Dracula The Un-Dead
By: Dacre Stoker & Ian Holt
Penguin
After one hundred and twelve years Bram Stoker’s great-grand nephew, Dacre Stoker (aided by Ian Holt) and using Bram’s own unused notes, decided to write a sequel to the original classic.
In Dracula The Un-Dead we catch up with the characters introduced in the original twenty-five years later. Mina and Jonathan now have a twenty-five year old son, Quincey Harker. Dr. Jack Seward is addicted to morphine and consumed with guilt and mania. Arthur Holmwood, grappling with his own guilt, is angry and a shadow of his former self. And Abraham Van Helsing is a weak decrepit old man close to death himself.
Trying to shield her son from the truth of the past, Mina is eternally youthful and somewhat estranged from her alcoholic husband.
Much to the disappointment of his parents, Quincey leaves law school to pursue his dream of performing on the stage. Therein he meets the infamous and mysterious actor Basarab.
As mysterious events start to take place, it seems as if Dracula has returned to hunt down the band that defeated him twenty-five years earlier.
It is interesting and albeit a little shocking to see what has happened to the heros we met in the original Dracula. And in this one we see Dracula as a more sympathetic character.
Dracula is not the main villain in this story. Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt include the real life legend of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian Countess who was known as the Blood countess in the sixteenth century. There were legendary accounts of the Countess bathing in the blood of virgins in order to retain her youth. They draw her as being more sinister and evil than Dracula himself.
The common feeling I kept getting while reading this story though, and confirmed after I read the Author’s note on how this novel came to fruition, was that Dacre Stokers name was just put on the cover to sell more books.
As well, there are a few plot lines that I felt were just thrown in and they seemed a little odd, like the one that closes the book. I wouldn’t call this a true sequel. However this novel is an interesting expansion of the classic story and I really did enjoy it. Definitely for those who love Dracula or vampire novels.
Story ***
Characters ***
Readability ****
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