Where The Captain Goes Took Me On A Journey

Title: Where The Captain Goes
Author: Sean Carney
Publication Date: April, 2017
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When her daughter is bitten by a vampire, a desperate mother seeks the aid of an old, disgraced ship captain to sail them across the border and into the mountains towards their only hope of a cure. But will they find what they seek? Or something else?

Review

Where the Captain Goes wouldn’t necessarily be something I would’ve picked up for myself had it not be for the fact that Sean Carney is, yes, someone I know but also that I’ve been looking to read more from local Melbourne authors. Carney originally wrote a play based upon Dracula before deciding to write a sequel to the play in form of this novella. He does state in his preface that there is no need to watch the play to understand what happens in this story and thankfully that is the case as I have yet to see the play myself.

The novella is short. I zoomed through it in about 45 minutes, during a train ride. Yet, for how short it was I was captivated by the plot. What I loved most about Where the Captain Goes is that it knows it has one story to tell and no more. It doesn’t try to do more than what it promises and instead, I set sail with the Captain and Mary feeling as though rather than being a pair we are a trio. This came down to Carney’s vivid writing, managing to transport me into the Gothic world in which Dracula and other vampires supposedly exist. If anything I was glad the train ride was long as I was emotionally involved and wanted to reach the end as I had spent the entire time wishing for some sort of happy ending. Carney delivered on the tone as well - grim and sinister.

I did find (and I’m not sure if I was reading too much into it) that it also explored the lengths to which humans - or we - will go to achieve what we truly want. It follows that up by questioning whether actions can be justified by the intentions behind them, which gave me much to think about. 

Where the Captain Goes is a great, short read and was a unique experience for me. I couldn’t a find fault because of its length but also in that I found it to be very well written and enjoyable. If you are a fan of gothic, horror stories and want something to read one night definitely give this a go!