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A review by yevolem
Black Leviathan by Lucy Van Cleef, Bernd Perplies
4.0
As part of looking at translated European novels, I came across this German one again and decided to read it. The initial reason was because it reminded me of another work that's about hunting dragons as if they were whales, Drifting Dragons, a manga that I greatly enjoy. It turned out there wasn't as much similarity as I thought there might be. It was put forth that this was a retelling of Moby Dick, which I think goes too far, though the driving narrative force is an obsessed captain who has devoted his life and that of his crew to hunting the Black Leviathan.
There's a lot about this that appealed to me, almost pandered on a personal level really, so I was able to overlook a lot of its flaws, which are numerous. Tropes abound, and there are several questionable narrative choices, but it became more and more fun over time to where I just put that all aside. If you're looking for a serious, mature, and adult fantasy that has literary aspirations, this isn't that at all. I especially liked the setting for this, which is a world covered in clouds, with floating islands all over the place, and airships powered by magical crystals. All of the magic is of the "It's magic, I don't have to explain" variety, which the text explicitly states within the story early on. There are several humanoid races, who coexist to varying degrees.
Aside from the first two chapters, which serve as the prologue, this is about a young man who joins a dragon hunting crew that has a reputation for making its crew fabulously wealthy, those who survive anyway. The entire novel is about the journey to find the Black Leviathan and what happens along the way. It's melodramatic in a way I found pleasing. A lot takes place on the airship, which I didn't mind because I liked the crew and their interactions. The coolness of the characters was the priority over anything else in terms of characterization and it worked for me in this case.
Although Perplies has written around thirty novels, this is the first of his that's been translated. He has translated novels from English to German, though translating your own work is a different matter. This is the first novel that van Cleef translated, and in an interview she said that she learned a lot, which seemed evident to me. I don't know if it was much rougher at the beginning, or if I simply became more used to it, but I feel like the book's translation quality improved as it went along. There's a second book in the same setting, though the author has stated that it's also standalone. If it's ever translated I'd read it, but that seems unlikely. Even less likely is that I'd read a machine translation. I've only read a few SFF novels translated from an European language, mostly Russian, though I plan to read more from various countries.
There's a lot about this that appealed to me, almost pandered on a personal level really, so I was able to overlook a lot of its flaws, which are numerous. Tropes abound, and there are several questionable narrative choices, but it became more and more fun over time to where I just put that all aside. If you're looking for a serious, mature, and adult fantasy that has literary aspirations, this isn't that at all. I especially liked the setting for this, which is a world covered in clouds, with floating islands all over the place, and airships powered by magical crystals. All of the magic is of the "It's magic, I don't have to explain" variety, which the text explicitly states within the story early on. There are several humanoid races, who coexist to varying degrees.
Aside from the first two chapters, which serve as the prologue, this is about a young man who joins a dragon hunting crew that has a reputation for making its crew fabulously wealthy, those who survive anyway. The entire novel is about the journey to find the Black Leviathan and what happens along the way. It's melodramatic in a way I found pleasing. A lot takes place on the airship, which I didn't mind because I liked the crew and their interactions. The coolness of the characters was the priority over anything else in terms of characterization and it worked for me in this case.
Although Perplies has written around thirty novels, this is the first of his that's been translated. He has translated novels from English to German, though translating your own work is a different matter. This is the first novel that van Cleef translated, and in an interview she said that she learned a lot, which seemed evident to me. I don't know if it was much rougher at the beginning, or if I simply became more used to it, but I feel like the book's translation quality improved as it went along. There's a second book in the same setting, though the author has stated that it's also standalone. If it's ever translated I'd read it, but that seems unlikely. Even less likely is that I'd read a machine translation. I've only read a few SFF novels translated from an European language, mostly Russian, though I plan to read more from various countries.