Rating: 
Summary: Realm-blending brilliance
Review: What if, on that fateful night in the 1880s, Van Helsing and company had failed to slay the bloodthirsty Count Dracula? What if he escaped and began spreading vampirism as a plague across the world? This is the germ of Newman's brilliant "Anno Dracula" series, which blends not only Bram Stoker's work, but also the work of H.G. Welles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Fleming, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Joss Whedon and even a dash of Charles Schulz (if you look closely enough) in a generational epic that tells the tale of this new, Nosferatu-infected universe. This first book in the series focuses on the years following Bram Stoker's tale, as the vampires have risen to prominence but have not yet been touched by the 20th century. The whole thing is blended seamlessly with events both real and fictional, including the Jack the Ripper case, and the whole package comes together quite nicely.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoy Newman's unique style.
Review: When an author bases a large part of his story on characters 'borrowed' from someone else, it's usually a bad sign. Nine times out of ten it means the author couldn't create something original and so resorted to piggy-backing on the success of a better writer. Fortunately, Kim Newman is an exception to this rule. He works with other people's characters because it's something he does very well. The 'celebrity cameos' come across as real people, true to their original authors, and he resists the temptation to overuse them - several of the most famous remain in the shadows, never actually named in the novel. His "what-if" treatment of a world where vampirism is no secret is also convincing and thoroughly researched; bloodsucking and the machinations of Victorian England make for a weird and wonderful combination. What happens to society when the leading players no longer die to make room for a new generation? How do the 'warm' deal with vampiric friends and colleagues? As other reviewers have noted, Newman's main weakness is in his endings. The story starts well, gets even better as it builds and builds... and then suddenly it's as if he had to finish it before he hit the back cover. On a second reading the ending seems a little less abrupt, but a less hurried tying-up of ends would still have been appreciated. That's a minor criticism, though, of what's otherwise a very good book. If you haven't read any of Kim Newman's work before, this is a good place to start; the good news is that the sequels are just as good as the original.
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