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8797999's review against another edition
4.0
A fun read focusing on World War I and the allies versus a Dracula led Germany. Some characters from the first book make an appearance, most notably Charles and Kate.
A fun plot and I quite enjoyed it, though I preferred the first book ever so slightly. I'm looking forward to the next one. The cover looks like a James Bond film poster.
A fun plot and I quite enjoyed it, though I preferred the first book ever so slightly. I'm looking forward to the next one. The cover looks like a James Bond film poster.
rui_leite's review
4.0
To me The Bloody Red Baron would be the test on how well the awesome ideas brought fourth in the first Anno Dracula could be used in a series. You see, now I will admit I had my doubts when I stared and I bought the first three books together more on a whim than thinking reasonably. But again my scepticism was proved unfounded. In fact, now that I've read this book I actually think it might be even better than the first on a few aspects, because while the first novel was an original concept and had a great execution to back it up, it seems, by comparison, much more "straight forward" and conventional than "Bloody Red Baron". And you know you are reading a good book when it makes something that involves Count Dracula marrying Queen Victoria and ruling Britain as Prince-Consort look "conventional".
The idea that World War One was, eventually, brought about by the events at the end of the first novel actually made void one of my complaints about how "neat" the conclusion of Anno Dracula appeared to be. In Bloody Red Baron we learn that what we see at the end of the first book is, in fact, just a moment in time and that there were consequences that stretched far in history. That made my brain happy.
Now, about the characters...I must say I knew Edwin Winthrop already from Mysteries of The Diogenes Club and I will admit I prefer the wittier, more sarcastic and light hearted version that apears there than the one we get here. That is not the same as to say he was acting out of character, though. The way he behaved made perfect sense if we have on account that the setting is the bloodiest front of the bloodiest war mankind had ever seen. In fact that only shows how well Newman manages to handle his characters. Because what Bloody Red Baron doesn't do (thankfully, as far as I'm concerned) was to portray the war as "smashing good adventure" or "a jolly romp in the mud". Even though it is a fun book to read, the war itself is as dark as it should be, and therefore so is Edwin's mood. He wasn't as fun to read as he was in some other moments (in fact, we get to see him again in Vampire Romance, the novella included in this edition, and the difference is clear), but that is fully understandable.
Another character that surprised me and I grew fond(er) of was Kate Reed, the vampire reporter who is also a nurse and that we first get to know in Anno Dracula. She really comes to her own here and becomes quite admirable and strong. In fact she is probably my favourite character in the whole book. The way she is still embracing her condition (it's only been a few decades since she was turned, and that after all, is little time for a vampire) is nicely shown and, at times, it almost seemed as if she was going trough the undead version of the teenager years. She still didn't see herself as in-human but she also knew she was not a human, something which was rather interesting to read. True, her relation with Winthrop reeks a bit of the relation between Geneviève and Beauregard in the first book, but things play out in a way different enough to make this forgiveable.
Then there's Poe (yes that Poe, Edgar Allan)... who, it turns out, is an undead and happens to be commissioned to ghost-write Richthofen's, The Bloody Red Baron, auto-biography. Suffice is to say Newman doesn't take the safe rout with this charcter here, representing him in a way I have never seen before (and I really don't mean the undead thing) but that surprisingly feels very historically accurate. I can promise that this will make absolute sense within context and its quite a useful idea, which just comes to show how well Newman works within his universe and manages all its components.
And finally there's Richthofen. He is shown as a great antagonist but, at the same time, in a really respectful light. He is not an unfeeling villain, a killer without reason... he is just someone who follows a different set of values than most people (thank God for that) but who got there trough a past, an upbringing.
Throughout the book he is clearly the threat, we know how it must end, but he is never just a monster. That post is rather cleverly left to Dracula. And that brings me to another thing I really liked in Bloody Red Baron, the way that the idea there were no monsters in the war itself, just people turned into hideous things, was always present. The true monsters were in offices, far away from the front, playing power games, the men, women and vampires toiling and dying in the front were just tools, nothing more.
I will admit I didn't catch nearly as many of the literary and historical references as I did in the first novel, maybe because I know my victoriana better than I know my World War I (the annotations section came in quite handy there) but honestly that did not spoil the fun of reading.
