VAMPIRE CITY [Paperback]

Brian Stableford (Adapter), Paul Feval (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2003

Some tell of a great city of black jasper which has streets and buildings like any other city but is eternally in mourning, enveloped by perpetual gloom. Some call it Selene, some Vampire City, but the vampires refer to it among themselves by the name of the Sepulchre... To destroy the dreaded vampire lord Otto Goetzi, writer Ann Radcliffe, Merry Bones the Irishman, and Grey Jack her faithful servant, launch an all-out attack on Selene... "We can easily see in Vampire City the ultimate literary ancestor of Buffy the Vampire-Slayer."-Brian Stableford. Paul F?val (1816-1887) was the author of numerous popular swashbuckling novels and one of the fathers of the modern crime thriller. Brian Stableford has published more than fifty novels and two hundred short stories. Vampire City was written in 1867-thirty years before Bram Stoker's Dracula-and is one of three classic vampire stories also available from Black Coat Press.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Written in 1867 - 30 years before Bram Stoker's Dracula - Vampire City is one of three classic vampire stories penned by Paul Féval, along with Knightshade and The Vampire Countess.

From the Author

"With the aid of hindsight," writes Stableford, "we can easily see in Vampire City the ultimate literary ancestor of Buffy the Vampire-Slayer. Although Radcliffe is not permitted by her gentlemanly author actually to slay any vampires with her own hand she is nevertheless the prime mover of the expedition to Selene; she watches with a distinctly proto-feminist fascination as the Irish hero carefully excises the heart from the breast of Goetzi..."

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Hollywood Comics (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974071161
• ISBN-13: 978-0974071169
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,885,734 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Dreamlike Journey into hte Heart of Darkness, April 9, 2005

By 

M. Baugh "pulpreader" (Sedona, arizona USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: VAMPIRE CITY (Paperback)

Were there vampire novels before Dracula? Yes, and French author Paul Feval wrote some of the eeriest. In this 1867 novel Feval sends a band of intrepid vampire hunters, led by the real-life author Ann Radcliff, into central Europe in search of the legendary vampire city called Selene.

The vampire she encounters will be strange creatures in the eyes of modern readers. The stereotypical strengths and weaknesses are nowhere to be found. But these vampires are no less terrifying for all their strangeness and their city is a thing of wonder.

Fans of horror and vampires alike should find much to enjoy in this surreal and darkly humorous odyssey. I recommend it highly.

4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely not for everyone, March 18, 2011

By 

Tracy Rowan "dargelos" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: VAMPIRE CITY (Paperback)

Reading a Gothic horror novel of the 18th and even 19th centuries can be jarring. Characterization in these novels tends to be stereotypical because the primary concern of the author is horror and all the gruesome and often exotic trappings that can attach to it. In the end, we are given a classic and often physical struggle between Good! and Evil! without a lot of worry about motivation and the hero's psychological state. And what isn't struggle is usually a good deal of to-ing and fro-ing as characters move from one place to another to do or fight evil.

I say all this because Paul Feval's "Vampire City" is an extraordinarily difficult book to rate. To the 21st century mind -- one familiar with the vampire heirs of Bram Stoker, the man who truly was the father of the modern vampire -- this novel might seem flat and even silly. But Feval is in on the joke. He writes with a light and often intentionally comic touch, and pokes some gentle fun at the conventions of the genre. Consider this amusing aside towards the end of the novel: " ______ was no longer to be feared, so the journey across the fertile but little-known fields of Bosnia -- where the women dressed very becomingly -- was perfectly agreeable." Certainly that's in the nature of a wink from an author who had enough cheek to use as his heroine, Ann Radcliffe, who is commonly thought to be the mother of the Gothic novel.

Still, this sort of pastiche is only as good as its ability to engage readers. Unless you're a fan of the genre, you'll be tempted to say "He's just making all this stuff up as he goes along!" Well of course he is, this is fiction. But we're used to fiction where we are able to suspend our disbelief across several hundred pages, so that we aren't aware of the author's hand. In Gothic fiction the questionable motivations, inexplicable rescues and the impossible situations can be difficult for a contemporary reader to accept. There's a good deal of the deus ex machina to this novel, particularly when the characters are in such dire straits as to be on the verge of almost certain (horrible) death, and then they are miraculously saved by an agent of the divine. A 19th century reader might have accepted the event on face value; a 21st century one will be tempted to roll his eyes and wonder why, if God was going to save them anyway, He didn't just keep the events from occurring to begin with. But again, Feval has the wit to provide an answer which at first seems hackneyed but in the end is rather clever. He's a 19th century author who knows how to manipulate the conventions of his genre and that is what makes "Vampire City" so engaging.

If you can put your analytical mind on hold and step back a bit from the silliness of the events, you'll probably enjoy "Vampire City." Brian Stableford's adaptation is deft and clever, and he makes it easier for the reader to give himself over to the genre and truly enjoy the story.