Black Gate

For many of his fans, George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (aka A Game of Thrones, the title of the first book in the series) is considered to be his masterpiece. Undoubtedly GOT is his magnum opus, but for me his masterpiece is 1982’s Fevre Dream, which is one of my favorite vampire novels. Everything about this novel — setting, characters, prose, theme — reads as if Martin had channeled Mark Twain and Bram Stoker, had conjured them from beyond the veil to look over his shoulders while he penned this wonderful tale.

Fevre Dream is set in the antebellum south of the United States between the years 1857 to 1870, along the Illinois, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers. The main characters are a riverboat captain named Abner Marsh, a big, ugly, gruff but honest and honorable man, and Joshua York, a heroic and noble vampire who many of his kind eventually come to think of as their savior, the Pale King. The main thread deals with Marsh’s partnership and eventual friendship with York. And it’s this unlikely friendship that is at the heart and soul of this incredibly thoughtful and well-written novel. It begins when York approaches Marsh one night and offers him a grand business opportunity — to build the largest, fastest and most glorious riverboat ever seen, a riverboat painted all sparkling white, to which they give the name Fevre Dream.

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The Nexus, by Mike McQuay
Spectra Special Edition (Bantam Books, 474 pages, $4.50 in paperback, May 1989)
Cover by Bob Hickson

Amy Kyle, an Autistic girl on the threshold of puberty, has divine powers. She can cure the sick, heal the lame, mend broken bones and make horrible scars disappear. She also has incredible powers of teleportation and telekinesis, and can manipulate reality in such ways as making a horde of food appear out of thin air, the way Christ is said to have done with the loaves and fishes. Thus, the comparisons to Christ and discussions about the nature of God and divinity are at the core of this story. Amy’s mother, Tawny, is a booze-addled, chain-smoking, sometime prostitute and train wreck of a human being who can channel her daughter’s powers. This she does in old-fashioned “revival” type meetings, charging people a modest sum to be healed and cured of their physical limitations and ailments.

Denny Stiller is a nearly washed-up newsman for WCN, a Dallas, Texas cable news network, who lives and breathes for “the story.” He is a self-professed seeker of the Truth who lives a life avoiding most relationships and commitments. Part hero, part rogue, his whole adult life has been devoted to being the ultimate newshound, the ultimate reporter. Frank Hargrave is a Vietnam veteran with a badly scarred and damaged leg. A one-time storm chaser who can barely hang onto his sanity; he’s one of the walking wounded who drinks too much in an effort to numb himself from the nightmares, the cruelty, and the violence of the world. An overly sensitive soul, he leads a troubled life filled with pain and terrible nightmares, but none of this intrudes on his talent for “capturing the moment” on film. The head honchos at WCN would have dumped him long ago, if not for Denny’s support and belief in his friend.

But Denny himself, once the top reporter at WCN, was demoted to covering less-urgent news because of a scathing interview he once conducted with the President of the United States of America. Now he’s trying to redeem himself and work his way back to being king of the news hill.

Molly Hartwell is a producer at WCN, and is also in love with Denny. She stands by him, backs him all the way, and risks her own career in order to help him rise to the top of the heap again. But Denny often mistreats her, uses her, and her love for him is not always reciprocated, not in the way she wants. Their relationship is further complicated when she finds out that she’s pregnant with Denny’s child, something he neither wants nor cares about; although she asks and expects nothing from him in return, he tells her that he is willing to help her out in any way he can.

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