Book Review: DRACULA'S CHILD

TITLE: Dracula’s Child

AUTHOR: J.S. Barnes

576 pages, Titan Books, ISBN 9781789093391 (paperback, e-book, audio)

MY RATING:  4 stars out of 5

REVIEW: Dracula’s Child is just one of the most recent in an overwhelming and ever-growing number of sequels to Bram Stoker’s classic, but it stands out from the crowd for a number of reasons.

This is one of those sequels that mimics the original novel’s epistolary style successfully. Dracula’s Child is told through entries from characters’ private journals, correspondence between characters, and press clippings that coalesce into an expansive whole where the reader usually knows more than any individual character knows – heightening the palpable sense of foreboding and doom that befits a gothic adventure novel while at the same time giving the reader glimmers of hope that the characters don’t have. The perspectives of new characters are woven well with those of characters we’re already familiar with; Jonathan and Mina Harker, Arthur Holmwood, Jack Seward, and Abraham Van Helsing are all back, as is Jonathan and Mina’s now almost-teenage son Quincey.

If I have one complaint about the book, it’s how miserable all of the returning characters seem to be. If you know me, you know my deep attachment to the original novel and characters. It is hard for me to read a book in which those stalwarts who defeated a great evil appear to have led lives of such deep unhappiness in the aftermath. But that is a personal qualm, and I will readily admit that the unhappiness of the Harkers, et al, contributes to the overall sense of impending disaster the novel maintains.

Another positive: this is one of those seemingly rare sequels that does not riff on the now overused trope that Mina Harker (nee Murray) is the incarnation of Dracula’s lost love (which was nowhere in the original novel). There is no romantic connection between them here. In fact, it’s clear that Mina is still dealing with the trauma from Dracula’s assault/rape of her in the original novel. This really was a breath of fresh air compared to many recent sequels and retellings.

Barnes also incorporates something Stoker could not possibly have done overtly in the original: gay characters who are more than just stereotypes. The author deftly includes scenes of what it was like to live an “openly secret” homosexual life, or as much of one as could be lived given the strictures of the time. I appreciated the period-appropriate representation.

Overall, Dracula’s Child is a sequel that builds well from the original source material rather than rewriting or supplanting it. Like most sequels, it “goes bigger” than the original but in ways that feel original and exciting. And while it leaves room for a follow-up, if Barnes decides to never revisit these characters I feel content with where he leaves his cast in the final pages.

Sunday Shorts: The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)

Sunday Shorts is a series where I blog about short fiction – from flash to novellas. For the time being, I’m sticking to prose, although it’s been suggested I could expand this feature to include single episodes of anthology television series like The Twilight Zone or individual stories/issues of anthology comics (like the 1970s DC horror or war anthology titles). So anything is possible. But for now, the focus is on short stories.

As a fan of Bram Stoker in general and his most famous novel specifically (some would say “fanatic” is the more accurate term), I’m always curious about works that expand, expound upon, or deconstruct, Dracula. Even works I don’t enjoy will give me some new insight into my favorite novel, or at least insight into how other people regard it. And if I do like the work, even better!

Gwendolyn Kiste’s “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)”, from Nightmare Magazine #86 (November 2019), fair fully blew me away. It’s a wonderful deconstruction/reconstruction of a part of the novel that often gets ignored or conflated/downplayed by media adaptations: the life and death(s) of Lucy Westenra. Thanks to movie and television focus on independent, poor-but-plucky Mina Murray and her eventual marriage to damaged hero Jonathan Harker, people tend to forget that the novel features two female leads and that one of them doesn’t fare quite so well as the other. (And with the recent penchant for making Mina Dracula’s reincarnated soulmate or current lover, poor Lucy gets even less attention. But that’s a post for another time.)

Stoker gives us some of his original story in Lucy’s POV mostly via letters to Mina about Lucy’s courtship by three dashing young men of very different backgrounds – but you have to squint hard to see past the flighty exterior presented. What little else we know of Lucy we know from Mina’s own journal entries. Stoker never quite gives Lucy the introspective moments Mina experiences, especially once Lucy suffers her first death and we lose her POV.

Kiste gives us what is missing from the original work: Lucy’s inner self, conflicted over how she had to act to survive in high society and fulfill her mother’s expectations. The entire story is narrated by Lucy post-death, listing out how each of her friends, would-be-saviors, Dracula, and even society itself contributed to the end we see her receive in the novel. It starts out feeling like we’re just going to get a litany of blame – but as the diary entries go on, the story becomes so much more. Kiste doesn’t reveal anything regarding Lucy’s final death in the novel that many authors haven’t also revealed about Dracula (and Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla, and other such creatures); the twist is what Lucy will do next.

