Book Review - Sequel Fail
Dracula sequel, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways...
Dacre Stoker/Ian Holt, Dracula the Un-Dead
Warning: this review/rant contains spoilers! And a whole lot of Your Mileage May Vary, of course.
What a promising premise. The great-grand-nephew of Bram Stoker, who has access to handwritten notes of Bram Stoker HImself, writes the sequel to "Dracula". And in the author's notes, he tells the story of how Stoker's wife and descendants got ripped off, because Stoker made some mistake regarding copyrights etc etc. So they had to watch helplessly how Hollywood et al used Stoker's ideas and twisted and turned them until there was not much left. And now Stoker research scientist Ian Holt approaches Dacre Stoker and they write a book together, claiming that they want to be as truthful as possible to Stoker's original.
Yeah.
And in the next paragraph they describe happily which artistic liberties they have taken in order to make the story work:
…
...WHAT???
Seriously? You take one ominous paragraph out of the novel and construct a love affair between Mina and Dracula out of it, basically with the reasoning that it's FANON.
Hurrrrrr. *shudder* But, as I always say, a good author can make everything work. And so I started to read. Writing style? Non-existent, and waaaay too many exclamation marks. I can forgive that - it's a first for both writers, and very obviously the german translator wasn't at his best either.
But holy crap, what did you do to the characters?
Jonathan Harker. The guy who survived the attack of the brides, fled Castle Dracula, survived a nervous breakdown, took place in the final fight and fucking slit Dracula's throat. Just as a reminder. THAT guy. Who, according to the original novel, returned to Transsilvania seven years later with wife and son, completely fine.
Now? He is a wreck. An alcoholic wreck. Because he can't live with the fact that Dracula was the one who took Mina's virginity, and that Mina loves him, and that he can't satisfy her needs in the bedroom. Yeeeeah.
Godalming and Seward are "happily married", quote from the original novel. Now, Seward is a morphine addict, and Godalming? Is far from happily married, can't forget Lucy etc etc. All he wants is to die. Not to forget that he hates Van Helsing now. Let that sink in. The guy who kissed Van Helsing's hand for freeing Lucy's soul, hates him now. And I never understood why exactly...
Mina... the woman who goes out of her way to support her husband, is now a sex-craving, non-aging woman who calls Dracula "my dark prince" all the time.
But it really doesn't matter, because in the end? Rocks fall, everyone dies. Including Dracula. And Quincey, we can assume, since he went on the Titanic in the end.
What really really bothered me was that I constantly went "That was not in the original novel!". I read the original again before I started the sequel, so I had a fresh memory. I even bought the english text to avoid translation failure. But - how on earth can someone confuse "arms" and "bosom"? Where the effing eff did Stoker/Holt find the "fact" that van Helsing cuts off Lucy's arms and legs after he stakes her? No, he doesn't. He cuts off her head, fills her mouth with garlic and leaves the stake in her heart, that's all. Obviously they invented the cutting of the limbs to better link the story to Jack the Ripper. And Mina didn't aim a gun at Jonathan. That was in the Coppola movie. Gargh.
Kudos though to Dracula's alias in this novel. He calls himself Basarab. Read that backwards and you get "Barabas". Almost like Judas Barrabas, the one who betrayed Jesus, and is, according to some legends, indeed Dracula, because he became undead after committing suicide. Of course, once you figure that out, the big reveal is just an air bubble...
But the real gem is this: Dracula is Quincey Harker's father. Including, I kid you not, a scene that went like this:
Quincey, facing Dracula: "You have murdered my father!"
Dracula: "(…) Quincey. I am your father."
*blinkblink*
*headdesk* No, Mr. Holt and Mr. Stoker, just no. It's nice that you watched Star Wars, but this is neither clever nor witty. It's just embarrassing.
Now, folks, please riddle me this: In the original novel, it is clearly stated that Quincey Harker's birthday is the anniversary of Quincey Morris' death. And Quincey Morris died on the same day as Dracula turned to dust. So, friends and neighbors, how can Quincey, born twelve months later, be Dracula's son? Mina is neither a zebra nor a whale. If there was an explanation in the novel, I missed it, probably due to all my headdesking.
In conclusion? Read this as a sequel to the Coppola movie and ignore the crappy writing style, then you'll be fine. Read this, as it was intended, as a sequel to the original Dracula novel by Bram Stoker... scratch this. Do. Not. Read.
I am really glad that I didn't pay money for this trainwreck of a book. My next problem is of course, what will I tell my friend who gave it to me as a birthday present, and told me she loves it? Any diplomatic ideas?
Dacre Stoker/Ian Holt, Dracula the Un-Dead
Warning: this review/rant contains spoilers! And a whole lot of Your Mileage May Vary, of course.
