Din's Geek Reviews #5 - Dracula the Un-Dead

Hello, and welcome to another long-overdue installment of Din’s Geek Reviews.
Let’s talk about vampires.

Today, there're more stories about these undead creatures of the night than one could imagine, ranging in genre from traditional horror to romance to action-adventure. Some are good, most are bad, and some even strike the balance between lame and awesome in such a way as to ascend to a new level of cool. But we’re not here to talk about Buffy.

When you think of vampires, any number of thoughts can come to mind. However, if you’re like me, there is one name synonymous with “vampire,” and name that has done more for the genre than any other. It’s not Angel or Spike. It’s not Lestat. It sure as fuck ain’t “Edward.”

No, the name I refer to is the best, the Dark Prince himself, Dracula.

Modern vampire fiction owes so much to Bram Stoker, it’s nothing short of amazing. Trace the history back, and you’ll find out that many of the elements we ascribe to the quintessential vampire come from Dracula, either in his various movie incarnations, or the original novel. Without him, there would be no True Blood, no Buffy, no Blade, none of the modern classics that have risen from the vampire mythos.

Which is why I was concerned when I learned that an official, estate-approved sequel to the original Dracula was to be written by Dacre Stoker, Bram’s great-grandnephew, and Ian Holt, a Dracula historian.

Well, being the dedicated fan that I am, I still picked the sucker up on release day, and, after several major distractions, have finally finished Dracula the Un-Dead.

But how did they do? With credentials like that, surely they could at least do a passable job, right? Maybe they can’t write all that well, but at least they’ll respect the source material, right?

Wrong. And that’s the thing that surprised me. But more on that later. First, the premise:

It is 25 years after the events of the original Dracula, and our band of heroes is in bad shape. Jonathan Harker has become an alcoholic. Doctor Seward is addicted to morphine, but is hot on the trail of a new vampire, perhaps even as deadly as Dracula himself. Arthur Holmwood has cut himself off from society, still distraught over the death of his beloved Lucy, Doctor Van Helsing is nearing death, and Mina Harker, the fair, innocent waif of Stoker’s novel, hasn’t aged a day.

This is the part where I warn you about the spoilers I’m going to reveal. Cut to the ending if you don’t want them.

The book mainly follows Jonathan and Mina’s son Quincy as he first struggles to become an actor, and later attempts to unravel the mysteries of a series of murders.

And that’s where the book goes wrong.

I’m okay with killing off characters. I think that's fine. But this novel is a slaughterhouse. Literally no one from the original party survives to the end. Some become un-dead, some just get rammed on spikes, but the result is the same. But the problem is, with the exception of Dr. Seward, these deaths don’t feel as tragic as they ought. Why? Because these are not the band of do-gooders from the original novel. These are people wearing their faces, using their names, and roaming their streets, but the real Mina, Jonathan, and Van Helsing all died in Transylvania, alongside the greatest vampire of all time.

Remember how I said that, if nothing else, this book would at least likely be true to source? Well, it turn out that the exact opposite is true. This book is actually really well written, using wonderfully vivid imagery, great dialogue, and an understanding of the historical period unlike any other novel I’ve seen. Quincy is an interesting character, mirroring Jonathan’s lust of justice along with Mina’s strong will, all amplified by the tainted blood in his veins. Mina’s conflicted psyche makes her a strangely tragic figure, Van Helsing’s madness is honestly unsettling, and Bathory, our new villain, is very good at the whole “pure evil” thing.

The problem?

That’s not how the characters were in the original novel.

That’s where this book falls apart: it is completely disloyal to its source. Mina, who was a conflicted, but pious woman in the novel, is now shown as truly in love with a monster. Van Helsing, the kindly old doctor, has now become a crazed maniac so hell-bent on immortality that he’s willing to endanger the entire world. And Dracula? What of the Dark Prince?

A total pussy.

You see, being un-dead doesn’t make you evil, it just gives you power. Dracula uses it for good. He’s a misunderstood creature, still doing God’s work even while being hunted. He loves Mina, he would never hurt her.

Oh, and he burns up in the sun. And holy relics don’t hurt him. And he’s Quincy’s father.

Gah!

That’s the main thing that bothers me: characterization. Not just of the characters, but of vampires in general.

Why does the world think we need our vampires to be love interests? Sure they’re sexy, but they don’t have to have souls. I think they could seduce us just as well without being tragic, misunderstood heroes. In fact, isn’t that what made vamps so scary, Dracula in particular? The fact that they are so appealing on the outside, but once you get close, they’re dead, rotten, predators bent on eating you.

Alright, but besides selling out the characters and the vamps, how did it do? It’s a sequel, so how does it measure up?

…

Seriously? You can’t guess?

If the book is willing to screw over the character of Dracula, you can bet they’re willing to screw over the book itself. In a (admittedly clever) bit of fourth-wall breakery, this novel retcons the events of the original novel into a hybridized version of the “actual” events, and a small vampire story that Bram Stoker (who is a character in this book, by the way) was writing. Doctor Seward, while drunk, leaked the story (or was it Van Helsing trying to become famous? I don’t think they ever cleared that up…) and so the novel, and the play based on it, are “real-world” artifacts that Quincy and other characters interact with.

Here’s the thing, guys. This would have been an amazing Dracula-based alternate-history book. It’s riddled with cool little tie-ins to history, from Jack with Ripper to the Titanic, and carries its story quite well. The characters, as they are, are consistent, believable, and really fun to read. You get that “holy crap, I’m watching a movie in my head” thing with this book, something that is becoming increasingly rare these days. The romantic bits are a little lame, and there are a couple (ill-advised) sex scenes, but hey, that sells, right? Heck, the book even fixes a lot of the connections to the historical Vlad Tepes, solidifying the relationship that many have suspected for years. It really can’t be faulted if judged on its own merits. It’s not perfect, but it’s good.

But it is not a good sequel to the true Dracula. There are simply a different set of standards once you tack on “official sequel” that must be met, and The Un-Dead fails at that. The characters, between the two books, are not remotely consistent. The authors throw away vast chunks of plot, text, and mythos in order to hammer out the story that they want to tell, regardless of what the primary document says. The fact is that Vlad Tepes and Count Dracula don’t synch up, and if you have to choose, you should go with the vampire. The amount of disrespect this piece shows the original novel is nothing shy of astounding, and I’d be hard-pressed to name a less-true sequel in all my years of fandom. The Phantom Menace was truer to its mythos than this book.

Which is really a shame. I enjoyed The Un-Dead a lot, and will probably read it again someday. Oh, it had a few pacing problems (suspense wasn’t handled well and the “big reveals” were easy to see coming) but over-all, it was a competent adventure/mystery. In short, a good vampire novel. But, by naming it Dracula, the authors committed themselves to failure, signing on to a legacy that they could have actually lived up to, but refused to. Alright, who am I kidding, they couldn’t live up to Dracula no matter what they did, but they could have come a hell of a lot closer. This novel didn’t have to be a disgrace to the name of Dracula, or the name Stoker.

But with the way the book ends, it’s clear they plan a sequel. And I’ll probably read it. But for me, there hasn’t been a real Dracula story since Bela Lugosi left the stage, and it’s likely to stay that way for a long, long time.