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fun for the ridiculously fannish
Oct. 21st, 2012 12:30 pmI recently learned, through the "about the author" blurb on a short story of his that I was reading in an anthology, that sf/horror writer Kim Newman's website is named after Johnny Alucard. Alucard, you may recall, is the character played by the delectable Christopher Neame in Dracula A.D. 1972.
Furthermore, Newman's forthcoming novel in his Anno Dracula series will be called Johnny Alucard. There are NO WORDS for how thrilling I find this.
I immediately started reading the earlier novels in the series. I've finished the first, Anno Dracula, and started the second, The Bloody Red Baron. Anno Dracula is basically a Bram Stoker AU fic in which Dracula's plan to take over Britain succeeds. It's set in 1888 and features the Ripper murders, the Diogenes Club, and most of your favorite characters from the period turning up in major or minor roles. The novel has flaws (the structure and pacing are awkward, the characterization could be more complex, Newman has a dreadful tendency to use epithets [e.g. "the Guardsman," "the Carpathian"] rather than characters' names, I'm still trying to decide if the bit about the Cleveland Street raid and its aftermath is homophobic, and I don't like how he wrote my beloved Raffles), but it's mostly a lot of very readable fun and I enjoyed playing "spot the fandom."
The Bloody Red Baron is set during the First World War, as you might have guessed. I'm only 30 or so pages in, but it has vampire!Biggles in it. Also, so far, Bertie Wooster, Ashenden the British agent, and a mention of "the Duke of Denver's younger brother."
Furthermore, Newman's forthcoming novel in his Anno Dracula series will be called Johnny Alucard. There are NO WORDS for how thrilling I find this.
I immediately started reading the earlier novels in the series. I've finished the first, Anno Dracula, and started the second, The Bloody Red Baron. Anno Dracula is basically a Bram Stoker AU fic in which Dracula's plan to take over Britain succeeds. It's set in 1888 and features the Ripper murders, the Diogenes Club, and most of your favorite characters from the period turning up in major or minor roles. The novel has flaws (the structure and pacing are awkward, the characterization could be more complex, Newman has a dreadful tendency to use epithets [e.g. "the Guardsman," "the Carpathian"] rather than characters' names, I'm still trying to decide if the bit about the Cleveland Street raid and its aftermath is homophobic, and I don't like how he wrote my beloved Raffles), but it's mostly a lot of very readable fun and I enjoyed playing "spot the fandom."
The Bloody Red Baron is set during the First World War, as you might have guessed. I'm only 30 or so pages in, but it has vampire!Biggles in it. Also, so far, Bertie Wooster, Ashenden the British agent, and a mention of "the Duke of Denver's younger brother."
