Kim Newman, Anno Dracula

I'm actually more excited to review this thing than I was to read it. But down to business: what a strange book, I'm not sure I've ever read something so technically well-written that was so terrible. It had the feel of the fiction debut of an accomplished fanfic writer (and, given he was apparently a Warhammer writer, perhaps this has some basis) -- someone too used to working with borrowed worlds, and as a result not incapable with words but entirely unable to come up with a good idea. I'm not even sure where to start on the badness of this book: I guess I'll note that the entire thing could've been written from TV Tropes. If you read the words "Victorian Jack the Ripper-based dystopian AU where Count Dracula marries Queen Victoria, with a cast of characters ripped from history and literature" and try to picture what that would be like, you're probably right. There was nothing surprising about the story: pretty much everything was a cliche. It was like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen careened into a long Sherlock Holmes movie and "A Study in Emerald" in a high-speed car crash, and the book was put together from the resulting scrap metal.

This all could have been averted with the help of a Sassy Gay Friend if Newman weren't so goddamned addicted to putting every vaguely period character he could think of in this book. Out of a cast of thousands, I can think of maybe five characters he actually made up himself. You think it's kind of tacky to turn Oscar Wilde into a vampire to avoid his fate? Think again. You think it takes a lot of nerve to make Lord Ruthven work for Vlad Dracula? Psh. You think you don't have to mention every luminary in late Victorian society or fiction at least in passing? You have no idea. It was impossible to take seriously because it was a gallery of cameos in this overblown Dracula AU -- like a series of in-jokes meant to please people who know of things like A.C. Swinburne's sexual tastes -- and I kept being distracted by the book's need to mention offhand that Allan Quatermain existed somewhere or whatnot. It made LXG look restrained. In addition, practically every offensive trope or stereotype for this time period that you could think of featured eventually -- you've got two primary male characters motivated by fridged women, some evil Chinese gangsters, aforementioned Depraved Homosexuals, brutish and warlike Slavs, bitchy dilettantes, sexy vampire women, and basically enough to get about fifteen bingoes in What Not Do Do In Historical Fiction Bingo. It was kind of impressive.

But aside from the cheesy and unimaginative problems in ideas and characters -- which were a lot -- it had peculiarly good dialogue and period voice. The plot itself was badly handled, and only materialized about halfway through the book, and I really think a ban on Jack the Ripper in fiction should be instated; the characters were all pretty cardboard save the two protagonists, who weren't bad. Actually, the whole thing read like someone who had the skill level to write The Warrior's Apprentice was trying to write A Song of Ice and Fire; it's never a good idea to include a cast of thousands if you can only think of personalities for two or three of them, and one is Arthur Holmwood from Dracula. I was surprised to read it through and discover the plot improved a fair share by the climax, but that was a few hundred pages too late.

Overall, Anno Dracula is an interesting study in mistakes and I recommend it to anyone who writes Dracula spinoffs or Victoriana and curious about what not to ever, ever, ever under any circumstances do. Also instituting bans on: crazy men obsessed with dead girlfriends, Mycroft Holmes, 'As I'm certain you're aware, Robert'.