Fevre Dream
My second-hand copy of George R.R. Martin's Fevre Dream finally arrived today. I'd ordered it forever ago, but as the book club date approached I started thinking that I'd better pony up the dough for a new copy. By that time, of course, every store in Montreal was sold out. Today, I finally found a copy that had just arrived at the Chapters in Pointe Claire and had them put it aside for me. Fifteen minutes later, the mailman buzzed with my long awaited package. Tada!
Looks like customs gave it some "gentle" handling. The back of the package has been slashed open with a utility knife. They cut it hard enough to go right through the epilogue and even make triangular tears on some of the pages. Thanks, guys!
More importantly, JUST LOOK AT THAT GOD-AWFUL COVER! The image on the left is the outside front cover. As this is a vampire story, I suppose it's meant to look like the title was written in blood (how original). Looks more like pure cadmium red to me, squeezed out of the tube like shiny red toothpaste. Look at the number of white highlights on that sucker. Can't ever have enough highlights. Now it looks like polka-dotted shiny red toothpaste. Hey, don't forget to emboss it! Nothing brings out polka-dotted-shiny-red-toothpastiness like a good embossing job. Ooo wait! A tag line: "Across the twilight of fear, the red-drenched, terrifying dream begins..."
Open that masterpiece front cover and you'll find the image on the right, presumably the originally commissioned cover. This one is actually not awful, for the period. Creepy riverboat, somewhat cheesy vampire face superimposed on the water... At least now I know it's a period Mississippi vampire story and not a tale of dental hygiene horror.
Well.... Okay, given that it's a vampire story, I guess there's some implied dental hygiene horror.