Book Review: The Bloody Red Baronby Kim Newman This book is the startling sequel to the now classic Anno Dracula- the book that re-imagined Bram Stoker’s vampire tale with the premise that Dracula was not defeated by Van Helsing and his friends- but in fact triumphed and ceased control of the British Monarchy. This is thirty years later and it is now 1918. And we find that Dracula survived the bloody civil war that forced him off the British Throne and he has fled to Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany. Being Dracula however, he turned the Kaiser and all his Generals into vampires as well and made Germany a vampire nation. Further Dracula is now the Kaiser’s main commander (as Graf Von Dracula) over all his armies in Europe; and is planning to lead millions of German men- warms (as the living are now called) and vampires as well- soldiers all in a vast push across the no-man’s-land of the Western front in an military offensive called ‘der kaisersclacht’. The Great War in Europe however has till proved a stalemate for both the Germans and their enemies; mechanized modern warfare with massive bombs, great guns, merciless machine gun fire still slays millions (warms and vampires alike) in the slaughter of trench warfare. Only in the skies above the bloody ground battles is any headway made in the war; as bold pilots in fragile bi-planes engage in aerial warfare for the first time in human history. Thanks to its superior airplanes, Britain still rules the air. But Dracula has a vile plan to put an end to that. Utilizing an army of German scientists and his own foul blood- Dracula commands experimentation on the flying squadron of the famed baron Von Richthofen, Germany’s greatest flying ace. His plans are to change them horribly from mere men who fly in machines into monstrous vampiric beasts who FLY by themselves…. That is the basic background of the story, but it is complex one told from a variety of viewpoints. A few characters from the first novel (who struggled against and successfully usurped Dracula the last time); make an appearance: notably Charles Beauregard (a member of the secretive Diogenes club and one of England’s top spy masters), and Kate Reed ( a fiery haired Victorian female journalist turned vampire). New characters are also introduced such as Edwin Winthrop (a military attache of the Diogenes Club) and Edgar Allen Poe( who has become a vampire and serving under Dracula as a writer of German propaganda.) Introducing Poe as a vampire character is great fun in the book, and the author plays with it with great relish. Poe meets among other people Franz Kafka, Manfred von Richthofen, and even Hjalmar Poelzig (a sly nod tothe character from the 1934 Universal horror film The Black Cat, starring Boris Karloff & Bela Lugosi - supposedly adapted from the Poe story). The story is chockfull of other historical and fictional people of that period; some reimagined to fit in this alternate history of Dracula in World War One. For example, Mata Hari is a vampire spy- turned by Dracula himself. Flying Aces, politicians, and famous generals are now vampires serving either side in patriotic if blood drenched fury. Fictional characters pop up all over: Dr. Moreau (HG Wells) and Dr. Herbert West (HP Lovecraft) are portrayed as operating an allied field hospital for dying men and vampires (and of course are experimenting on the bodies). Biggles (WH Johns), Bertie Wooster (PG Wodehouse) and Kent Allard (the Shadow) serves in the allied Condor squadron that fights the Richtofen Vampire Circus. There are in fact so many historical and literary references that it becomes a game to guess each one; and that is part of the novel’s appeal.But the novel is more than a literary spoof; it is a taunt action filled historical adventure of the Great War. By the novel’s end, the specter of death and horror of that world war has taken a terrible toll on everyone’s lives- and no one- not even Dracula himself - escapes unscathed. As well written as this novel was, I am thrilled to learn that Mr. Newman has a whole series of Dracula historical novels –detailing the vampire prince’s plans to rule the world through the decades of the 20th century – and I can’t to read them all!
Check out this review and others here: http://editingeverything.com/category...Recently, I found my way to a blog and a post about the vampires in the supernatural and fantasy genre (I did comment on the post, but I cannot for the life of me find it again). The post questioned whether the vampire had to return to being a psychopath, a killer as the genre currently features more of the vampire bad boy in a romantic setting and everything the creature was has been lost.I agree that more often than not, the vampire as the romantic bad boy is more popular than anything else these days, but I don’t think that the vampire has to return to being a cold-blooded killer in order to rejuvenate the genre or rather the audience’s love for the creature. I think, and as much as I enjoy the settings authors come up with, scenarios and certain aspects of novels tend to be incredibly similar. This is one of the main reasons I enjoyed The Bloody Red Baron – the vampires are not the bad boy romantic heroes but Newman has made them part of normal society and created a world so different at the same time that a genre I had grown very tired of was suddenly interesting again.And, yes, I feel incredibly weird writing this about a book that was first published in 1995, because I was sure it was much newer than that.So, in a nutshell, after marrying Queen Victoria in the first Anno Dracula book Newman moves Dracula to World War I on the German side, and readers follow Edward Winthrop as he navigates the war and his need for vengeance on the Red Baron. The Red Baron gets plenty of page time as well, through Edgar Allan Poe, a vampire and his biographer. No, seriously and it works brilliantly.As well as fighting in the war on both sides, vampires tend to the wounded (their blood aids recuperation), are journalists writing about it, or happen to be PM of the UK, the Red Baron, or Mata Hari. Not a bad boy or psychopathic killer (and no, the Red Baron and his fliers don’t count – read it, and you’ll see what I mean) in sight, though vampires, like the human characters are not without their flaws. Newman has taken something readers are used to and familiar with and gave it a very simple vampire twist. He’s coupled this with incredible attention to detail in his writing (aerial dogfights in World War I fighters and the war down on the ground) and his research of World War I.Newman also doesn’t restrict himself to the usual characteristics of vampires – his are capable of being out during the day, among other things. They have their bloodlines, which each have their own characteristics and it widens out the scope of the book and the characters immensely.The next best bit? Is the mix of fictional and real world characters that include Churchill, Mycroft AND Sherlock Holmes (briefly), and Edgar Allen Poe. It’s captivating to see the world and how these characters navigate it in ways completely different to what we usually expect of them.The new edition of this novel also includes a long novella entitled Vampire Romance and featuring Genevieve, a vampire from the first Anno Dracula book, that doesn’t feature as much in the Red Baron. In addition there’s a film treatment of the book called Red Skies, and a wealth of annotations from the author.
