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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