RogerBW's Blog

The Dracula Caper, Simon Hawke 09 August 2023

1988 SF, eighth of its series. People are being torn apart in Victorian London, or simply drained of blood. How will the Time Commandos solve the problem?

Well, it's very obviously a trap for them, which they mostly fall into. But others get involved too: Arthur Conan Doyle, H G Wells, Bram Stoker, and there's even a brief appearance by Oscar Wilde and Bosie.

There are many people, and many moving parts, to this plot, and much of the book is spent by people chasing each other around London and occasionally getting murdered. (Series villain Nikolai Drakov has engineered a vampire and a werewolf with infectious DNA elements, so some the victims get turned against their former friends.) One character is even introduced as "my favorite deus ex machina".

Hawke largely resists the urge to lecture, at least after the opening chapters, and it's pleasing in a book of this era to see the Chinese community painted as victims defending themselves rather than as sinister plotters.

We return to the idea used in The Nautilus Sanction that wiping the memories of creative people is unreliable; so Stoker gets his inspiration for Dracula, and Wells his Dr Moreau and time traveller and invisible man. I find this a little trite, not to mention raising the creative process to some kind of mystical event, but hey ho; it's done with some sympathy, at least.

While some of the moments are excellent, there's relatively little sense of progress overall.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: The Argonaut Affair | Series: Time Wars | Next in series: The Lilliput Legion

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 essen 2024 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1