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Dracula: The Un-dead

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If you enjoyed Bram Stoker's original Dracula novel, do NOT read Dacre Stoker's sequel.

Dacre (a grand nephew of Bram Stoker) and Ian Holt searched for the basis of their sequel plot in numerous details, hints, and ambiguities to be found in the text of the original. They say as much in their Afterword. The problem is that the BASIS of the sequel should not be a mere teasing out of details without concern for the direction in which this might take them. Rather, faithfulness to the major premise of the original should have been maintained. But, in that, the two authors failed.

The plot of Dracula is essentially the timeless struggle of Power vs. Moral Goodness. Dracula has superior powers, excessive strength, heightened senses, and other abilities, but he uses these to prey upon other human beings. Van Helsing may not possess the powers of the vampire but his struggle is to protect those on whom the vampire would prey.

Anyone who has ever read Dracula in conjunction with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes canon will recognize the kinship immediately. The Dracula novel is not about the vampire, any more than the Sherlock Holmes literature is about Moriarty, except in a peripheral sense. Its about the good guys.

Van Helsing is no fanatic. He is rather like a Sherlock Holmes figure who is willing to consider the existence of preternatural beings beyond the realm of ordinary human experience. And, because of that, he is the one person best suited to assume leadership in the fight against this particular foe. Like Holmes, Van Helsing has two things available to him to compensate in the otherwise unequal match with Dracula. He has his own considerable intellect, and he has the help of good people courageous enough to stand with him through the dangers that ensue. Jonathan Harker and all the rest are to Van Helsing what Dr. Watson is to Holmes. And, just as Dr. Watson has more than once saved Holmes' skin despite Holmes' tendency toward overconfidence, it is Jonathan Harker and the rest who enable Van Helsing to accomplish what he could not have done alone. This is what gives the original Dracula novel its drive, and what readers like myself have always found so satisfying about it.

Every bit of this is turned on its end by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. Dacre and Holt rightly point out Dracula's superior abilities, but they go to great lengths to downplay, if not outright excuse, his evil. They flirt with the idea that a vampire represents some type of Ubermensch or Superman, who, with the aid of the vampire virus, is able to use the full extent of their human brain capacity. As they present it, Dracula is the misunderstood "good" vampire battling "for God" against Battory the evil vampire (and some unnamed mentor -- another sequel in the works?) for possession of the world. Dracula only drinks the blood of humans because he has to in order to survive, and then only victimizes murderers, rapists, etc. ("just desserts" as it were). Lucy and Mina were not victims but objects of love.

If I can interject an interesting recent parallel: In 2002, H.G. Wells' great grandson Simon Wells directed an updated version of The Time Machine, another roughly Victorian era novel. In the update, the ruler of the Morlocks was portrayed as an evolved human with superior abilities like Dracula. Up until the penultimate scene, there is the question of why the Morlocks prey upon the Eloi as food when there are clearly other options. In the scene, the Time Traveller, fighting on behalf of the Eloi, finally confronts the ruling Morlock and makes it an open question. The Morlock's response is "Who are you to question two million years of human evolution?" In other words, he doesn't even want to consider any other options, despite his ostensibly superior intellect. At that moment, with that admission, the Morlock ruler loses any vestige or pretense of having a moral stance. And with that, the moral high ground shifts unambiguously to the Time Traveller and his struggle on behalf of the Eloi against Evil.

Much the same can be said of the Ubermensch vampire in the Dracula sequel. If the price to overcome death and evolve beyond the ordinary human state is to become a bloody killer of other human beings, then he has lost any real moral justification he may ever have had. The fact that he fights against a greater evil in the form of Battory in the sequel only ameliorates the degree of his own evil. It does not exonerate his evil by any means. Yet unlike the updated Time Machine movie, the Dracula sequel does not allow the humans to maintain the moral high ground.

At the same time that Dacre and Holt attempt to enhance Dracula's humanity through his self-justifying apologetics, they go to great lengths to diminish the humanity of Van Helsing, Harker, and the others. All are reduced in the sequel to post-Freudian psychological case studies of one sort or another, rather than healthy, mature adults. None of them is free from some viscious vice, none retains much moral integrity, and all meet horrible ends. Sadly, because these people are no longer very likable, all their angst fails to touch a sympathetic chord in the reader. Even in portraying Bram Stoker himself as a character in the sequel, Dacre cannot generate any empathy for his grand uncle. Yes, in the Sherlock Holmes canon, Holmes is subject to bouts of depression and drug addiction, but he is never reduced so abjectly as are Dacre and Holt's characters because Holmes never really loses his moral compass or his will to go on fighting. And no reader of Dracula, Holmes, or The Time Machine ever wanted the protagonists to be dragged into the mud, just so we could listen to Dracula, Moriarty, or the Morlock give us their harangues on why they are not really evil after all.