The key to the story is the voice Kiste gives Lucy – there are glimmers of the flightiness and flirtiness we see in the original novel, but Kiste builds off of the few more serious moments Stoker gives to reveal a Lucy who knows exactly what her place in British society is and rails against it – and who discovers the power to do something about it.

READING ROUND-UP: October, 2019

Better late than never! Continuing the monthly summaries of what I’ve been reading and writing.

BOOKS

To keep my numbers consistent with what I have listed on Goodreads, I count completed magazine issues and stand-alone short stories in e-book format as “books.” I read or listened to 15 books in September: 10 in print, 3 in e-book format, and 2 in audio. They were:

1.       Lightspeed Magazine #113 (October 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams. The usual fine assortment of sf and fantasy short stories. This month’s favorites for me were Isabel Yap’s “Windrose in Scarlet,” Ray Nayler’s “The Death of Fire Station 10,” and Sam J. Miller’s “The Beasts We Want To Be.”

2.       Shadow of Doubt by Linda Poitevin. I love Poitevin’s “Grigori Legacy” urban fantasy series. She writes equally fun and compelling romantic thrillers. This one is about a local Canadian cop who falls in with an on-the-run US customs agent to solve who framed him and why.

3.       Simon Says (John Simon Thrillers #1) by Bryan Thomas Schmidt. Schmidt’s new near-future police procedural thriller is a fun ride full of car chases, gun fights, and solid character development. Read my longer review HERE.

4.       Tomb of Dracula: The Complete Collection Volume 1, by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, Tom Palmer and more. Tomb of Dracula is my favorite horror comic of all time, and possibly my favorite comic overall. Despite a rotating group of writers and artists, the early issues collected here set the stage for the great character developments that would come later. And for the first time, I think, the black-and-white Dracula Lives! Magazine stories are folded in close to publication order.

5.       The Girl on the Porch by Richard Chizmar.  A really compelling horror novel about a family dealing with the possibility that a missing girl rang their doorbell in the middle of the night and then disappeared again. High tension throughout.

6.       The Horla by Guy de Maupassant. Melville House’s re-issue of the horror classic includes two earlier versions of the story written by the author. An excellent study in how an idea develops in different iterations.

7.       Tomb of Dracula: The Complete Collection Volume 2, by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, Tom Palmer and more. Continuing the reprints of both the color Tomb of Dracula comic and the black-and-white Dracula Lives! Magazine.

8.       Deosil (Whyborne & Griffin #11) by Jordan L. Hawk. Another series I’m sad to see end with this installment. Hawk’s blending of Lovecraftian horror with gay paranormal historical romance has been pitch-perfect throughout the run, and this final volume wraps up all the major and supporting plots satisfactorily.

9.       Rosemary and Rue (Tenth Anniversary Edition) by Seanan McGuire. My first re-read of the very first October Daye installment proved to me just how much of the series McGuire had planned from the beginning. Almost every chapter has some wink or nod towards things that will be revealed later on. There’s also a new novella at the back of this hardcover re-release, in which we finally get to see how Toby became a Knight in the service of Sylvester Torquill and how she found the Queen’s new Knowe, both events having occurred before the events of this first novel.

10.   Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand. A perfect novella for the Halloween season: the story of a band and the haunted house they spend a summer in, told in a “Behind the Music” talking heads documentary style. I can’t believe this one hasn’t been adapted to movie form given the obvious overlap of music and the supernatural. I just realized there’s a multi-reader audiobook version that I’ll be listening to as soon as possible.

11.   Tomb of Dracula: The Complete Collection Volume 3, by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, Tom Palmer and more. Continuing the reprints of both the color Tomb of Dracula comic and the black-and-white Dracula Lives! Magazine.

12.   Come Tumbling Down (Wayward Children #5) by Seanan McGuire. McGuire returns to the Portal world of the Moors in a story that builds on elements from the first and second books in the series. The Moors is my favorite of the Portal worlds the author has created for this series, and I was not disappointed to return there. I read an ARC. The book is due out in early January 2020. My Full Review HERE.

13.   Absolution (Serena Darkwood Adventures #1) by Charles F.  Millhouse. This is a really enjoyable new “dirty SF” book – meaning we get immersed in the criminal underbelly of this new interstellar world Millhouse has created. The main characters are engaging, the alien races intriguing, and the audiobook a fun listen. Looking forward to more of Serena’s adventures.

