Perry Lake

This original retelling of the Dracula story unites the most legendary vampire with numerous other characters from historical vampire or gothic lore. Carmilla, the Countess Bathory, Varney the Vampire, Dr. Faust, Frankenstein - they all make their appearance in this collection of short episodes.

However, this soon lost its appeal, and the story seemed like a long listing of names, dates and places, like in a competition to name the most. There were too many characters mentioned which did not really help the storyline along, and too many repetitions in what was going on. Somewhere along the way, I did not care anymore who was turned next and became a (temporary) companion to Dracula's life.

This book was neither a true short story collection nor a fully elaborated novel.
There were too many sidetracks which confused the otherwise rushed plot. I would have preferred a clearer separation and reduction into only a handful of chapters/short stories, each concentrating in more detail on one of the protagonists (Carmilla, Bathory, ...). As for a full-length novel, instead of piling up new vampires, victims and scenarios, the author should have kept a manageable amount of characters and given each more time and space to gain depth.

I myself also had the problem that there was no main character to follow - I don't necessarily need someone I can identify or sympathize with, but it is nice to have some constants along the way. However, I didn't care much about any of them, including the count himself.

While I recognize the potential behind the idea of "what if Dracula and Carmilla and Bathory (...) would have crossed paths", the realization of such a big challenge is not an easy task at all. Unfortunately, this book didn't work out for me as expected.

(I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review)… (mais)