Customer Reviews

Dracula : Asylum (Dracula (Dh Press)) (Bk. 1)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is superb! Fans of Bela Lugosi will find this book to be quite a treat. If you have not seen the 1931 version of Dracula, I highly recommend that you check it out; the book is a sequel to that movie. It is in some respects a combination of Dracula and All Quiet On the Western Front. Some of the most frightening aspects of the book take place when Faulks, a traumatized veteran of World War I, recalls the horrors of trench warfare. The book clearly shows that human beings can be the most terrifying monsters around. As Dracula said, "There is no evil so great that it does not exist in the human heart." On another level, though, it is a story of great courage as the protagonists band together to battle the fiendish count.

I didn't expect a lot when I purchased Dracula: Asylum. It's the first book from Dark Horse Press, an offshoot of Dark Horse Comics, and it is a franchise property of Universal Pictures...a sequel to the Lugosi Dracula, not the Bram Stoker novel on which the Lugosi film was based. All of this lent me pause, but being a fan of the original film, I took a chance. All I can say is this book is better than it has any right to be.

I don't imagine that the fat men in suits at Universal had anything like this novel in mind when they okayed the concept of a new print franchise. Paul Witcover has provided us with interesting, complex characters, an unexpected set of subplots, and compelling prose. Despite the fact that his Dracula isn't a carbon copy of Lugosi's, I found him frightening in a way that most onscreen portrayals never approach. For the first time in my experience, Dracula is portrayed as truly scary in the real world...not in a comic book way, but in a visceral, spiritual way.

If you are a fan of vampire fiction, you can't do much better than this. Anne Rice has pages and pages (and pages) of descriptive text and Laurell Hamilton has devolved into writing mostly porn, but neither has written anything as compelling as this chilling tale.

I likely never would have picked this book up because the movie tie-in would have discouraged me. Lucky for me, then, that my sister recommended it or I would have missed out on one of the surprise literary pleasures of my year.

I finished it on just three day's subway rides and missed my stop on one of them because I was too deep inside to realize I'd blown past Flatbush. Then I ended up letting another train go by to make sure I'd finish the last few pages I had left, standing there on a pretty drafty platform for another half-hour, unable to stop reading.

Initially, I thought I might enjoy the horror-thriller part of the book and did - genuine chills there, which I don't usually get when reading no matter what those "will send shivers up your spine" back-cover reviews usually say. But what carried me away was the war story. I can't imagine the amount of research that made those passages read like such a true and gut-wrenching account but it was the best kind, the kind that doesn't show itself off. Everything was in service to the action, which was relentless, horrifying and moving. Those were incredibly gripping chapters and they give the story soul, exactly what's needed to balance the more fantastical darkness of the classic Dracula myth.

But even the myth was reinvented and made fresh and truly scary. For once Dracula's power over everyone doesn't feel like a cartoon seduction but like some kind of elemental characteristic, as if an evolutionary byway had been taken. It didn't hurt that the female lead had real heft for once.

Fair warning: You'll also want a friend to read it so you can talk about the revelation at the end with someone. That's why my sister suggested that I read it, as it turned out! Very tricky.

This book is much better than anyone would expect. Published by Dark Horse, better known for their fantastic comic books, this sequel to Universal's Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, is surprisingly engaging and well written.

Set during World War I, twenty years after the defeat of Dracula by Van Helsing, Dracula: Asylum explores themes of madness, repression, and betrayal. Seward's sanitorium from the original has become a hospital for shell-shocked soldiers. And author Paul Witcover does a remarkable job of correlating the madness and depravity of the war with the evil of Dracula, just as the earlier masterpiece, Nosferatu linked the evil of the vampire with the plagues that ravished Europe.

Witcover introduces several new characters, including female psychiatrist Lisa Watson, her shell-shocked patient suffering from amnesia Captain Faulks and the hospital's sinister head doctor, sadistically obsessed with electroshock therapy.

Dracula: Asylum is certainly not the most brilliant or original horror story, but it holds its own as an intriguing, entertaining continuation of the movie Dracula, more than worth a glance on a stormy night.

Before my review, I'd like to preface this by saying I'm a huge Dracula fan, both the movie and original novel, as well as all the old Universal monster movies. The fact that someone is attempting to follow up a legend like Dracula, unfortunately already has one strike against them, but I was eager to check it out and planned to like it.

