RogerBW's Blog

A Sharpness On the Neck, Fred Saberhagen 17 August 2024

1996 horror, ninth in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. Phil Radcliffe, on his honeymoon, finds himself and his new wife politely but weirdly kidnapped "for his own good". Who's responsible, and who wants to drink his blood—and why?

The basic pattern is the same as in several previous books in this series: some modern people are going to be introduced to the idea of vampires and will be reluctant to believe, Dracula is going to be effortlessly superior, and a foe out of his past will be defeated, all with flashbacks to a historical era and why that foe is a foe.

But it works really rather well here. Yes, we are back on the horror side, with lots of death and gore (the historical period is the Terror in Paris), but even though I'm not enthused by horror for its own sake Saberhagen manages to keep things interesting with characters who are trying to face, and survive, this terrible situation in which they find themselves.

And the old foe is Vlad Dracula's younger brother Radu, whom Vlad swore to his father not to kill. I don't believe Radu has been mentioned before in the series, certainly not as a vampire, but he's not a character who needs a lot of complicated backstory or development: he likes hurting and killing, and he's out to do down his big brother in any way possible.

And while I don't know that this was Saberhagen's intention, the point comes over very well that Radu is already a monster out of his time even in 1794, never mind 1996, and while he may effectively lead a small cult of scared followers he can't come near the mass madness of the Terror.

As usual the historical flashbacks are more interesting than the present day, but Saberhagen has realised this and let them make up the majority of the book, with only occasional jumps to the modern-day shenanigans. (Vlad has compiled a videotape to try to short-cut the tedious process of explanation, and some amusement is to be had from his own crew repeatedly telling the captive Phil "just watch the tape", like a cultist telling you to read the master's writings and then it'll all make sense.)

For me this series has had its high and low points, but this is one of the better books in it.

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Previous in series: Séance For a Vampire | Series: Dracula | Next in series: A Coldness In the Blood

  1. Posted by J Michael Cule at 01:06pm on 17 August 2024

    Radu is mentioned in THE HOLMES-DRACULA FILE as a possible explanation for the facial resemblence of the two titular characters.

  2. Posted by RogerBW at 10:08pm on 18 August 2024

    Thanks! Makes sense I suppose if that was before his vamping.

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