Having said all this, I will conclude by telling you the main reason why you should not read this sequel. It's because the sequel will spoil your memories of the original. As the hipe in the book itself states, there are other Dracula books out there. There are plenty of Sherlock Holmes sequels, and even some Time Machine sequels. Some sequels are better than others. A few may even live up to the originals. But, for better or worse, most are at least tolerable. But Dacre and Holt's Dracula sequel does something that most others do not. It raises your expectaction that this is "THE" sequel, not only through the use of a Stoker name for authorship, but also by paying such close attention to minute details and elaborating on those, as mentioned at the beginning. This gives you the illusion that this really is the rest of the story. Which is why the mean-spirited treatment in the sequel of the characters who were heroic in the original is so depressing. Even the way that Dacre and Holt refer to them as "the band of heroes" in the sequel has a decidedly sarcastic tone in its use, even if unintentional.

So do yourself a favor. Read the original. If I'm not mistaken, there is a good copy out called Dracula: The Definitive Edition, edited by Edward Gorey, with a foreward by Marvin Kaye, that even restores "Dracula's Guest" to its rightful place at the beginning of Bram Stoker's novel. Don't let Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt spoil the original for you.

Dracula the Undead was a huge disappointment. The writers should have just spit on the original classic- it would have been easier and saved me some money. If you take the 1992 Dracula film, cross it with the Blade films, add a twist stolen straight out Star Wars, you'll have this novel. The writing is that of a science fiction B movie. If you want to read a really great vampire novel, read Steven Koontz's Last Rites of the Vampire and skip Dracula the Undead.

I was looking forward to reading a sequel to Bram Stoker's classic novel written by one of his descendants; but it's just awful; an insult to the original. Bram would NOT be amused. Neither will you if you are a fan of the orignal novel.

There have been several other sequels already; all far better than this mess. Read "Mina" or one of the others (one even has the same title!) instead; as Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt have unleashed a cliche ridden, gory mess of a novel on the public.

Ok finished Dracula the Undead and the results are in...

It is pretty entertaining but honestly, this is writing and plot construction worthy of a comic book, not a major novel. Bless him for trying but Dacre Stoker simply tried too hard, tying together various legends and events surrounding Dracula and the period (Jack the Ripper, Countess Bathory, Bram Stoker himself, even the Titanic!) and thought he wrapped it up in a cute little bow. And he did. It was cute, and entertaining, but terribly predictable and the character development and emotion was horribly shallow. I liken the telling to the ridiculous last Indiana Jones movie. There were terrible action film cliches throughout - the drive fast over the bridge that collapses scene, the I tricked you and won the swordfight scene, even the "Luke, I am your father" scene. I kid you not.

So, unless you are a diehard Dracula fan who would enjoy this, I can't say with a straight face that this is a good book. This makes Dan Brown look like frickin Shakespeare. Now I love Dan Brown's innovation but he is about as far from Shakespeare as you can get. That is until this book. I'll never complain about Dan Brown's writing again. At least until the memory of this book fades. Maybe I'm wrong but this should've had an intervention before this thing was published. As is, it is a big disappointment.

Don't fall for the "official sequel" stamp or the relative of Bram Stoker as co-author ruse, this `Dracula The Undead' is thoroughly superficial, idiotic, modern pulp.

The first warning signs arise a few pages in with the realization that the letter and diary entry format of the original novel has been abandoned for 21st century prose. This foreboding intensifies with the bowel-emptyingly clichéd comic book style introduction of Countess Elizabeth Bathory as a superhuman lesbian vampire villain, followed by the silly corruption of the character of Mina and the reinvention of Dracula as a misunderstood super hero in knight's armour. Throw in Jack the Ripper, rampaging giant gargoyles that smash up London Underground stations and the fact that all the vampires fly high up through the clouds from country to country, and you have a truly deplorable and astonishingly immature `action' horror fantasy novel (it in no way qualifies as Gothic Horror). Oh, and there is also the incessant childish references to the group of people who fought Dracula in the original book as "the band of heroes" - grating and unutterably corny. Finally, there is the inclusion of ... (choke) ... The Titanic!

It is bad enough that Dacre Stoker claims to be honouring his ancestor's original creation with this low grade swill, but the claim that Ian Holt is some sort of Dracula historian and authority is beyond laughable if this is what he in any way believes Bram Stoker would have come up with as a sequel.

If you manage (somehow - God knows how!) to let go of the notion this has any link to the original book, there are some positives. Parts of the book are very creepy. The impaling of one of the main characters in the middle of Piccadilly Circus is horrific, the ripper scenes are gorily evocative of the period and there is a sense of gloom among the mad-capped action. The character of Inspector Cotford is also well drawn - about the only one that is! The direction the lives of the surviving characters from the first book have taken in the 25 years since its events is also interesting - a good idea, very poorly executed.

