A review by jtkeenan
One Thousand Monsters by Kim Newman

4.0

The most fun thing about Kim Newman’s “Anno Dracula” series is the way he sprinkles figures from literature and folklore — and pop culture — throughout his alternate history universe (where Dracula prevails against Van Helsing). In “One Thousand Monsters” — the second-best book in the series that I’ve read (I haven’t yet gotten to “Johnny Alucard” or “Daikaiju”) — he gives us Henry James’ Christina Light, Akira Kurosawa’s Sanjuro, the Japanese snow queen Yuki-Onna, a thinly disguised version of the teenage mutant ninja turtles, and a barely-disguised-at-all Popeye. To fully enjoy Newman’s books, you have to go to Google every time he drops a name, but honestly, that’s part of the fun. And of course, Genevieve Dieudonne, Newman’s inimitable vampire heroine, is back as well. A fun book for horror fans.