Now, even though this review is already long I'll have to make a quick mention of Vampire Romance, the novella added as an extra in this edition and that, once again, proves Newman is a master at gender blending and clever use of references. I won't say much here, but I'll say we get a story that is both a murder mystery à la Agatha Christie, a children's adventure à la Enid Blyton and, on top of that, a very clever spoof of the modern more shiny brand of vampires. I loved this little text with all my heart and its light tone was welcomed after the bleakness of some moments in Bloody Red Baron. Very much worth the read.
Finaly, let me just say how happy I am that Red Skies, the script presented at the end of the book for a film involving Valkyries in World War One, was never green-lit. I'm sorry to say but from what I've read there almost everything the Bloody Red Baron got right that film would have gotten wrong. There were things there that really made my skin crawl. At one point it seemed as if all my personal grudges had been touched (Brainless patriotism? Check. Oversimplification of a complex matter? Check. Jingoistic undertones? Check. Glorification of war? Check. Dehumanisation of real historical figures? Check.) just to make a "cool monster flick". That's a big no-no by my book. Still, as everyone is allowed a slip or two, my respect for Mr Kim Newman remains intact, and I still regard him as one of the cleverest and most effective writers I've read in quite some time. Let me just forget I've ever read that bit about the Red Skies thing, ok?
Good...
The idea that World War One was, eventually, brought about by the events at the end of the first novel actually made void one of my complaints about how "neat" the conclusion of Anno Dracula appeared to be. In Bloody Red Baron we learn that what we see at the end of the first book is, in fact, just a moment in time and that there were consequences that stretched far in history. That made my brain happy.
Now, about the characters...I must say I knew Edwin Winthrop already from Mysteries of The Diogenes Club and I will admit I prefer the wittier, more sarcastic and light hearted version that apears there than the one we get here. That is not the same as to say he was acting out of character, though. The way he behaved made perfect sense if we have on account that the setting is the bloodiest front of the bloodiest war mankind had ever seen. In fact that only shows how well Newman manages to handle his characters. Because what Bloody Red Baron doesn't do (thankfully, as far as I'm concerned) was to portray the war as "smashing good adventure" or "a jolly romp in the mud". Even though it is a fun book to read, the war itself is as dark as it should be, and therefore so is Edwin's mood. He wasn't as fun to read as he was in some other moments (in fact, we get to see him again in Vampire Romance, the novella included in this edition, and the difference is clear), but that is fully understandable.
Another character that surprised me and I grew fond(er) of was Kate Reed, the vampire reporter who is also a nurse and that we first get to know in Anno Dracula. She really comes to her own here and becomes quite admirable and strong. In fact she is probably my favourite character in the whole book. The way she is still embracing her condition (it's only been a few decades since she was turned, and that after all, is little time for a vampire) is nicely shown and, at times, it almost seemed as if she was going trough the undead version of the teenager years. She still didn't see herself as in-human but she also knew she was not a human, something which was rather interesting to read. True, her relation with Winthrop reeks a bit of the relation between Geneviève and Beauregard in the first book, but things play out in a way different enough to make this forgiveable.
Then there's Poe (yes that Poe, Edgar Allan)... who, it turns out, is an undead and happens to be commissioned to ghost-write Richthofen's, The Bloody Red Baron, auto-biography. Suffice is to say Newman doesn't take the safe rout with this charcter here, representing him in a way I have never seen before (and I really don't mean the undead thing) but that surprisingly feels very historically accurate. I can promise that this will make absolute sense within context and its quite a useful idea, which just comes to show how well Newman works within his universe and manages all its components.
And finally there's Richthofen. He is shown as a great antagonist but, at the same time, in a really respectful light. He is not an unfeeling villain, a killer without reason... he is just someone who follows a different set of values than most people (thank God for that) but who got there trough a past, an upbringing.
Throughout the book he is clearly the threat, we know how it must end, but he is never just a monster. That post is rather cleverly left to Dracula. And that brings me to another thing I really liked in Bloody Red Baron, the way that the idea there were no monsters in the war itself, just people turned into hideous things, was always present. The true monsters were in offices, far away from the front, playing power games, the men, women and vampires toiling and dying in the front were just tools, nothing more.
I will admit I didn't catch nearly as many of the literary and historical references as I did in the first novel, maybe because I know my victoriana better than I know my World War I (the annotations section came in quite handy there) but honestly that did not spoil the fun of reading.
Now, even though this review is already long I'll have to make a quick mention of Vampire Romance, the novella added as an extra in this edition and that, once again, proves Newman is a master at gender blending and clever use of references. I won't say much here, but I'll say we get a story that is both a murder mystery à la Agatha Christie, a children's adventure à la Enid Blyton and, on top of that, a very clever spoof of the modern more shiny brand of vampires. I loved this little text with all my heart and its light tone was welcomed after the bleakness of some moments in Bloody Red Baron. Very much worth the read.
