Dominion (The Dracula Files #5) 3Stars

 

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: Dominion
Series: The Dracula Files #5
Author: Fred Saberhagen
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 242
Words: 91K
Publish: 1982

The more I read of this “series” the more I am convinced that Saberhagen wrote a whole bunch of standalone fantasy stories and then when he couldn’t sell them because they stunk so bad that no good editor would touch them, reworked them into a Dracula Files series by bookending each story with Dracula and tying it into that mythos. Editors love series, no matter how iffy they might be.

This time around Dracula, going by the name Talisman, is involved in Arthurian Legend and the Sword in the Stone. He has to stop a super bad evil badguy magician from stepping into our current time from the past, where the super bad evil badguy magician was about to be defeated by Arthur, Merlin and his forces.

Dracula only appears near the beginning and the end and plays almost no part. That is reserved for a Merlin who is a drunkard and willfully forgetting the past and some stage magician who is related to the events of the summoning of the super bad evil badguy magician. Stage Magician is just a dupe who we follow to see the events unfolding. I can’t even remember if he survives or not, that’s how much charisma and “presence” he had in the story.

These books are not a “super bad evil badbook magically delicious” way to spend your time, but they aren’t a very good way either. You’d be better served doing your laundry or going to work and earning money to pay off your mortgage. Or even just eating a bowl of Lucky Charms.

★★★☆☆

From the Publisher

A Chicago police detective investigates a series of bizarre murders and becomes involved with vampires, sorcerers and the deadly fight to gain control of a magical sword