Subject: ANNO-DRACULA by Kim Newman

From: [email-masked]
Date: 12 Dec 93 23:27:11 GMT

ANNO-DRACULA by Kim Newman
               Carroll & Graf, ISBN 0-88184-967-7, 1993, US$21.
                     A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		      Copyright 1993 Evelyn C. Leeper

     What if Van Helsing had not been successful and Dracula had survived
and gone on to marry Queen Victoria?  Okay, it sounded like an unlikely
premise, but let's face it: those readers who can't accept the premise
aren't going to read the book in the first place.

     Newman has postulated a London split into two factions: the undead and
the "warm."  Gradually the undead--now living openly--are taking over
society.  Those who speak or act against them are sent to concentration
camps or impaled upon stakes.  Sherlock Holmes, for example, has been
incarcerated in Devil's Dyke on Sussex Downs.  (I should warn Holmes fans
who hear of this book that while Lestrade is a genuine character in the
action, Holmes is merely mentioned a couple of times.  And, no, he is *not*
"the vampire Lestrade," as one wit asked me.)  In addition to Dracula and
Sherlock Holmes, we also have Dr. Moreau and Dr. Jekyll, as well as Jack the
Ripper and a plethora of vampires, both historical and fictional.  All these
well-known characters tend to get in the way of the story at times, which is
actually quite engrossing without the "spot-the- reference" game.  (The Jack
the Ripper subplot is critical to the book, however.)

     I initially picked this up because it was both an alternate history and
a Sherlock Holmes novel, but its strengths lie in neither of those areas,
but in its craftsmanship as a vampire novel in the spirit of Bram Stoker's
DRACULA, as well as John Polidori's VAMPYRE and James Malcolm Rymer's VARNEY
THE VAMPIRE.  Its closest resemblance to a Sherlock Holmes story is in its
capturing the feel of Victorian London, albeit a somewhat transformed
Victorian London.  If you find this description at all intriguing, I
recommend you seek out ANNO-DRACULA.

%T      Anno-Dracula
%A      Kim Newman
%C      New York
%D      1993
%I      Carroll & Graf
%O      hardback, US$21 [1992]
%G      ISBN 0-88184-967-7
%P      359pp

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked] / [email-masked]