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A review by unwrappingwords
The Bloody Red Baron by Kim Newman
5.0
Red Baron moves forward from Anno Dracula, taking the reader to the First World War, delving into the trenches with a few familiar faces and some new, fresh ones. Just like the first novel, there are a lot of characters drawn from existing literature and film, as well as a few historic figures - I didn't pick up on a lot of them, but some would be familiar even from general pop culture (Caligari, Bigglesworth, Herbert West and even Edgar Allen Poe makes an appearance). Like the first novel, the writing draws you completely into the world inhabited by these characters, and through characters such as Kate Reed and Edwin we get the viewpoint of characters new to war.
As well as this we get to see the Red Baron and his elite squad of pilots, both from the allies' view and from the view of characters such as Poe, who is brought in to write the Baron's autobiography.
There's a lot to get your head around in the book - always something going on, something to uncover, some peril the characters find themselves in which must be untangled. And in the setting of the First World War it works really well. No death goes un-mourned, even if the characters have only had a few moments page-time.
Overall, the novel works really well, and just as in Anno Dracula, Newman keeps the suspense up right until the end. But the real gem of this is the novella at the end; Vampire Romance brings back Geneviève Dieudonné from the first novel. She attends a meeting of vampire elders as they try to decide who will rule the vampires in England. The meeting takes place in a large manor, where a young girl obsessed with vampires lives - she dreams of meeting one, falling in love with and becoming one, and with the meeting thinks her chance to do all this has arrived.
It brings up some interesting elements, and feels much more like a teen novel, with the 'teenagers' banding together to try to solve what is happening in the manor. Characters are well written and, as if with any satisfying story, grow and develop as the plot moves on.
Both Bloody Red Baron and Vampire Romance were well written, engaging, and served as brilliant sequels to Anno Dracula.
As well as this we get to see the Red Baron and his elite squad of pilots, both from the allies' view and from the view of characters such as Poe, who is brought in to write the Baron's autobiography.
There's a lot to get your head around in the book - always something going on, something to uncover, some peril the characters find themselves in which must be untangled. And in the setting of the First World War it works really well. No death goes un-mourned, even if the characters have only had a few moments page-time.
Overall, the novel works really well, and just as in Anno Dracula, Newman keeps the suspense up right until the end. But the real gem of this is the novella at the end; Vampire Romance brings back Geneviève Dieudonné from the first novel. She attends a meeting of vampire elders as they try to decide who will rule the vampires in England. The meeting takes place in a large manor, where a young girl obsessed with vampires lives - she dreams of meeting one, falling in love with and becoming one, and with the meeting thinks her chance to do all this has arrived.
It brings up some interesting elements, and feels much more like a teen novel, with the 'teenagers' banding together to try to solve what is happening in the manor. Characters are well written and, as if with any satisfying story, grow and develop as the plot moves on.
Both Bloody Red Baron and Vampire Romance were well written, engaging, and served as brilliant sequels to Anno Dracula.