This should have been a young adult vampire fantasy novel with completely different characters to those in Dracula. With no expectations from that towering piece of literature's following, it would have found the right market and avoided being such an overwhelmingly dire disappointment. As it is, `Dracula The Undead' is a humiliating farce.

If you love the original, AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS!!!

To begin with, I cannot believe the plethora of negative blurbs and reviews I have read for this 'sequel' to Bram Stoker's classic novel, "Dracula". All I can think is that it's a combination of tweens who think vampires are what they see in the tepid "Twilight" saga or traditionalists who are offended that anyone would have the gall to write a "Dracula" sequel.

That being said, this novel was co-written by Dacre Stoker (Bram's great-grandnephew) and Ian Holt (an authority on Dracula and vampire lore). They have combined to create a thoroughly engaing novel that features all of the principle characters from "Dracula" and adds a new protagoist --Quincey Harker --- the son of Jonathan and Mina. Quincey is working with Bram Stoker on his London theatrical debut of the play based on his "Dracula" novel while the survivors of the actual events fear that the Prince of Darkness has returned (and might even be behind the Jack the Ripper slayings).

A neat twist is thrown in as The "Blood Countess" Bathory is terrorizing London and may be the true villain and the one responsible for Dracula's alleged slaying decades earlier.

Filled with great atmosphere as well as nice homages to some famous actors who portrayed Dracula through the years with character named: Langella, Price, Lee, etc. A great gothic romp that made for a terrific Halloween read.

I can remember reading Bram Stoker's original Dracula. I was twelve or thirteen and had gotten a copy from the Science Fiction Book Club as part of my joining bonus. The book was thick and fat, and the cover was decidedly creepy. I started on it and got drawn into Jonathan Harker's mission to save his lovely bride-to-be, Mina. I finished the book while in the bathroom (it was the only place in the house with three younger brothers at the time that I could call my own) at four in the morning (my mom was freaked when she found out I'd stayed up so late).

But I can still remember that last desperate chase the heroes went on to intercept Dracula. Quincey Morris died during that battle, and I was saddened. I don't think I'd ever read a book before about someone dying that I really cared about. Except maybe Old Yeller.

So now, nearly forty years later, I was surprised to find that there was an honest-to-God sequel that had been written - by someone from Stoker's family no less. I saw that blood red cover and knew I had to read it. Despite all the Hammer films and Fred Saberhagen pastiches of the character, and the wonderful run of comics from Marvel written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by Gene Colan, I wanted that book.

Dracula the Un-Dead is a blistering read for the most part. I was disappointed when I saw that the tradition of telling the stories through journals, letters, and newspapers had been pushed aside for the more modern narrative style, but I don't know how many of today's readers would have tolerated that antiquated form. So perhaps the writers and editors made a good call in that respect.

There is more action in this novel than in the original, but storytelling has changed in the last 110 years. Readers demand more physical conflict these days, and Stoker and Holt provide it in spades. They also use the fast-cut narrative technique and short chapters that plunge the pacing into overdrive.

I was hypnotized at first by the novel. Jack Seward and Jonathan Harker had changed a lot in the intervening twenty-five years that had passed since the last novel. I was disheartened to see what had happened to them, but I'm also old enough at this point to know that they couldn't have gone through everything they had in their battle against Dracula and emerged unscathed. Both of them are emotionally scarred and broken in many ways.

When I learned of Mina's continued youthfulness, I knew what had caused it even before the authors revealed it. Sadly, that also tipped their hands as to what they were going to do with the rest of the novel. I even knew who Dracula was before the mystery was revealed.

The authors have a lot of fun twisting the old Dracula story into something new. The mixture of familiar story, history, and the personal life of Bram Stoker lends itself to a fanciful tale, but the juxtaposition of the Jack the Ripper angle gets spread a little thin and feels forced. That twist is only fun to think about for a short time.

The violence isn't the only thing that that gets pushed higher in Dracula the Un-Dead. There's a sex scene with Mina that stands out, and it has a twist to it as well that's really unexpected.

The last third of the novel is a pure adrenaline rush, but it lasts too long. I was worn out by the time I turned the last few pages. And when I reached the end, I'd already guessed most of the secrets and knew that the book's climax was being set up for a sequel. Even with that, though, the last line of the novel is a real hook, and I want to read the sequel - if it materializes - just to see how that particular problem gets worked out.

Dracula the Un-Dead is a good sequel and worth reading if you're a fan because it does offer you a different sort of experience. However, most fans will be able to put the pieces on this one together too quickly, and perhaps be a little dismayed at the ending.