Anno Dracula by Kim Newman

Title: Anno Dracula
Author: Kim Newman
Page Count: 424
Rating: C
Format Read: Paperback
Genre: Fantasy
Keywords: Vampires, London, Victorian
Kid Appropriate: No

Synopsis from Goodreads:

It is 1888 and Queen Victoria has remarried, taking as her new consort Vlad Tepes, the Wallachian Prince infamously known as Count Dracula. Peppered with familiar characters from Victorian history and fiction, the novel follows vampire Geneviève Dieudonné and Charles Beauregard of the Diogenes Club as they strive to solve the mystery of the Ripper murders.

Anno Dracula is a rich and panoramic tale, combining horror, politics, mystery and romance to create a unique and compelling alternate history. Acclaimed novelist Kim Newman explores the darkest depths of a reinvented Victorian London.

This brand-new edition of the bestselling novel contains unique bonus material, including a new afterword from Kim Newman, annotations, articles and alternate endings to the original novel.

My Review:

When I stumbled across Anno Dracula during a Barnes & Noble run I was surprised that I had never heard of the 1993 release. It has a great mix of nearly all my early loves in literature: vampires, Dracula, Victorian England, the Holmes brothers, Jack the Ripper, Scotland Yard, and much more commonly associated with the era. I tore through the first thirty pages with my hopes high.

Unfortunately, my feelings were a mix of indifference, confusion, and boredom with the closing pages. While the world built by Newman was an interesting mix of popular literary characters and the concept of vampires being out of the coffin as is seen in shows like True Blood, there was a lack of consistency in the story and random revelations with no build up that left me scratching my head trying to figure out how the story ended up where it did. Much of the ending seemed out of place, possibly even rushed, and made me wonder if I had somehow missed portions of the book.

Another thing I am unsure of is how this 1993 book's humor would be taken by today's readers. At times the terms used and jokes made veer fairly far from being politically correct. Some of them were fairly common jokes that I have heard in more modern works but others I was even a bit surprised by. It was difficult to tell how seriously the author meant them as well since large portions of the writing do come across as being humorous.

Many of the characters were a bit on the two dimensional side but the three that stood out to me were the elder vampire Genevieve, Dr. John Seward, and the prostitute Mary Jeanine/Lucy. These three go through the most growth with sanity and identity being hit upon most heavily with the latter two.

Anno is the Latin term for "year" or "year of" so this book about the year Dracula is ruling Victorian England sounds like a great fun read with plenty of old faces to keep readers interested as detectives chase down the elusive Jack the Ripper. Despite this fun and intriguing premise the book is often quite slow with uninteresting scenes and ends oddly. Characters veer from what we know of them, events seem to happen with no build up, and scenes are added for interest rather than coherent plot.

I will not be continuing with the other works in the series. Read it if you are interested in vampires and looking for a slower read that can veer towards goofy. Otherwise, you can safely skip this one.