Renfield: Slave Of Dracula (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
I wish that Goodreads allowed half-star ratings, because I would have given it 4 and 1/2. It deserves more than 4, but just misses the 5-mark of "Oh my god, this is one of the best books ever."I have to hand it to Hambly, she certainly took on an enigmatic and difficult subject. In the original "Dracula," not much is said of Renfield, other than the fact that he eats insects and birds, that he tried to escape several times, and that he eventually tried to stop Dracula from doing something. Other than that, many holes are left in his story, his back story is never explained, and we are left assuming that he dies in the sanitarium. It's quite unnerving, also, in the original, that it is said that he explains several times to Dr. Seward why he does what he does, what with the eating of insects, but Bram Stoker never explains to us, the reader, and leaves no one in the dark about this except for us. You would figure WE'D be the most important part.It's good to finally have this explained, along with his back story. This book is written quite like any other story, with a defined plot, a beginning, an end, etc. Through this, it deviates very much so from the original form of storytelling, but allows us to find out many things: Why Renfield "consumes lives," how he came to the madhouse, why he went mad, why he escapes several times, why he tried to stop Dracula, and what happens after Dracula dashes his brains upon the cell floor. You would think that this last part would be the end of the book, but it actually falls in the middle, with Hambly taking plenty of liberty in creating the entire story of what Renfield (spoiler alert) does when he becomes a vampire himself. Honestly, given his preoccupation with "the blood [being] the life," it seems like it would have so naturally happened.There are many, many good things that Hambly has done with this book, aside from explaining the aforementioned unexplained from Bram Stoker's work. She does this explanation in a style of riveting storytelling, and so expertly weaves in and out of the original text that it seems hard to believe that the two stories were written over a hundred years apart. It seems actually far more likely that Hambly and Stoker were contemporaries and the labyrinth of unexplained events, dead ends, and plot holes that Stoker left were indeed meant for Hambly to fill in.Another thing that she does is, while the original text is very black and white, wherein we are supposed to view vampires as the ultimate do-no-good evils of the world, through her writing we CANNOT help but feel sympathy and, almost root for one of the vampire wives. Nomie becomes both a hero and an antihero at the same time. I have to admit that my heart was pounding during the passage in which Van Helsing is killing off the wives, one by one, in anticipation and hope for her survival alone.Speaking of Van Helsing, we see his dark secret brought to the forefront. (Spoiler alert): It is quite obvious through the small hints and allusions in the original text that Van Helsing has some sort of vampire envy. In "Renfield," we see just how deep this desire goes. From his blatant admissions of his fascination of what could be, and what it would be like to be a vampire, from the way he regards the changing Mina Harker, to his hesitation in killing Dracula's wives, finally culminating in the kiss the he and Nomie share. This passage is thought-provoking in particular, as given the explanation of why Nomie kissed him. Spoiler alert She alone of the wives survives.Once again, I WISH that I could have given this book 4 and a half stars. It doesn't get 5, because I can't say I'll be talking about this book still in five years, or will bring myself to read it again, but it kept my undivided attention, sucked me in, and kept me up well into the wee hours of the morning. READ THIS BOOK.
I stumbled across this book while browsing my local library. I'm a huge Dracula and all things related. So I REALLY wanted to like this book. About 20 pages in I found myself being forced to turn each page. Because I wanted to like it. But I just couldn't get in to it. The story was a little too redundant for someone so familiar with Bram Stoker's tale. Looking back, I suppose it could be considered as an introduction to those less familiar with the classical vampire story.I had almost lost hope for this book. It almost ended up in the abyss of books I've started, but never finished... then the story completely changed and focused on a side of Dracula's story that was never even imagined while reading the original story. Where Renfield was once the predictable lunatic that served little purpose but to show Dracula's hold on mortals, he transformed into a fully likable character with a vivid background explaining his motives for falling under Dracula's spell. There are several story twists that I did not see coming. At all! I don't like to toss spoilers out there, so trust me when I say that this book rapidly becomes a book that is hard to put down... as long as you can brave the first 100 pages!
What do You think about Renfield: Slave Of Dracula (2006)?
My husband and I have always loved Bram Stoker's Dracula and I was intrigued by the premise of Renfield's backstory, so I picked this up as a stocking stuffer for my husband. He read it and was enthusiastically positive about it so I read it, too, and enjoyed it very much. It's written in the style of the original Dracula, with correspondence, newspaper articles, etc., as the primary means of storytelling. Very true to the original feel and writing-style. Better than I'd hoped. I'll probably read it again sometime, but next time I'll refresh my memory by re-reading Dracula first.
—Kristi
Ok. Normally I wouldn't choose to read a book called "Renfield: Slave of Dracula". But I've been enjoying Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January series, so I know she can wright. And I am, or at least was, a Dracula geek. I've read many different takes on Dracula: retellings, sequels, prequels. This is yet another one, a retelling of Dracula from Renfield's point of view. It's ok, and manages to capture some of the melodrama of the original. But ultimately, Renfield is not a very likeable character and I couldn't really get on his side. This book is worth a read if you're a Dracula geek, but otherwise not something I would recommend.
—Kim
My first experience with Barbara Hambly was her book Planet of Twilight, which is not a highly-rated Star Wars book set ten years after Return of the Jedi. It’s a lackluster story notable for three things: having my favorite cover art for a Star Wars book, having a favorite minor character (Liegus Vorn) in a dull setting, and that dream sequence where Leia was the dark emperor, Luke was frozen in carbonite, and Han was dead by her own hand (parallel universe = mind blown).My second experience with Barbara Hambly was the first book in the “Callista Trilogy” co-written with Kevin J. Anderson. (Planet of Twilight was actually book 3.) Children of the Jedi is one of my least favorite Star Wars books — in fact, I like it less than the far worse book The Crystal Star, which should tell you something. It is mostly stupid and improbable, introduces the horrible character Callista, and, in a post-prequel world, has many continuity problems. But this book was so bad I concluded for years that “women can’t write scifi.”When I saw Renfield: Slave of Dracula, I decided I had been too hasty at age 13, and I would give Barbara Hambly the benefit of the doubt. After all, perhaps her real inability was when it came to Star Wars novels, and perhaps a “real” book would be much better.It wasn’t.In general, this book was plodding, tedious, and had nothing to offer. As a book meant to compliment Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it merely rehashed it from a different point of view. In fact, it was barely even from a different point of view. In fact, it seemed more than anything to be Barbara Hambly telling Dracula in her own words from memory a couple of years after reading it for the first time — a sort of amateur fanfiction. Quick perusal of negative reviews on Goodreads turns up a lot of descriptors like “very dry,” “hard to get in to,” “difficult to finish,” “rehash,” and “boring.” Although I can’t substantiate it, one reviewer states that portions of the novel are “directly” from Stoker’s manuscript.I even read this in direct conjunction with Dracula — in 2012, I read The Annotated Dracula, which I hated, and immediately followed it by this book, which I hated. (As for disappointment, I really thought Annotated Dracula would be cool and full of tidbits like the Annotated Alice, but instead it was the deranged thesis of a man who either genuinely believes or wants his audience to believe that he thinks Dracula was literally a documentary! He has paragraph after paragraph of “evidence” that Bram Stoker took it down by dictation from the vampire himself! *cuckoo*) But reading Annotated Dracula necessitated reading Dracula at the same time, which confirmed my love for the classic and my hate for all these pointless adulterations of it.Don’t waste your time with this “novel of Renfield” which really has nothing to do with anything. It promises a look into his peculiar little brain, but serves up a dummy summary of the original novel. You’d do better with Bram. The end.Review via Hundredaire Socialite.
—Megan