Finaly, let me just say how happy I am that Red Skies, the script presented at the end of the book for a film involving Valkyries in World War One, was never green-lit. I'm sorry to say but from what I've read there almost everything the Bloody Red Baron got right that film would have gotten wrong. There were things there that really made my skin crawl. At one point it seemed as if all my personal grudges had been touched (Brainless patriotism? Check. Oversimplification of a complex matter? Check. Jingoistic undertones? Check. Glorification of war? Check. Dehumanisation of real historical figures? Check.) just to make a "cool monster flick". That's a big no-no by my book. Still, as everyone is allowed a slip or two, my respect for Mr Kim Newman remains intact, and I still regard him as one of the cleverest and most effective writers I've read in quite some time. Let me just forget I've ever read that bit about the Red Skies thing, ok?
Good...
michaelcattigan's review against another edition
4.0
After reading a couple of extremely well-written, moving but rather serious books, picking up The Bloody Red Baron was intended to be a welcome piece of light relief: a bit of fun vampiric horror.
Kim Newman takes up the reigns of his alternate history some thirty years after the events in the previous Anno Dracula. Having fled from England in the conclusion of that book - as a result of Charles Beauregard’s effective device of giving the enslaved Queen Victoria the knife with which to kill herself and alienate Dracula from his claim on her throne – Dracula has ingratiated himself as Graf Dracula in Germany and taken over the persecution of World War One.
One of the pleasures of the book was putting together the pieces between the previous book and the current one with Beauregard as the rock around which both novels revolve. In this novel, as he staunchly refuses offers to be turned he appears to be moulding one Edwin Winthrope as a successor.
One regrettable loss was that Genevieve Dieudonne did not make any re-appearance here having been parcelled off to California; her role taken up by Kate Reed who had been somewhat underused in Anno Dracula. Although not as underused as in the original Dracula: Stoker managed to write her out compeltely! Reed – whilst still a vampire – is a new-born one and therefore fails to bring the mystique, majesty and mystery of Dieudonne who can state to Dracula the Prince Consort himself that “Impaler, I have no equal”.
Another pleasure is recognising the references and intertextuality that abound in Newman’s fiction: vampires from book and film stalk his pages from Count Orlok to Lord Ruthven to Caleb Croft (and fortunately no Cullens); but being further from the 1890s, for me, the references were less well-loved, less tender, less Gothic and more historical: Biggles, Mata Hari, Ten Brincken and Doctor Moreau.
One character who I simply did not like and did not understand his role in the novel was Poe: ostensibly drafted in to compile the Red Baron’s biography he just seemed to float about as an observer neither affecting nor influencing anything. The character of the Baron was fascinating: cold, detatched, bound in layers of emotional armour which I was hoping Poe would be able to peel away… but it seemed that, just as something human was being unearthed in him, the novel ended.
This novel pits the plucky Allied airmen and airvampires of Condor Squadron against the eponymous Red Baron Manfred von Richthofen and his demonic Jagdgeschwader Eins. And demonic is probably the right adjective here: Newman’s vampires are full-blooded nightmarish creatures, not the sparkly effete fairies of our post-Twilight world!
Whilst most vampires in the novel are broadly human in shape and size, Newman delights in the shapeshifting ability that the Dracula bloodline has and grows his JG1 into enormous bat-winged creatures the size of aircraft with guns strapped onto their flesh. As Newman put it:
a prehistoric monster with twentieth-century guns.
And these are not the most mostrous vampires: Isolde is a vampire mentioned briefly who as a performer in Paris presents a remarkably unattractive striptease, slicing through a leotard with a knife and then continuing to slice through her own flesh and to flail herself for her audience night after night. Newman delights in the description of her
exposed muscles [which] bunched and smoothed…bones visible in wet meat… arteries [which] stood out, transparent tubes filled with rushing blood
She becomes a recurrent image in the novel, memories of her returning to haunt Winthrope throughout and can be seen as a metaphor perhaps for the war itself. And the book is very strongly anti-war in its message: whilst there are individual acts of bravery and even heroism on both sides, the war across Europe created monsters of all involved. At its most literal level. In fact, as rather civilised and sympathetic vampires abound in the novel, the greatest difficulty Newman faced in the book may have been how to make the vampire more monstrous to his readers.