14.   Songs of Giants by Mark Wheatley. Editor Mark Wheatley gathers a variety of poems written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft for various pulp magazines and adds his own original and stunning artwork that brings the poems to life.

15.   A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny. My annual re-read of the battle between Openers and Closers for the fate of the world, narrated by a demon in dog form who becomes best friend with a cat. Featuring a lot of recognizable horror and mystery characters. Just a fun read, and I always pick up on a new or somehow forgotten detail.

STORIES

I have a goal of reading 365 short stories (1 per day, essentially, although it doesn’t always work out that way) each year. Here’s what I read this month and where you can find them if you’re interested in reading them too. If no source is noted, the story is from the same magazine or book as the story(ies) that precede(s) it:

1.       “The Beasts We Want to Be” by Sam J. Miller, from Lightspeed Magazine #113 (October 2019 issue), edited by John Joseph Adams.

2.       “Nesting Habits of Enceladen Beetles” by Eli Brown

3.       “Revival” by WC Dunlap

4.       “The Death of Fire Station 10” by Ray Nayler

5.       “The Valley of the Wounded Deer” by E. Lily Yu

6.       “<<Legendaire.>>” by Kai Ashante Wilson

7.       “Windrose in Scarlet” by Isabel Yap

8.       “The Words of Our Enemies, The Wards of Our Hearts” by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor

9.       “Take The Shot” by Seanan McGuire, on the author’s Patreon page.

10.   “Strangers in Court” by Seanan McGuire, included in the hardcover 10th Anniversary edition of Rosemary and Rue.

11.   “On Full Moon Nights” by Idza Luhumyo, from The Dark #53, October 2019, edited by Silva Moreno-Garcia

12.   “Every Exquisite Thing” by Lynda E. Rucker

13.   “Authentic Zombies of the Caribbean” by Ana Maria Shua, translated by Andrea G. Labinger

14.   “The Demon L” by Carly Holmes

15.   “The Maw” by Nathan Ballingrud, from Nightmare #85, October 2019, edited by John Joseph Adams

16.   “Some Kind of Blood-Soaked Future” by Carlie St. George

So that’s 16 short stories in October, keeping me way ahead for the year so far. (October 30th was the 303rd day of 2019.)

Summary of Reading Challenges:

“To Be Read” Challenge: This month: 0 read; YTD: 3 of 14 read.

365 Short Stories Challenge: This month:  16 read; YTD: 364 of 365 read.

Graphic Novels Challenge:  This month: 3 read; YTD: 26 of 52 read.

Goodreads Challenge: This month: 15 read; YTD: 118 of 125 read.

Non-Fiction Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 5 of 24 read.

Read the Book / Watch the Movie Challenge: This month: 0; YTD: 0 of 10 read/watched.

Complete the Series Challenge: This month: 0 books read; YTD: 0 of 16 read.

                                                                Series fully completed: 0 of 3 planned

Monthly Special Challenge: I may not do something like this every month but October’s mini-goal was Horror, Horror, Horror!. I did pretty well: 7 of the titles I read I would count as part of the horror genre (possibly 8, as the Whyborne and Griffin series, while technically paranormal historical romance, has Lovecraftian horror elements to it).

November’s mini-goal of course is: Crime/Mystery/Noir because it is Noirvember!

Horror By The Day

During October, I ran #horrorbytheday on my Twitter account. Each day I picked a random horror-related topic and identified my favorite thing related to that topic. Most tweets had pictures attached as well.

I thought it might be a good idea to finally post the entire thread here, for those of you who don’t follow me on other social media, and maybe add some more detail. Feel free to weigh in with comments about your favorites for each of these topics!

October 1: Classic Horror Novel: Dracula by Bram Stoker. I don’t remember how old I was the first time I read Dracula. Probably sixth grade. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve re-read it since then (20 is probably a low estimate). There’s something about the epistolary style and the fact that we pretty much never hear directly from the title character that still pulls me in an fascinates me no matter how many times I read it, and no matter how many adaptations I experience in print and other media.

October 2: Horror Anthology (Comics): House of Mystery. As I was starting my comics-reading experience, both DC and Marvel still published a variety of genre “anthology” comics. In retrospect, HoM was my favorite; I might willingly miss issues of House of Secrets, Ghosts, The Unexpected, and the rest, but I pretty never missed an issue or skipped a story of/in HoM. And I loved how mean narrator Cain could be.

