RogerBW's Blog

1990 fantasy, sixth in Saberhagen's loose Dracula series. Dracula, now known as Matthew Maule and living in Chicago, loses consciousness after an evening with family, and the guests in his high-rise flat find themselves under siege.

We're back in the horror territory that this series most recently visited in Thorn. Like that book, we get an historical story interleaved with the modern one; which, alas, just shows how much less interesting the modern setting can be. Oh, look, another vampire has a grudge against Dracula, and gets some early successes but is beaten in the end by him and his allies. Oh, look, the heroine gets raped, but nobody seems to mind, including her.

Meanwhile in the historical story we have Dracula betrayed and murdered, his awakening as a vampire, his attempts at revenge on his killers, and his interactions with the Borgias at the height of their power. (Also it sets up the grudge-holding vampire for the modern day.) This is all much more fun, and I'd have happily read a full novel set here without the modern parts.

The book is sloppy, though. There's a particular agent which, added to a human's system, will turn their blood into a sleeping potion for vampires without permanently damaging the human; fair enough. Dracula feeds on someone and is knocked out by it; fair enough. But then it turns out that he met it hundreds of years ago, several times, and became familiar enough with it that he can instantly recognise it… and yet he still fell for the same trick again. The main villain is both an expert plotter considering all the ramifications of his actions and a casual killer for no reason. I'm sure one could justify round this, but the book doesn't.

Well, I'm not really a fan of nastiness for its own sake, and I don't really enjoy this kind of horror even if it's done well. But I find myself unable to feel positively about this one; which is a shame, because the historical side was great fun.