But it is not just the vampires who are the monsters here. Another very briefly seen vampire is an American one who – nameless – is seen disintegrating into mist in order to infiltrate a tank and, less than a page later is hit by a flame thrower and
centuries of unchronicled life were extinguished in an uncaring instant, blasted to sparkling shreds by brute modernity.
What this novel lacked was the overview that Anno Dracula had: Dracula there was present, ominous and contagious; in this sequel, he was distant and almost absent, his activities reported but not seen. There was no final standoff. No climax.
All in all, a good well-written and surprisingly thoughtful romp through Newman’s alternative World War 1. Certainly worth a read – as is any book in which Private Charles Godfrey from Dad’s Army appears!
Kim Newman takes up the reigns of his alternate history some thirty years after the events in the previous Anno Dracula. Having fled from England in the conclusion of that book - as a result of Charles Beauregard’s effective device of giving the enslaved Queen Victoria the knife with which to kill herself and alienate Dracula from his claim on her throne – Dracula has ingratiated himself as Graf Dracula in Germany and taken over the persecution of World War One.
One of the pleasures of the book was putting together the pieces between the previous book and the current one with Beauregard as the rock around which both novels revolve. In this novel, as he staunchly refuses offers to be turned he appears to be moulding one Edwin Winthrope as a successor.
One regrettable loss was that Genevieve Dieudonne did not make any re-appearance here having been parcelled off to California; her role taken up by Kate Reed who had been somewhat underused in Anno Dracula. Although not as underused as in the original Dracula: Stoker managed to write her out compeltely! Reed – whilst still a vampire – is a new-born one and therefore fails to bring the mystique, majesty and mystery of Dieudonne who can state to Dracula the Prince Consort himself that “Impaler, I have no equal”.
Another pleasure is recognising the references and intertextuality that abound in Newman’s fiction: vampires from book and film stalk his pages from Count Orlok to Lord Ruthven to Caleb Croft (and fortunately no Cullens); but being further from the 1890s, for me, the references were less well-loved, less tender, less Gothic and more historical: Biggles, Mata Hari, Ten Brincken and Doctor Moreau.
One character who I simply did not like and did not understand his role in the novel was Poe: ostensibly drafted in to compile the Red Baron’s biography he just seemed to float about as an observer neither affecting nor influencing anything. The character of the Baron was fascinating: cold, detatched, bound in layers of emotional armour which I was hoping Poe would be able to peel away… but it seemed that, just as something human was being unearthed in him, the novel ended.
This novel pits the plucky Allied airmen and airvampires of Condor Squadron against the eponymous Red Baron Manfred von Richthofen and his demonic Jagdgeschwader Eins. And demonic is probably the right adjective here: Newman’s vampires are full-blooded nightmarish creatures, not the sparkly effete fairies of our post-Twilight world!
Whilst most vampires in the novel are broadly human in shape and size, Newman delights in the shapeshifting ability that the Dracula bloodline has and grows his JG1 into enormous bat-winged creatures the size of aircraft with guns strapped onto their flesh. As Newman put it:
a prehistoric monster with twentieth-century guns.
And these are not the most mostrous vampires: Isolde is a vampire mentioned briefly who as a performer in Paris presents a remarkably unattractive striptease, slicing through a leotard with a knife and then continuing to slice through her own flesh and to flail herself for her audience night after night. Newman delights in the description of her
exposed muscles [which] bunched and smoothed…bones visible in wet meat… arteries [which] stood out, transparent tubes filled with rushing blood
She becomes a recurrent image in the novel, memories of her returning to haunt Winthrope throughout and can be seen as a metaphor perhaps for the war itself. And the book is very strongly anti-war in its message: whilst there are individual acts of bravery and even heroism on both sides, the war across Europe created monsters of all involved. At its most literal level. In fact, as rather civilised and sympathetic vampires abound in the novel, the greatest difficulty Newman faced in the book may have been how to make the vampire more monstrous to his readers.
But it is not just the vampires who are the monsters here. Another very briefly seen vampire is an American one who – nameless – is seen disintegrating into mist in order to infiltrate a tank and, less than a page later is hit by a flame thrower and
centuries of unchronicled life were extinguished in an uncaring instant, blasted to sparkling shreds by brute modernity.
What this novel lacked was the overview that Anno Dracula had: Dracula there was present, ominous and contagious; in this sequel, he was distant and almost absent, his activities reported but not seen. There was no final standoff. No climax.