First, the good points of the book. The parts with Dracula in it are very well done. He has the same charm and creepiness that Bela Lugosi portrayed in the movie. There is a little surprise near the end, which I thought was very very cool. Also, I thought it was cool how it was set basically in the same location as the original movie.

Now for the negative parts of the book. The biggest one was that, being a book about Dracula, the author makes a serious error in judgment, by not having Dracula fully introduced until literally a THIRD of the way through the book. It starts off slowly and unfortunately stays slow for the next 100 pages or so, where there is really no movement of the plot or story to speak of. The sections that have to do with the Doctor (psychiatrist) and the treatment of her patient are incredibly tedious, boring, and completely stall any momentum in the story. I found myself skimming ahead more than once. There is one whole chapter where the whole thing is one of their sessions, and NOTHING to do with the plot happens in that chapter at all. It could have not been in the book and it wouldn't have hurt the story at all. To me, that says you shouldn't have it in there.
The book doesn't really get good until the last 100 pages or so, and most people aren't going to plod through the first 200 pages to get to that point, unless they are a die-hard fan like me. The bottom line is this book could have been great if it was at least 50 pages shorter. The editor did NOT do it any favors by keeping it so long and not trimming the fat.
I'm giving it three stars only because I'm a big Dracula fan, but the truth is it probably only deserves 2 or 2 and a half at most. I honestly can't believe this author put some of the pointless things in the story that he did. If you aren't a fan of Dracula I guarantee you wouldn't like this book. It's the only thing that makes it remotely readable.

wasnt super scary but good story line cant wait till i get the next book charaters
we're pretty good but dracula's dreams caused the great war is kinda deep but it worked that something this evil as dracula could cause it to happen but being judas wow now thats deep good book liked it

This turned out to be much better than I expected considering how dismal the vast majority of vampire lit is. Set towards the end of WWI in England, the female protagonist is a likeable American psychiatrist (Dr. Watson) who pulls some familial strings to obtain a position treating shell-shocked vets in sanitorium-turned-asylum outside London. One of her patients is actually her fiancé - but he's suffering from severe amnesia and believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes (and yes, the phrase 'Elementary, Watson...' occurs).

*GENERAL SPOILERS* But there's more! Dracula has been in stasis after a Van Helsing staked him but failed to finish the job necessary to permanently end his existence, and he commands his old slave Renfield (who suffers from some psychiatric issues himself) to help him rise again. In a mental sweep of the vet hospital, Dracula detects Dr. Watson and becomes determined to claim her as his bride. All sorts of back-and-forth murder and blood-sucking and betrayal ensue. *GENERAL SPOILERS*

I found the style a bit over-the-top in terms of elaborate, often clichéd phrasing, ten-dollar-words, and run on sentences that would make any English teacher weep. Nonetheless, Witcover's writing is engaging and amusing enough, the dialogue decent, and if somewhat predictable, the plot is solid. Well-paced to read at a rapid rate, I enjoyed the use of psychiatric methods and terminology, the creative ending and the partially successful attempts at grander philosophical statements. Dracula is laughably melodramatic (and apparently the author modeled him after Bela Lugosi's cinematic portrayal), but other elements in the story provide some truly gruesome moments. The descriptions of Dracula's resting place and trench warfare made my skin crawl. A solid piece of horror/drama with restrained, smut-less romance.

The first in a series of novels that further the adventures of the Universal Monsters. The first is appropiately, the film that started it all. That film is Tod Browning's Dracula(1931) with Bela Lugosi.
This book follows the story, MANY years later as World War one is raging across Europe. In typical fashion, it turns out that Dracula is still resting dormant in Carfax Abbey, and some genius pulls that stake from his heart. So, he's back to "life" and is able to secure the aid of Renfield(he's STILL alive!?) and begin his reign of terror.
The book is never once believable and plays with the myth freely, often to ludicrous effect. Like for example, that the stake didn't actually KILL Dracula, but keep him in a comatose state for over twenty years! And that all this time his dreams have been forming World War One!
If you can swallow that bull, than you'll probally enjoy this novel,however if that thought causes you to wince than be warned. There are MORE such "surprises" in store for you.
You've been warned.

I love pretty much anything with Vampires, and this such an inventive book! There's a great running gag regarding the Count's accent. Two of the characters think he sounds Hungarian. I died laughing! The Count remains the best dressed undead creature around, and he's looking for a new girlfriend. You just KNOW there's going to be trouble!