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A review by flying_monkey
The Bloody Red Baron by Kim Newman
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
With The Bloody Red Baron, the second in Kim Newman's reissued Anno Dracula series, an alternative history in which Bram Stoker's character is not killed but 'wins', we are in WW1. It's a brave choice, because the horror of the trenches might so easily be cheapened with a poor exploitative treatment. However this is no such thing.
Dracula, long banished from Britain, is now a key figure in the court of the Kaiser, waging war across Europe. Genevieve Dieudonné, his mediaeval French nemesis of a very different vampire lineage, has left for America and Charles Beauregard is pretty much running the Diogenes Club, the unofficial 'behind-the-throne' intellgence operation of Britain, although he now has competition from more formal British intelligence services.
Beauchamp sends his young prodidgy, Winthrop, to the front to investigate strange goings-on at a French chateau which houses the elite undead flying squadron led by undefeated air ace, Baron Manfred von Richthoffen. Along the way Winthrop encounters (and of course falls for) Kate Reed who is after the same story for her newspaper.
You might think that WW1 would be paradise for vampires, but this is far from the case with silvered bullets and bayonets, they are being destroyed as much as warmbloods are being killed on the western front. The novel is surprisingly effective as a war novel, even with all the pop-culture references (we get Drs Moreau and Caligari as evil eugenicists, prefuguring the Nazi scientists, working for the Germans, British air ace, Bigglesworth and many others). Newman holds it all together, despite the usual massive number of references and allusions, and even manages to make it affective and moving.
As a nice bonus in this new edition, there's a substantial novella appended, dealing with Genevieve's return to Britain and another recurring character in the various novels and stories of Newman's sprawling mythos, the Japanese girl-assassin, Nezumi, as well as idiot proto-Nazi, Spode (borrowed from P.G. Wodehouse), in a classic country house murder mystery, jolly hockey sticks and all, except it's vampires killing vampires.
The novel alone was well-worth it, but with the additional novella, and Newman's customary afterword which goes through many of the characters and where they come from, we are simply spoiled.
Dracula, long banished from Britain, is now a key figure in the court of the Kaiser, waging war across Europe. Genevieve Dieudonné, his mediaeval French nemesis of a very different vampire lineage, has left for America and Charles Beauregard is pretty much running the Diogenes Club, the unofficial 'behind-the-throne' intellgence operation of Britain, although he now has competition from more formal British intelligence services.
Beauchamp sends his young prodidgy, Winthrop, to the front to investigate strange goings-on at a French chateau which houses the elite undead flying squadron led by undefeated air ace, Baron Manfred von Richthoffen. Along the way Winthrop encounters (and of course falls for) Kate Reed who is after the same story for her newspaper.
You might think that WW1 would be paradise for vampires, but this is far from the case with silvered bullets and bayonets, they are being destroyed as much as warmbloods are being killed on the western front. The novel is surprisingly effective as a war novel, even with all the pop-culture references (we get Drs Moreau and Caligari as evil eugenicists, prefuguring the Nazi scientists, working for the Germans, British air ace, Bigglesworth and many others). Newman holds it all together, despite the usual massive number of references and allusions, and even manages to make it affective and moving.
As a nice bonus in this new edition, there's a substantial novella appended, dealing with Genevieve's return to Britain and another recurring character in the various novels and stories of Newman's sprawling mythos, the Japanese girl-assassin, Nezumi, as well as idiot proto-Nazi, Spode (borrowed from P.G. Wodehouse), in a classic country house murder mystery, jolly hockey sticks and all, except it's vampires killing vampires.
The novel alone was well-worth it, but with the additional novella, and Newman's customary afterword which goes through many of the characters and where they come from, we are simply spoiled.