All in all, a good well-written and surprisingly thoughtful romp through Newman’s alternative World War 1. Certainly worth a read – as is any book in which Private Charles Godfrey from Dad’s Army appears!
joelkarpowitz's review
3.0
The second book in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series, The Bloody Red Baron, does not have quite the complexity or depth of the first book, nor does it have character development that extends quite so deeply. And I can't speak for everyone, but for me Kate Reed is not quite as interesting a character as Genevieve Dieudonne from the first novel.
That said, the story is pretty fun (think about Batman's nemesis "Man-Bat" and you have a rough idea where we're going here), the writing is still sharp, and the world continues to fascinate.
Of course, the real fun of Newman's novels are in picking out the cameos by both fictional and historic figures. In that sense The Bloody Red Baron does not disappoint, and I found my recent forays into silent movies continuing to pay off (Rotwang! From Metropolis!). Heck, even Snoopy made an appearance here, and I was thrown back to elementary school days practicing "Snoopy vs. The Red Baron" on the piano. Fond memories.
I will say that something about these books always feels a little off to me, but I can't tell if it's because I'm having so much fun playing spot-the-character that I skim over the plot a little too much, or if it's that Newman's world (with all the spycraft and plot devices) falls short on real characterization. Regardless, something's just a little off for me to really love these books.
Still, I can like them a lot without loving them, and I still plan to continue the series. It's still too much fun to ignore.
That said, the story is pretty fun (think about Batman's nemesis "Man-Bat" and you have a rough idea where we're going here), the writing is still sharp, and the world continues to fascinate.
Of course, the real fun of Newman's novels are in picking out the cameos by both fictional and historic figures. In that sense The Bloody Red Baron does not disappoint, and I found my recent forays into silent movies continuing to pay off (Rotwang! From Metropolis!). Heck, even Snoopy made an appearance here, and I was thrown back to elementary school days practicing "Snoopy vs. The Red Baron" on the piano. Fond memories.
I will say that something about these books always feels a little off to me, but I can't tell if it's because I'm having so much fun playing spot-the-character that I skim over the plot a little too much, or if it's that Newman's world (with all the spycraft and plot devices) falls short on real characterization. Regardless, something's just a little off for me to really love these books.
Still, I can like them a lot without loving them, and I still plan to continue the series. It's still too much fun to ignore.
balconyfalconry's review
This series legitimately makes me wish I could talk over the narrative and characters with my grandfather, a venerable reader of pulps, horror, and war stories. Newman has developed one of the most enjoyable spot-the-reference games in speculative fiction with appearances by historical figures, vampire genre mainstays, but also a very apt comic strip cameo.
wyrmdog's review against another edition
4.0
A great fun ride; a worthy successor to the first. I'm always appreciative when a sequel breaks new ground as it seems that it helps avoid direct comparisons to its predecessor. Kate is far more interesting in this book. I wasn't quite sure why she headlined on the cover of the last, but here she shines. Before, she was simply one of those characters you eye and go, "I like her, even though the author isn't sure what to do with her." Here - of necessity - she is better, and I'm glad for it. Winthrop is okay, but some of the things he did seemed rather abrupt and almost out of character at times. Once you read it you'll see what I mean. And I don't mean the obvious change of personality he falls into.
I only really had one nagging issue with the book, and that was the rather cavalier destruction of the very ancient vampires (2-3 if you include the Chinese vampire in the novella at the end of the book). On more than one occasion it seemed more due to making decisions that should have killed them long ago resulting in the event feeling more like an arbitrary attempt to shock the reader than really illustrate something. But I suppose that most of them had never fought in a war like that one, so when I really think about it, it makes some sense. And at least one of them had some resonance as illustrated by Kate's thoughts after its destruction. Still, every ancient other than the assassin from the first book has been thoroughly underwhelming.
[VERY, VERY MINOR SPOILER] Ball, on the other hand... Best. Vampire. Escape. EVAR! The scenes with Ball and Winthrop are alone worth the price of admission.
At the end of the book is a wonderfully saucy lampooning of modern vampire fiction. It takes potshots at Rice, Meyer and Harris at a minimum (all of whom I have read and only one of whom I liked), but does so in a way that avoids being mean-spirited. It was fun, unlike Anno Dracula or Bloody Red Baron, and brought some freshness to the setting.
In all, I continue to recommend the books of Kim Newman and I look forward to picking up the rest of this series at a minimum.
