Black Leviathan

German author Perplies’s first novel translated into English draws from Melville’s classic Moby Dick to craft an entertaining coming-of-age fantasy that falls shy of its epic ambitions. When Lian’s disabled father, a dragon hunter, or jäger, is murdered, Lian takes vengeance on his father’s killer and then flees with his friend Canzo. They enlist aboard the Carryola, an air-schooner traversing the Cloudmere, a misty “ocean” of air where dragons dwell. Adaron, the captain of the Carryola, is on his own obsessive quest for vengeance against the legendary Gargantuan, the dragon who killed his first crew and only love. Lian is faced with a difficult choice between pursuing the path of the jäger or finding his own fate. Perplies, author of the first German Star Trek tie-in novels, packs the plot with all manner of tropey diversions, among them mysterious derelict ships, floating islands, zombies, prophetic visions, and a mutiny, but the promising opening of this rollicking adventure gives way to a disappointing anticlimax that leaves many questions to be answered in future installments. Readers familiar with the source material will long for more thematic depth from this fantastical reimagining. Agent: Elisa Diallo, S. Fischer Verlag GmbH (Germany). (Feb.)