What a promising premise. The great-grand-nephew of Bram Stoker, who has access to handwritten notes of Bram Stoker HImself, writes the sequel to "Dracula". And in the author's notes, he tells the story of how Stoker's wife and descendants got ripped off, because Stoker made some mistake regarding copyrights etc etc. So they had to watch helplessly how Hollywood et al used Stoker's ideas and twisted and turned them until there was not much left. And now Stoker research scientist Ian Holt approaches Dacre Stoker and they write a book together, claiming that they want to be as truthful as possible to Stoker's original.
Yeah.
And in the next paragraph they describe happily which artistic liberties they have taken in order to make the story work:
Put Blood Countess Elizabeth Bathory in. Fine. Interesting aspect.
Make her Jack the Ripper. Okay. What?
Because you want to put the Titanic and Jack the Ripper in, you change the original date (1893) to 1888. Ooooookay. *frowns*
Take it as a fact that Mina and Dracula had a love affair.
…
...WHAT???
Seriously? You take one ominous paragraph out of the novel and construct a love affair between Mina and Dracula out of it, basically with the reasoning that it's FANON.
Hurrrrrr. *shudder* But, as I always say, a good author can make everything work. And so I started to read. Writing style? Non-existent, and waaaay too many exclamation marks. I can forgive that - it's a first for both writers, and very obviously the german translator wasn't at his best either.
But holy crap, what did you do to the characters?
Jonathan Harker. The guy who survived the attack of the brides, fled Castle Dracula, survived a nervous breakdown, took place in the final fight and fucking slit Dracula's throat. Just as a reminder. THAT guy. Who, according to the original novel, returned to Transsilvania seven years later with wife and son, completely fine.
Now? He is a wreck. An alcoholic wreck. Because he can't live with the fact that Dracula was the one who took Mina's virginity, and that Mina loves him, and that he can't satisfy her needs in the bedroom. Yeeeeah.
Godalming and Seward are "happily married", quote from the original novel. Now, Seward is a morphine addict, and Godalming? Is far from happily married, can't forget Lucy etc etc. All he wants is to die. Not to forget that he hates Van Helsing now. Let that sink in. The guy who kissed Van Helsing's hand for freeing Lucy's soul, hates him now. And I never understood why exactly...
Mina... the woman who goes out of her way to support her husband, is now a sex-craving, non-aging woman who calls Dracula "my dark prince" all the time.
But it really doesn't matter, because in the end? Rocks fall, everyone dies. Including Dracula. And Quincey, we can assume, since he went on the Titanic in the end.
What really really bothered me was that I constantly went "That was not in the original novel!". I read the original again before I started the sequel, so I had a fresh memory. I even bought the english text to avoid translation failure. But - how on earth can someone confuse "arms" and "bosom"? Where the effing eff did Stoker/Holt find the "fact" that van Helsing cuts off Lucy's arms and legs after he stakes her? No, he doesn't. He cuts off her head, fills her mouth with garlic and leaves the stake in her heart, that's all. Obviously they invented the cutting of the limbs to better link the story to Jack the Ripper. And Mina didn't aim a gun at Jonathan. That was in the Coppola movie. Gargh.
Kudos though to Dracula's alias in this novel. He calls himself Basarab. Read that backwards and you get "Barabas". Almost like Judas Barrabas, the one who betrayed Jesus, and is, according to some legends, indeed Dracula, because he became undead after committing suicide. Of course, once you figure that out, the big reveal is just an air bubble...
But the real gem is this: Dracula is Quincey Harker's father. Including, I kid you not, a scene that went like this:
Quincey, facing Dracula: "You have murdered my father!"
Dracula: "(…) Quincey. I am your father."
*blinkblink*
*headdesk* No, Mr. Holt and Mr. Stoker, just no. It's nice that you watched Star Wars, but this is neither clever nor witty. It's just embarrassing.
Now, folks, please riddle me this: In the original novel, it is clearly stated that Quincey Harker's birthday is the anniversary of Quincey Morris' death. And Quincey Morris died on the same day as Dracula turned to dust. So, friends and neighbors, how can Quincey, born twelve months later, be Dracula's son? Mina is neither a zebra nor a whale. If there was an explanation in the novel, I missed it, probably due to all my headdesking.
In conclusion? Read this as a sequel to the Coppola movie and ignore the crappy writing style, then you'll be fine. Read this, as it was intended, as a sequel to the original Dracula novel by Bram Stoker... scratch this. Do. Not. Read.
I am really glad that I didn't pay money for this trainwreck of a book. My next problem is of course, what will I tell my friend who gave it to me as a birthday present, and told me she loves it? Any diplomatic ideas?