“Dracula: The Un-Dead”, by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt

 

432 pages, Dutton, ISBN-13: 978-0525951292

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I sure do miss Borders. Going there was a one-stop shopping experience for me, where there were books, CDs, DVDs and even food to be had in abundance. When it went belly-up in 2011 a little piece of me died. Oh, I still go to Barnes & Noble, although the vibe isn’t quite the same, and while 2^nd & Charles has gone a long ways towards filling that Borders gap in my soul, it’s still missed. Which is why when I was searching my bookshelves for something to read and I stumbled upon Dracula: The Un-Dead by Dacre (Dacre?) Stoker and Ian Holt and saw an old Borders clearance sticker on the front I got a little verklempt. Just a little, mind you (it also showed me how many books I still have to get to; one day, Dear Reader; I’ll get to them all one day). Looking for a little brain candy, I thought I’d finally crack the spine on this one.

Taking place 25 years after Dracula by Bram Stoker (reviewed on July 6^th, 2024), Dracula: The Un-Dead brings the old gang back together – Jonathan Harker, Mina Murray Harker, Jack Seward, Arthur Holmwood and even Abraham Van Helsing – along with some new faces – Quincey Harker, Jonathan and Mina’s son, Basarab, a Romanian actor who is taking Europe by storm, Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed, an immortal vampire (and evil, of course) and even Bram Stoker, himself (very meta, that). As I read on, I became more impressed with the writing, especially the characterizations. All of the people who survived the first book are present here, but changed and not a little scarred – especially the Harkers: Jonathan is an alcoholic who drinks to forget the torture he suffered at the hands of Dracula’s minions, while Mina appears not to have aged at all, a side effect from having almost been turned by Dracula, one that Jonathan resents.

Not everyone will like the differences between the heroes of Dracula and their iteration in this book, but to me they seemed to be realistic; they were, after all, mere mortals taking on an otherworldly evil and were left permanently damaged by it (their relative fates, meanwhile, may anger fans of the original book even more so). Other changes that Stoker and Holt have made is moving the action of the original book back from 1893 to 1888, in order to correspond with the Jack the Ripper murders in Whitechapel and, thus, add another element to their story. As to Stoker’s (Bram) appearance and how in the hell he wrote a work of fiction that just happened to accurately reflect “real-world” events, the author’s explanation was a neat, to say nothing of unexpected, twist on the original story (Stoker’s dying as he should, in 1912, neatly brings an end to this most meta of literary cameos).

There are issues with the book, as parts have a kind of “B Movie” vibe (for you losers: a low-budget film with subpar acting, writing, directing and so on, good enough to entertain but in no way a work of art). As an example of what I mean, vampires are safest in the shadows, better off making people believe that they are myths and, thus, in no way threats. And yet here we have Báthory strutting around in men’s clothing (in 1912, mind you) with her two vampiric gal-pals and riding in a driverless carriage, when they’re not attacking men in public with bared fangs and flashing swords. These sequences are so over the top as to be ridiculous. Or when…somebody is found impaled in Piccadilly Circus, as unsubtle a murder as one could imagine – and as difficult to pass off without anybody noticing, yet they manage it. Oh, and there’s sex, especially lesbian sex. Not a complaint; just an observation.

Furthermore, the entirety of the original book has, in Stoker and Holt’s hands, undergone the revisionist treatment, as the original motivations for Dracula are turned upside down in this sequel. Now, if someone had told me that this classic of gothic horror was essentially rewritten I would have thrown it into the trash in disdain. But I kept right on reading and found, overall, that I enjoyed the book, with all of my earlier provisos intact. Oh, and the vampires: one glaring fault is how one vampire in particular just keeps coming back in spite of the grievous injuries done to them repeatedly. No explanation given, no time given to rest and heal; they appear when they need to and fight as they have to. And the ending…two main characters meet their ultimate fates which I found to be unsatisfying to say the least, while the last chapter…well, I don’t know what the last chapter is for. I guess to definitively show that there will be no more sequels?

But as much as I feel that I should disdain this book…I don’t. There are fights and blood and guts and lesbo sex and riddles wrapped in mysteries inside enigmas – all-in-all a piece of entertaining escapism, which is just what I was looking for.