I got into an argument about doxxing online. And it prompted me to actually start working on that politics essay, because my main point was ‘doxxing is bad and pretending that your side doing it is okay is hypocritical’ and his take was ‘if you don’t support the Left doxxing people then you’re supporting the rise of hate crimes under Trump’s administration’... or something? I dunno, but apparently asking him to stick to one topic was offensive.
But I’m also reading Kim Newman novels, so let’s talk about that.
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On Anno Dracula
I’m currently re-reading Anno Dracula by Kim Newman (who, to my surprise, is not a woman). At least, the first two novels, and one of the novellas. I have read the first four four novels before, but I think I’ll stop after Vampire Romance because, truth be told, I don’t actually like the second two novels. I only just learned there’s a fifth one, and my library doesn’t have it (the douchebags!).
So Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula series goes a bit like this: the novel Dracula more or less happened, but instead of getting killed Dracula actually won. So he took over England, married Queen Victoria to become the Prince Consort, and has control of the entire British Empire. And now that vampires have become public knowledge, plenty of other vampires come out of the woodwork into public life, obtaining public office) such as Lord Ruthven becoming Prime Minister), the military (like Sir Francis Varney putting down rebellions in India), or joining the Carpathian Guard, Dracula’s elite bodyguards and enforcers. Anyone who doesn’t like how things are going are shipped off to prison camps and never heard from again. Unless they really don’t like you, where they put your head on a spike outside Westminster, as they did with Abraham Van Helsing.
The first book picks up with the Jack the Ripper killings in Whitechapel, in which someone is murdering vampire prostitutes, and so Charles Beauregard, an agent of the Diogenes Club, is tasked with finding the murderer and stopping the killings. The second novel takes place in 1918 during World War I, in which Dracula, having been expelled from England, has taken up residence in Germany with his cronies and became the commander-in-chief of the military forces of Germany as Graf von Dracula.
The books are greatly enhanced by the fact that Kim Newman is a massive nerd. He’s a professional film critic and horror movie buff, so many of the characters are historical, literary or film characters. Many of them get only cameos or mentions, but others are important characters. The Karnstein family of the novel Carmilla regularly appear as lackeys of Dracula, and Charles Beauregard’s boss and head of the Diogenes Club is Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft’s brother exists in-universe, but was sent to prison camp for his opposing Dracula’s regime; Newman explained that the real reason was that he’d solve the Jack the Ripper case in no time, and thus rob the first book of its plot. The second book has him appear and confirm that he could have solved it.
Sergeant Dravot of The Man Who Would Be King is a recurring background character. Count Orlok of Nosferatu is the keeper of the Tower of London. Doctor Moreau of Jules Verne’s novel is a mad doctor, and his colleague is Dr. Jekyll. James Gatz has a short appearance in the World War I novel, even calling someone ‘old sport.’ Beauregard meets several criminals who have agreed to stay out of his way while he works on the Ripper case, including Fu Manchu, Griffin, and Professor Moriarty. The idea of silver bullets is explicitly mentioned as being an invention of John Reid. And one of the protagonists of the series is Kate Reed, a character that Bram Stoker wrote but was cut out from the final draft of Dracula.
And the historical characters! A vampire Edgar Allan Poe has his own subplot in The Bloody Red Baron. Florence Stoker appears many times in the first novel. Authors like Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw have small roles in that one too. Orson Welles appears in the final novel as one of the people working with vampires in Hollywood. Mata Hari is one of the vampire spies that the Allies have executed, and her information is pivotal in understanding Graf von Dracula’s plans. And of course, the title of The Bloody Red Baron is a reference to the Red Baron, the German pilot Manfred von Richthofen.
Newman also develops how vampires work in ways that are interesting while still remaining consistent with several other pieces of vampire fiction. Mostly, vampires aren’t killed by sunlight, though they prefer to be nocturnal, and feed on blood, but aren’t weak towards traditional weaknesses other than silver. Different powers are passed through different bloodlines--so Dracula’s bloodline can shapeshift, but Genevieve Dieudonne, one of the main characters, can pick up thoughts and emotions from people around her. And so not all vampires have the same powers, and how different vampires act different is explained in that way.
All of that being said, after the first novel the action kind of fizzles out. The ending of The Bloody Red Baron doesn’t actually solve anything, as fun as it is to see a World War I with vampires. And the next two books slow down even more, with the fourth one actually being made in part from shorter stories stuck together to basically amount to ‘Dracula’s Back! Again.’ without a real plot other than that. The protagonists even go to confront Dracula only for it to be a sort of ‘screw you’ rather than an actual fight and it’s left unresolved.
But dang, those first two books! It’s like what The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen aimed to be, but without any of Alan Moore’s weird obsession with Victorian Era pornography or tendency to try to depict everything in the worst light possible. There are sort of twisted references, to be sure--one scene has Richthofen kill a beagle because Newman wanted a Snoopy joke. And there are sex scenes, and Kate Reed is sort of weirdly sexualized for no apparent reason. Yes there’s a tradition of connecting vampires to sexuality, which is why I excuse it with several other characters, but Reed’s kind of there as an intrepid reporter, and in the second book we’re meant to think she’s an experienced seductress? I didn’t follow that line.
Still, those first two are very good, and the others can still be fun if for no other reason than you want to see how many references Kim Newman can pack into the story, going from the Victorian Era and on into the 1990’s. And if you’re into horror, or vampires in particular, or even just old movies and the like, it’s definitely worth looking into.
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