I only really had one nagging issue with the book, and that was the rather cavalier destruction of the very ancient vampires (2-3 if you include the Chinese vampire in the novella at the end of the book). On more than one occasion it seemed more due to making decisions that should have killed them long ago resulting in the event feeling more like an arbitrary attempt to shock the reader than really illustrate something. But I suppose that most of them had never fought in a war like that one, so when I really think about it, it makes some sense. And at least one of them had some resonance as illustrated by Kate's thoughts after its destruction. Still, every ancient other than the assassin from the first book has been thoroughly underwhelming.
[VERY, VERY MINOR SPOILER] Ball, on the other hand... Best. Vampire. Escape. EVAR! The scenes with Ball and Winthrop are alone worth the price of admission.
At the end of the book is a wonderfully saucy lampooning of modern vampire fiction. It takes potshots at Rice, Meyer and Harris at a minimum (all of whom I have read and only one of whom I liked), but does so in a way that avoids being mean-spirited. It was fun, unlike Anno Dracula or Bloody Red Baron, and brought some freshness to the setting.
In all, I continue to recommend the books of Kim Newman and I look forward to picking up the rest of this series at a minimum.
batbones's review
5.0
Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series is one of the thriving strains of the horror genre. Newman's ease with gory details and handling and reinvention of vampire lore rivals established writers like Barbara Hambly (who tends to be more contextually-focused) and Anne Rice (who, though she works in the same genre and with the same creatures, is her own subspeciality). Comparison can and also should be made with Jonathan L. Howard; Newman's narrative voice is a less sardonic version of Howard's, and consequently very adaptable to new characters. Howard's and Newman's stories have a strongly visual element and drive that would make them great graphic novels and movies. Action, context and character arcs are perfectly balanced. I especially liked how the story eased into its new characters and slowly brought them to the fore as its previous major ones took a backseat. Other than the main characters, the novel is populated by other colourful ones, such as Ruthven (yes, Polidori's own), England's Eternal Prime Minister who is obsessed about having portraits painted of him. Edgar Allan Poe too is a vampire. Kate is less annoying and more interesting in this second installment, since the story seems to have given her more purpose to exist instead of being just a Genevieve rival. I am actually looking forward to seeing Miss Mouse again. Beauregard has been a favourite for his quiet intelligence and dignity. Winthrop should return though this volume has him leave it; so much detail has been put into his character for him not to stay; he's surprisingly likeable, once he has had a vampiric conflict established internally and experienced some horrific troubles of his own, and his pov is an opportunity to explore other facets and effects of blood-drinking existence.
enbyglitch's review
5.0
What a damned book. Not quite as stuffed with references as the first, but creatively advances the world beyond the first book.
The problems I had with Anno Dracula remain - only one female character and some real racism from Edgar Allan Poe of all people - but the pace was high enough that they at least didn't disrupt my time with the book as much.
There are some powerful images and action scenes here, and I look forward to seeing where the series goes.
The problems I had with Anno Dracula remain - only one female character and some real racism from Edgar Allan Poe of all people - but the pace was high enough that they at least didn't disrupt my time with the book as much.
There are some powerful images and action scenes here, and I look forward to seeing where the series goes.
claire1044's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
mollyridley's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I devoured Anno Dracula and absolutely adored it, I had high hopes for this and it didn't disappoint.
Some beloved repeat characters and tense action scenes as well as nods to various vampires from across the years. As someone who reads a lot of vampire fiction and mythology it's great to see all the little Easter eggs.
The setting is not my favourite, I've never been drawn in by wartime books, but it just worked in this context and seemed neither to glamourize nor belittle the war. My personal tastes aside once it got me I was hooked, and worth trying even if you're not drawn by the setting.
I also enjoyed the novella included in this edition. Once again the references to various fictional vampires brought me a lot of joy, and I found it over the top and ridiculous in the best possible way.
Excited to get to the next book, hopefully soon!
Some beloved repeat characters and tense action scenes as well as nods to various vampires from across the years. As someone who reads a lot of vampire fiction and mythology it's great to see all the little Easter eggs.
The setting is not my favourite, I've never been drawn in by wartime books, but it just worked in this context and seemed neither to glamourize nor belittle the war. My personal tastes aside once it got me I was hooked, and worth trying even if you're not drawn by the setting.
I also enjoyed the novella included in this edition. Once again the references to various fictional vampires brought me a lot of joy, and I found it over the top and ridiculous in the best possible way.
Excited to get to the next book, hopefully soon!