What do You think about The Bloody Red Baron (1995)?
More a continuation of the alternate, vampire-ridden history established in Newman's 'Anno Dracula' than a sequel, this novel moves on thirty years, and plunges the reader into The Great War. With vampires and humans on both sides, there are brand new atrocities to perpetrate, particularly in the skies above No Man's Land. For all of of the richly sourced vampire mayhem, the war itself is startlingly familiar in how it's portrayed here, exactly as grimy and bleak as it should be, and Newman avoids the trap of turning the aerial hijinks into a boys own adventure parody. Where characters from the first novel pop up again, it's great to see them, but the new cast hold their own, and fold themselves into this evolving mythos. The book also contains the novella 'Vampire Romance', set shortly after the war and featuring Genevieve Dieudonne (a primary character in these books, missing from 'Baron' except via the occasional reference). It's an amusing shift in tone, setting up a nineteen twenties murder mystery in a country manor, and throwing a bunch of ancient predators in as suspects. Extremely good fun. Vampire novels are usually a hard sell for me, but the Anno Dracula series continues to be utterly refreshing.
—Richard Wright
After the events of Anno Dracula, Dracula has moved to Germany and is effectively running their Great War campaign. Although characters from the first book and indeed various parts of fiction and history do appear, this is a much more enclosed story. The main focus is on Edwin Winthrop, a member of the Diogenes Club instructed by Charles Beauregard, is sent to investigate the Red Baron. Meanwhile, the vampire Edgar Allan Poe has been employed as the biographer of the Red Baron himself and discovers that in this history the Baron is a shape-shifting vampire who grows his own wings. Caught up somewhere in the middle is vampire journalist Kate Reed, posing as an ambulance driver in order to pick up stories from the war. I thought the book worked really well on lots of levels. For one thing it's an effective sequel to Anno Dracula, and in many ways a superior book. It has a much more complete plot meaning any cameos involved actually fit tight to the plot and are not shoehorned in just for the sake of them. It also works well as a war novel, with a great fantasy element to it. Despite this being a fantasy alternate world inhabited by a mixture of vampires and 'warms', there is a very real sense of the First World War. I think it really captures the terror, destruction and pointlessness of the conflict. And the stuff with the Red Baron and is squad is brilliant fantasy. Also included in this is "Vampire Romance", a story from the same universe set in 1923. It sees the elder vampire Guinevere, accompanied by Winthrop, meet various other elder vampires in an attempt to elect a 'King of the Cats', a leader of the vampires. But also present is the mysterious villain the Crook, his identity a mystery. Meanwhile, fourteen-year old Lydia can't wait for the vampires to arrive so she can finally meet her true love and become a vampire herself. It's a great novella and feels a slightly different style once again, a sort of cross between Agatha Christie and PG Wodehouse, with lots of vampires thrown in. A very welcome edition to the book. A really enjoyable book which takes the Anno Dracula universe in a whole new direction.
—Dan
A ridiculously enjoyable book in a ridiculously enjoyable series. This is the sequel to Anno Dracula, which had Genevieve and Charles Beauregard chase Jack The Ripper through the fog-choked streets of Victorian London, as ruled by the Prince Regent, Dracula. Not to spoil it or anything, but at the end of the book revolution was kindled and Dracula ejected from Britain. Now he's in Germany, running the War for Kaiser Wilhelm. Warm and dead alike are chewed up in the muddy fields of France as the conflict stalls and drags for years, while in the skies above the nascent science of aerial warfare capture the public imagination. The deadly Baron Von Richtofen is Germany's greatest ace. Edwin Winthrop is assigned by the Diogenes Club to spy out the headquarters of Richtofen's Flying Circus, where dark deeds are afoot. Vampire reporter Kate Reed is driving an ambulance at the front and sniffing out stories. Exiled American writer Edgar Allan Poe is conscripted to write a very special biography. With Russia out of the war, millions of German troops are being brought to the western front for a Spring offensive that could end the war and see Dracula triumphant.The pages are crowded with literary characters, some of them vampires, some of them not, which adds a delightful level to the book, but there is a cleverly constructed, compelling story and in Kate and Edwin a pair of strong, likeable leads in dreadful peril. This is a new edition, and it includes a previously deleted chapter and a novella set in the 1920s, featuring Genevieve and Edwin in a messy effort to find a new king of the vampires. At 150 pages, it's a substantial chunk of story, and with the annotations and a film treatment for a Roger Corman film this is an attractive prospect even for fans who already have a copy. Still to come is Dracula Cha Cha Cha and then, finally, Johnny Alucard. That's a lot to look forward to.
—Nigel
