique the second: I see what you tried to do there, but you messed up.

Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!

[Ruxandra Grrr [in a slump :(((((] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hunger is not a sin, nor is Necessity or Appetite. What matters, I repeat, is what we are willing to do to satisfy them.

This is a fascinating Mexican novella from the 90s that covers what happened on the boat that brought Count Dracula from Varna to England. It is incredibly horny in the first half, but like poetically horny. The captain is gay and closeted and he longs for [very explicit things], but also intimacy and connection. He is incredibly touch-starved. And he wonders if he is a monster because of his hunger, his desire, his... thirst. Enter the real monster!

I quite liked this - it is gorgeously written (and gorgeously translated, I assume). There are a few caveats though, so CW: not just one, but two slurs for Roma people used very repeatedly and also a very problematic paragraph in the first chapters that borders on pedophilia, when he discussed sex workers in different ports in a pretty gross way.

I don't think I understood this fully, but the theme is clear: to the status quo, queer people seem like monsters. So this is an exploration of the hunger that the unnamed captain shares with the famous vampire. And how do they differ?

We have Romanian characters in this one as well! With bad spellings that I guess phoneticize them to get rid of the diacritical signs. There's the first mate, Vlahutza (who I suspect is named for the writer Alexandru Vlahuță, who wrote a travelogue about Romania, it is not a common name), then the cook, Arghezi (named after Tudor Arghezi, the poet, it could not be anyone else since Arghezi itself is a pseudonym derived from the river Argeș) and the second mate, Muresh (at first I thought this was a Turkish name or something, but then I realized I need to go to sleep, cause Mureș - another river name!)

Vlahutza is a real asshole who physically punishes the other sailors and who seems unflappable, but then... is flapped at some point. He is described thusly: His stronger nature seems to have worked inwardly against himself. The men are beyond fear, working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to the worst. They are Russian, he Romanian. And honestly, I don't know what this means. Does this mean that he is Romanian and knows what to fear? Or that the unflappable, when they flap, hey have a hard time getting unflapped again? Probably the second one.

All in all, a good vampire novella which explores the idea that queer is monstrous, idea which is having a resurgence, unfortunately, so it's still current.

[Octavio Villalpando · Rating 4 out of 5]

A medio camino entre el delirio y lo onírico, José Luis Zárate hace un espectacular trabajo reimaginando la travesía del Démeter de Wallachia a Whitby, transportando nada más y nada menos que al mismísimo Drácula.

El autor hace un excelente trabajo capturando las obsesiones del capitán del barco, mismas que son aprovechadas por su infame pasajero. Y de esa forma, en ese terrible espacio cerrado, donde incluso la férrea rutina marina no sirve de ayuda para escapar del terrible acoso al que la tripulación es sometida, nosotros mismos somos testigos de como, poco a poco, la vida de los integrantes de la tripulación es condenada al terrible destino que Stoker les impuso en su legendaria obra.

Otro factor que hace muy interesante a la obra es el hecho de que se trate de una novela gay. Claro, la historia podría haberse contado de mil maneras, pero la forma elegida por el autor calza a la perfección con la imaginería de los vampiros en general, donde el contexto sexual siempre es importante, Y este factor, además del hecho de que en la época en la que fue publicada por vez primera la novela, este tipo de materiales aún no era bien visto por la casta y pura sociedad mexicana, le confiere a la obra un valor adicional, transgresor, si, y muy perverso también. Perverso en la forma en la que vemos el deterioro de una voluntad que fue puesta a prueba muchas veces, y que al final de cuentas, como es de todos conocido, tampoco pudo oponerse al destino para el que había sido concebido.

En fin, se trata de una obra muy interesante. No puede decirse que caiga dentro del "fanfic" que tanto se ha popularizado desde hace tiempo, no. Es una novela profesional con muchas virtudes, y nos ofrece una perspectiva muy interesante que complementa a la perfección lo que no pasa de ser más que un encabezado, casi una nota al calce, en la novela de Bram Stoker.

¡Vale mucho la pena!

[RatGrrrl · Rating 5 out of 5]

CN. Incredibly Horny, Fixation on Blood and Bodily Fluids, Rats, Referenced Homophobia and Homophobic Violence

There are countless versions of the story of the male Carmilla and the damned voyage of the Demeter. Their quality vary wildly, but I guarantee you that you haven't read one like this!

I was absolutely blown away by how unique, unfathomably gay and horny, and just how incredibly, rich, evocative, and loving the prose it. It's a sumptuous salty bittersweet delight!

The story is told through the captain of the Demeter's logs, weaving his insatiable and secret lust for his men and the salt all over their bodies, a past tragedy that hangs heavy on his heart, and the damned voyage itself into something genuinely beautiful, unsettling and heartbreaking with a glorious, tragic symmetry.

I'll be honest, you do have to lock in with the only captain more horny than the icebreaker captain writing to his sister about how much he was fanging for Dr. Frankenstein and his phenomenal horniness for his crew, salt, and his ship? But the writing is unbelievable and there is something so refreshing and heartening and important about just how unbelievably gay and horny it is. It's so gay and horny it makes the recent Interview with the Vampire adaptation seem heterosexual and chaste!

I genuinely loved this and the revelations and experiences of the captain truly moved me, even if some parts on the beginning did make me giggle.

I listened to the Gabriel De Leon audiobook and their performance is out of this world with a deep, rich voice that was absolutely perfect for this story.

[aza · Rating 4 out of 5]

yeah I'll give that 5 stars

In Bram Stoker's Dracula, the captain of the Demeter was found dead, bound to the wheel with a rosary in his hands to avoid letting the vampire take control of the helm. This book is the story of that fateful voyage of Demeter, told through the logs of her captain.

Honestly I decided to read this book simply because Silvia Moreno-Garcia had it translated, and she said that there was a gay protagonist. This is how monkey brained I am.

I'd say this book wasn't what I expected it to be, but tbh I didn't really come in with expectations. But damn the message was really well done, and completely in tune with the inspiration of the original Dracula, which was written nearly a century before this one. I hope to get a hold of the original sometime in the future. It's an add-to-bookshelf kind of book.

[Rach A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. What I think this novella does particularly well is exploring the way vampirism and homosexuality and monstrosity are so often intertwined, both in literature and historically in society. It explores the concepts of homosexuality and monstrosity through vampirism: thus it’s a novel that beautifully and intensely explores hunger and need and thirst and desire. And it has made me extremely excited to go on to reread Dracula next.

Content warnings: Use of the G-slur to describe Roma, mentions of child sexual abuse (children being forced into sex work), rats, animal death, graphic sex, self harm, homophobic violence, death, dead bodies, death of loved one