October 3: Horror Cereal: Count Chocula.  Vampires and chocolate. Need I say more?

October 4: Stephen King Novel: ‘Salem’s Lot. Thematically and structurally similar to Dracula, it’s no surprise this is also high on my list. But King’s story is not just a Stoker retelling with modern trappings, and I think that’s what makes it stand out and live such a longer life than most Dracula pastiches. I also love the various connected short stories (like “Jerusalem’s Lot” and “The Night Flier”).

October 5: TV Show: Dark Shadows. I remember rushing home from school to watch this in the afternoons, completely captivated not just by Jonathan Frid’s vampire Barnabas Collins, but also David Hedison’s Quentin (the werewolf), and all the alternate timelines, flashbacks, ghosts and such.

October 6: Edgar Allen Poe Story: The Cask of Amontillado. It’s always hard to choose between this, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Black Cat” when asked for a favorite. But most years, if I have time to re-read only one Poe story in October, this is the go-to.

October 7: Marvel Comics Horror Title: Tomb of Dracula. This should surprise absolutely no-one. I loved almost all of the Marvel horror titles of the 70s (Werewolf By Night, Son of Satan, Monster of Frankenstein, and the rest) but this one more than the others. And not only because the title character is a Dracula whose personality falls very much in line with Stoker’s creation. The moody art of Gene Colan, especially once Tom Palmer joined him as regular inker, and the deep continuity of Marv Wolfman’s story (before “decompressed storytelling” and slavish continuity were a thing for most comics), both make this a direct Dracula sequel that stands out.

October 8: Horror Comedy Movie: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. A friend and I regularly acted out the Chick-and-Wilbur scenes from this throughout high school, to the annoyance of our peers I’m sure. There’s not a bad scene or wasted punchline throughout, and it features Lugosi and Chaney in their signature roles.

October 9: Annual Reread: A Night in the Lonesome October. Roger Zelazny’s pitch-perfect tale of a mystic ritual and the players who fight for/against it, as narrated by a faithful watchdog named Snuff. So many nods to classic horror novels and tropes that even all these years later I don’t think readers have ferreted out every little nod Zelazny worked in. And it’s structured as one chapter per day for the month, which makes it easy to read with other fans via social media.

October 10: Concept Album: Alan Parsons Project “Tales of Mystery and Imagination”  Parsons’ wonderful musical working of a number of Edgar Allen Poe tales sweeps me away every time I listen to it. Not a bad track in the lot, and Orson Welles’ narrations are brilliantly incorporated.

October 11: Musical: Little Shop of Horrors. Little Shop just barely edges The Rocky Horror Show out as my favorite horror-musical. They’re both great, and in reality they probably trade the top spot depending on which one I’ve seen most recently.

October 12: DC Comics Horror Title: Night Force. After they ended Tomb of Dracula at Marvel, Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan created Night Force for DC. The first run only lasted fourteen issues (recently collected in hardcover). I loved the idea that the mysterious time-traveling Baron Winters gathered teams of (sometimes unwilling) agents to battle the supernatural on his behalf. Sort of Mission: Impossible The Supernatural Team. Sadly, the sales weren’t there originally or for either of the later relaunches (both with Wolfman as writer but no input from Colan).

October 13: 60s Horror Movie: Rosemary’s Baby. The book was scary enough. The movie, with a great cast including Mia Farrow, Ruth Gordon, and John Cassavetes, works with lighting and mood to keep the viewer feeling as off-kilter as Rosemary. It still haunts me.

October 14: Ghost Novel: Vintage by Steve Berman. Berman smoothly combines teen romance with the ghost hitchhiker trope for an intriguing, scary read.

October 15: Horror Poster: Chip Skelton’s “Universal Road,” as seen at the top of this post.

October 16: Lovecraftian/Mythos Series: Whyborne and Griffin by Jordan L. Hawk. Lovecraft himself may have been incredibly homophobic, which probably is what drives so many queer horror authors to play in his sandbox. Each book in this series is based on a different Mythos entity or trope, but with really engaging title characters and supporting cast and an expanding narrative that has a clear beginning and end.

October 17: Non-Traditional Vampire Novel: Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. The setting is a near-future Mexico City that works hard to keep out the vampires that have overrun the rest of North America. The characters are a vampire who has made it into the city in an effort to escape her pursuers and the young man who falls for her despite what she is.

