This
review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained
therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to
copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions.
Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted
Permission
Title:
The Dracula Tape
Series: The Dracula Files
#1
Author: Fred Saberhagen
Publish:
1975
Rating:
3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages:
186
Words: 76K
When
I was looking around for another series to add to my tbr, I ran
across these and didn’t really pay attention to the author. I
probably should have, as I haven’t had the best luck with
Saberhagen for the most part. However, it has been over 8 years since
I last read a book by Saberhagen, so when I realized this series was
by him, I figured I’d give him another chance.
Back
in ‘14 I called his Berserker book dry and pedantic and
“workmanlike” (and not in the good way). This was very much in
the same vein. What saved it from an ignominious 2star rating and
series abandonment was reading about Dracula try to justify
everything that took place as chronicled in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
He’s an unreliable narrator and what’s more, he’s a big fat
whiny loser. It was hilarious. I don’t know if Saberhagen intended
things to turn out that way, but my goodness, watching Dracula
perform mental contortions of unfathomable proportions to justify
himself was better than going to the circus.
For
this book to work, you really need to have read Dracula, not
just know the basic premise but have read it and be familiar with it.
Which leads to the biggest drawback, for me, in regards to this book.
I knew, roughly, what was going to happen and was bored. Dracula’s
re-writing of the events aren’t different enough to make this book
stand out as something truly new. Kind of like watching an actor’s
commentary track on a movie. Sure, it is a little different and you
get a slightly different view, but it is not a different movie. Same
with this book, and since it wasn’t in epistolary format, it
automatically wasn’t nearly as good as the original.
With
all of this complaining, I’m still giving this 3stars. Dracula is a
great story and even Saberhagen couldn’t cover that up. I’m
really hoping that the next book is more original though, or I’ll
have to dnf the series.
★★★☆☆
From
Fandom.com
The
Dracula Tape is a novel by Fred Saberhagen where Dracula tells his
version of the events in the Dracula novel.
Dracula
tries to paint himself in a better light and while some of his claims
ring true (like the issue of blood type and the blood transfusions
Lucy Westenra received) others (such as what happened on the Demeter)
have an unreliable narrator quality about them.
According
to this novel the final events of Dracula took place in early
November 1891.
Per
this novel the fates of the other characters are:
Jonathan
Harker - dies of apoplexy in 1938 while raging at Neville
Chamberlain.
Mina
Harker - dies of old age in 1967; rises as a vampire her youth
restored in the "present" day
Lucy
Harker (Mina's daughter) - still alive
Quincey
Harker (Mina's son) - killed in the Battle of the Somme, 1916
