What would happen if Van Helsing had failed and Dracula had survived?

Finally found this book as a result of doing recent TBR culls and decided to read ahead of listening to "Dracula" on the Craftlit (http://www.craftlit.com) podcast.

It's Victorian England, Vampires are an established fact, and more and more people are "crossing over" to the Undead. Dracula is now the Prince Consort, married to a now un-dead Queen Victoria. His dirty blood line is being passed down into the lower dregs of society, into the prostitutes and lowlifes.

A killer, known as "The Silver Knife" has been killing vampire prostitutes in the fog bound London, and the newly dead Lestrade asks for help from an older Vampire to help investigate the killings. Meanwhile, the secret Diogenes Club sets its own "warm" investigator to persue his own inquiries. Soon they join forces to progress to find the killer who has been renamed in the press as "jack the ripper". It ultimately comes to a face off with a Dracula and his followers looking as you've never seen him before

Lots of fictional and non fictional characters have been included in the story. The Chinese elder vampire subplot I thought was a little redundant and could easily have been dropped - a lot of wordage was wasted purely to show how strong Genevive was (and how she recovered from her injuries). I think it could have been dropped in favour of the ending with Dracula.[return][return]Otherwise I think this is perhaps the best of the vampire books I've read. Certainly better than Twilight (spits into corner). I'll be interested to compare it to the original. ( )

Not the worst book I have ever read, but the first quater was a mix of annoying and boring. Mostly because the author seems to think that filling up each chapter with references to other works (some of them his own which apparently I am expected to know even through they are independent from this story) excuses him from actually doing some characterization himself. The idea is interesting, and since I like 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' I had high hopes for 'Anno Dracula', but it just didn't work for me. ( )

I was really enjoying this book, until I got the end, which I thought was completely clumsy and over-the-top. I was so mad, I swore never to read a Kim Smith again.

Contrary to what some people advise, I am not willing to say, well, I enjoyed most of it, and the ending doesn't ruin that. ( )

I gave up on page 90. I realized that there was no point trying to read something that I'd tried to read four times and couldn't. There's something about this book that just won't grab me. I don't know what it is. The characters? Maybe. The plot is interesting enough, something something Dracula marries queen Victoria and England is well and truly fucked something something. But I just... Can't get into it. So, after four tries, bye bye Anno Dracula, sorry I couldn't get into your story. ( )

So: there is a truly fantastic story here, starting from a neat question. What if the events of Bram Stoker's Dracula, except for the ending, were true? What if, in the end, Dracula won? Well, as it turns out, he would go on to woo, and win, the heart and hand of Queen Victoria, turning her to a vampire, and wedding her as Prince Consort. Other vampires would come out of hiding and flock to England, where they'd create an increasingly large number of new-born vampires. The vampires would spread through all levels of society, gradually taking over. The survivors of Stoker's tale continue in this world, managing their existences however they can. And meanwhile, a madman has begun to brutally murder vampire prostitutes in Whitechapel. By page 20 I was completely hooked.

But: this marvelous story is nearly ruined by the most ridiculous, over-the-top pastiche of every single 19th-century figure the author has heard of. Vampires (Lord Ruthven, Countess Bathory, Kostaski, ...), adventurers and villains (Alan Quatermain, Colonel Sebastian Moran, Rupert of Hentzau for goodness sakes, ...), detectives (Mycroft, Mackenzie, ...), and more all get parts in the players, or at least brief mentions; even Gunga Din gets a nod, and John Merrick makes a brief appearance. Fun is fun, but by page 30 I was groaning aloud, and by page 50 I was saying "You've got to be kidding!". I don't know, perhaps if you've never read something like this before, it'll seem delightful and wonderful. But if you've read any significant amounts of Phillip Jose Farmer (e.g., Tarzan Alive, Doc Savage, The Other Log of Philias Fogg), you'll be familiar with, and probably a little tired of, this kind of excess. And by this book's standards, Farmer was a model of restraint!

Don't get me wrong; I liked this book, and I found it very hard to put down. But it sort of felt like the HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones: with every gratuitous nude scene (random literary reference), I'd just sigh and say "Oh, HBO" ("God. Really?"). It was distracting, at best.

Final note: Geneviève Dieudonné, one of the main characters, is an old (older than Dracula) female vampire, and she is a delight in more ways than I can describe. I gather that this book has sequels or prequels in which she figures prominently; I intend to read them, even if it means I have to subject myself to another 500 random literary or historical references. ( )