October 18: Zombie Series: Newsflesh by Mira Grant. I’m not a huge fan of zombie fiction. In fact, these may be the only zombie novels I’ve read. What I love about them is that the zombie “apocalypse” is background world-building and the zombies themselves a threat only really when manipulated as a tool. The first book is a 70s-style political thriller (think “All The President’s Men”) set against a world that has become accustomed to the presence of zombies, while the second book is an 80s-style medical thriller (think any Robin Cook novel). The third combines aspects of both with 70s-style all-star-cast disaster flicks. The ancillary short stories and novellas are equally as good and diverse.

October 19: Recent Horror Film: A Quiet Place. I rarely see movies more than once in the theater, but A Quiet Place got me to come back a second time to see if I could pick up things I knew I missed. It’s not a perfect movie (the background world-building doesn’t quite hold up if you think about it too closely), but the use of silence and muted sound pulls me in and doesn’t let go until the last frame.

October 20: Classic Horror Actor: Vincent Price. Lugosi is my favorite Dracula, Karloff my favorite Frankenstein Monster, but for overall 50s-70s horror, Price is the icon. The look, the voice, it’s all there.

October 21: Contemporary Indy Comic Series: Locke and Key. Joe Hill and Gabriel Ba’s opus checks off so many horror boxes (Lovecraft, serial killers, haunted houses, bodily possessions) and a few sf-nal boxes as well (time travel) that it can’t fall into any one category. The creators also wisely chose to keep the story finite, something I hope the upcoming Netflix series will respect.

October 22: Historical Horror Comic: Blood of the Innocent (WaRP Graphics). Marc Hempel and Mark Wheatley’s mini-series pitting Count Dracula against Jack the Ripper is a classic mash-up that deserves far more attention than it seems to get. Really hoping there’s a hardcover collected edition eventually.

October 23: Recent Horror Novella: Widow’s Point by Richard Chizmar. Chizmar’s book is the novel version of a “found footage film,” and he works every angle of the trope to full effect. It managed to make me feel claustrophobic and agoraphobic at the same time.

October 24: Horror Magazine: The Dark. A consistently solid mix of new stories and reprints every month.

October 25: Haunted Object Novel: Paper Tigers by Damien Angelica Walters. Currently out of print. Walters’ tale of a haunted photo album and the scarred woman who turns its pages pulled me in on page one and didn’t let go.

October 26: Shakespeare Horror: Macbeth. Shakespeare didn’t write horror, you say? This one has witches, ghosts, a serial-killing King and his spouse, sleep-walking, and tons of blood. And it is my favorite Shakespeare play ever, the one for which I will never turn down a chance to see a live production.

October 27: Fairy Tale Horror: “Snow, Glass, Apples” by Neil Gaiman. Most fairy tales, if we go back far enough, are more horror than feel-good cautionary tale. Modern authors have been bringing the horror elements back and tweaking them in interesting ways. I loved Gaiman’s take on Snow White, especially as narrated by Bebe Neuwirth.

October 28: Scariest Werewolf: Oliver Reed in Curse of the Werewolf (Hammer Studios). Chaney may be the classic, and An American Werewolf in London may have better special effects, but for whatever reason Oliver Reed’s werewolf scared me more than either, to the point of nausea. In fact, to the point that I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch the movie again since I was a teen.

October 29: Kaiju Film: Destroy All Monsters. I loved the giant monster movies that showed up on Saturday and Sunday afternoon television, but the one I still love above the rest is this “all-star” production (most recently rebooted/remade as “Godzilla King of Monsters”). As a kid, I could never understand why Gamora the space turtle wasn’t invited to the shindig (adult me understands they were produced by rival studios).

October 30: LGBTQ Anthology: Night Shadows.  A really wonderful mix of short stories by gay authors that roams the width and breadth of the horror genre.

October 31: Horror Franchise: Universal Studios Monsters (1930s-60s). There are those who debate whether this is a cohesive “universe” or not given the number of entries that don’t connect to others at all and given the number of re-casts for several of the principal characters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster) who do recur and given the mood-swings of the series (see the several entries involving Abbott and Costello). I fall strongly on the “cohesive universe” side regarding Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Invisible Man, because there was some nominal effort made to connect certain films with those that had come before. It’s harder to link the Phantom of the Opera, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the later more sci-fi-horror entries in based solely on what we see in the films, but there’s a small cottage-industry creating those links in short stories and novels. And even if they don’t all link together as a shared universe, the decades-long Universal Monsters brand is rivalled only by Hammer Studios’ output for sheer expansiveness.