Barbara Hambly, Renfield: Slave of Dracula

[oursin]

Okay, props to Hambly for the early scenes in Sewell's lunatic asylum. I'm not saying Victorian private lunatic asylums are my Mastermind special subject or anything like that, but I know enough about them that my threshold for being jolted out of willing-suspension-of-disbelief (or muttering 'plagiarism! plagiarism!' when spotting where the

Comments

[rosinarowantree]

I have to confess to being a great fan of Hambly's Renwath books, (though slightly less fond of The Mother of Winter), was somewhat impressed with the first Dragonslayer book, and enjoyed a couple of the wizarding ones.

I never took to the Vampire ones - I think I prefer to keep my adventures and weird things on the other side of the Veil. And I detest Renshaw. And often feel cheated by a rewrite from a different point of view. Ann McCaffrey did that a few times - it really doesn't make it a different story - unless it's fan fiction.

But thank you for the review anyway. I might have been tempted to let Amazon know I was interest otherwise, and bang goes another day's OAPension.

[mamculuna]

There was a Dracula recently on NPR's Masterpiece Theater here--often those come from BBC. Can't remember the actors, but took some twists with the plot, and added a whole character and plot line about syphilis. Very interesting. Have you heard of such a thing from BBC?

[oursin]

This was on telly over Christmas: I think I saw bits that partner was watching while I did something else, but it looked pretty dire (hey guys! literalising the metaphors so not necessary!), and got pretty bad reviews.