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snowbenton 's review for:
Dracula the Un-Dead
by Dacre Stoker
This may not be the worst book I've ever read, but it's definitely top five.
Stoker and Holt decided that they wanted to write a sequel to Dracula in keeping with the spirit of the original. Unfortunately, the only things they kept from the original were the character names and the aggravating sexism. The things they changed included the entire plot, the behaviors of all of the characters, the time period in which the story took place, and the villain himself, not to mention their blatant disregard for small detail (England does not let out for school in the summers like the US does, making Mina's whining about the beginnings of her friendship with Lucy both annoying and ignorant) and basic psychology.
This book takes the characters from the first book and tries to tell their tale 25 years later by adding in Mina and Jonathan's idiotic son (honestly, I've met newborn kittens capable of more logic than this character), Jack the Ripper, Elizabeth Bathory, the Titanic, and a bunch of bumbling cops. They changed Mina and Jonathan's loving relationship, a major point of the original, into an abusive relationship entirely defined by the fact that she slept with and still loves Dracula, despite her clear hatred of him in the original. I would find this less distasteful if there weren't a thirty page summary at the end of the book where Stoker and Holt claim they wanted to write a sequel in keeping with the original. They couldn't have fallen farther from the mark. They turned every hero from Dracula into a villain, the villain into a hero, and introduced a new villain just because.
It was also impossible to handle the fact that Bram Stoker was a shitty character. He is a jerk or weak or both every time he appears, and his inclusion means that one of the original group of friends had to betray all of the others by telling the story, again destroying the fabric of the original tale. So which is it, shitty writers? Is this a sequel, or fucking fan service?
This book was an abomination of bad writing, unrealistic characters, and forced plot devices.
Stoker and Holt decided that they wanted to write a sequel to Dracula in keeping with the spirit of the original. Unfortunately, the only things they kept from the original were the character names and the aggravating sexism. The things they changed included the entire plot, the behaviors of all of the characters, the time period in which the story took place, and the villain himself, not to mention their blatant disregard for small detail (England does not let out for school in the summers like the US does, making Mina's whining about the beginnings of her friendship with Lucy both annoying and ignorant) and basic psychology.
This book takes the characters from the first book and tries to tell their tale 25 years later by adding in Mina and Jonathan's idiotic son (honestly, I've met newborn kittens capable of more logic than this character), Jack the Ripper, Elizabeth Bathory, the Titanic, and a bunch of bumbling cops. They changed Mina and Jonathan's loving relationship, a major point of the original, into an abusive relationship entirely defined by the fact that she slept with and still loves Dracula, despite her clear hatred of him in the original. I would find this less distasteful if there weren't a thirty page summary at the end of the book where Stoker and Holt claim they wanted to write a sequel in keeping with the original. They couldn't have fallen farther from the mark. They turned every hero from Dracula into a villain, the villain into a hero, and introduced a new villain just because.
It was also impossible to handle the fact that Bram Stoker was a shitty character. He is a jerk or weak or both every time he appears, and his inclusion means that one of the original group of friends had to betray all of the others by telling the story, again destroying the fabric of the original tale. So which is it, shitty writers? Is this a sequel, or fucking fan service?
This book was an abomination of bad writing, unrealistic characters, and forced plot devices.