It’s the 19th century and a whaling ship is trapped in the ice. Rations are dwindling, the captain’s slowly going bonkers and there’s a spooky apparition appearing on the ice. Will they escape? Is it really a ghost? … zzz…
Seth has apparently been “designing & decorating” old Christmas ghost stories in collaboration with Biblioasis, an indie Canadian bookshop, for quite a few years now - there are 26 books like this available! If I’d known that, I don’t think I’d have plumped for Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Captain of the Pole-Star - I would’ve gone for one of the others instead.
I’m not a fan of Conan Doyle’s. I acknowledge his contributions to literature, Holmes will outlive us all, and Baskervilles was ok, but I don’t find him to be all that good a writer. The other Holmes novels I’ve read are dull, The Lost World - while a great concept - was a lousy story, and his prose is pedestrian and flat. Case in point: this short story!
There isn’t really much to the story beyond the premise. Narrated by a doctor (of course), the ship and its crew are trapped on the ice so nothing happens there and everyone’s just sat around waiting for the ice to melt a bit, while the Captain goes from being disturbed and weird to being slightly more so towards the end when things inevitably go poorly for him. Meantime the dreariness is punctuated by the occasional sound or vague glimpse of the “ghost” and that’s about it. The “twist” ending really only raises more questions though I think it’s meant to explain the Captain’s behaviour.
I like the book design. It’s about half the size of a regular paperback - perfect for stocking stuffing if you have stockings that need stuffed, and who doesn’t at Christmas? - and Seth’s moody twilit art complements the horror genre well. Besides the cover, he also contributes a few illustrations to accompany the text, which are quite nice, though they’re in black and white so I’m sure they look more striking in full colour, like the cover art.
Not scary, not even slightly interesting, The Captain of the Pole-Star is another Conan Doyle dud. As a Seth fan though, I’m going to continue to look through the catalogue of his Christmas ghost story collabs and see if I can’t find something better.
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