Vampire City

A horror/comedy, supposedly showing events which led Ann Radcliffe to write 'Mysteries of Udolpho'. This is a pre-D(racula) vampire story and as such none of the usual vampire rules apply.
The story is told to the author by a servant, who heard it from Miss Radcliffe. These layers of removal from the actual events make it feel like reading myth or urban legend and allows the reader to easily ignore any errors or contradictions that might arrive in the plot.
You would think that this distance from events would however be detrimental to any sense of horror but this is not the case due to the surreal and nightmarish form's of horror which the author uses, its almost Lovecraftian at times.
Towards the end things do go downhill a little, it show more feels like maybe this started as a pure vampire story and the gothic satire was added later on, it doesn't quite mesh.
One aspect i particularly liked was that our main action hero is irish. Much comedy is derived from this fact given that the story is being told by someone english, allowing the story to make fun of english prejudices.
I think this story would be a great piece to read alongside Carmilla and Dracula. show less

An 1867 novel starring Ann Radcliffe as a vampire hunter? You bet. This one is strange, surprisingly amusing in a few places, but definitely of its time. Perhaps the most interesting parts are the elements of vampire behavior that are quite different from how they later "settle."

La Ciudad Vampiro es una obra maestra del humor negro, hasta un grado tan exacerbado que hace pensar en los cuentos de Apollinaire o los delirios de bande dessiné propios de Jean-Pierre Jeunet o Marc Caro y que a pesar de su tono paródico funciona como una alucinada narración fantástica, como novela de horrores grotescos y estrambóticos, como una pesadilla surreal y gozosamente absurda.