Topic: Dracula: The Un-Dead (The "Official" Sequel)

[James Belmont]

What's even more infuriating to me is the Afterward. Read the whole book and then read the authors talking about the book, and two glaring contradictions are made:

1. They wanted to wipe clean all the years of revision and retcon that have occurred thanks to countless other books and movies that both added and subtracted from Dracula as Bram Stoker wrote it.

2. They wanted to incorporate all the revisionist retconned stuff that occurred so that people who are only familiar with Dracula thanks to those countless other books and movies won't be lost and confused.

Just goes to show how stupid and transparent the book really is. It's no attempt at honoring Bram Stoker, it's a cash-grab, plain and simple. The audacity to pass off a lame cash-grab as an official sequel is just...blasphemous. I don't care if one of the authors is a Stoker, it's a travesty.

The one part that ticks me off the most about it is that they had the audacity to suggest that the original novel, as Bram Stoker wrote it, was wrong. That Bram was wrong, and that the novel as he wrote it isn't what really happened. I don't mind liberties being taken sometimes, but this meta-fictional dump they take on Bram Stoker is incredibly disrespectful. That's a huge, huge pet peeve of mine in any Dracula fiction, and I can't stand it that something calling itself an official sequel would do that.

[Sumac]

That Bram was wrong, and that the novel as he wrote it isn't what really happened.

That's rather stupid thing to say on their side.
Smells of disrespect to the original work and its creator. "We know better what author wanted to say" - sound like some "deepdiving" fans, however in this case it's a simple attempt to justify a cash-in.

I haven't read Dracula (yet) and I haven't read that novel (and I don't have such desire), but such works by descendants of the famous writers, that try to pass their works as "official sequels" are bordering on disgusting. It is obvious that they doing it not because of the respect, but because they want to make easy money on the famous stories.

[Inccubus]

I've been tempted to pick up Anno Dracula, hearing great things about it, especially since there's a reprint of it. I take it you would whole heartedly recommend it?

Yes. I thought it was pretty damn good.

[James Belmont]

I've been tempted to pick up Anno Dracula, hearing great things about it, especially since there's a reprint of it. I take it you would whole heartedly recommend it?

Definitely check it out. While it is rooted in a "what if?" alternate ending to Bram's novel, it's not disrespectful at all. If Dracula: The Un-Dead was a failed attempt to simultaneously pay tribute to Bram Stoker's original novel AND acknowledge the history of vampire film and literature since then, Anno Dracula can really be considered a successful attempt at the same sort of thing. It doesn't piss on Bram's story, it acknowledges and accepts whatever changes it does make as just that, and it manages to incorporate the literary and cinematic mythology of the vampire across many different stories in a very clever way. Characters from all over film and literature, and especially vampire film and literature, are borrowed and used in very cool ways. Name any famous vampire character and there's a good chance he or she makes an appearance or is referenced in some form, from Blacula to Count Orlock to the Count from Sesame Street.

But the shadow of Count Dracula himself looms over all of it, even if he doesn't take center stage.

[SiFi270]

What really bothers me about the "Bram Stoker is WROG" dealie is that the idea is first fully introduced when Dracula himself reads the novel, then proceeds to chew out Bram for all the 'inaccuracies', and then kills him.

I'm sure Dacre Stoker didn't actually do much and was only said to be the main author for publicity, but if he was okay with this scene, then that's just cruel.

[Fofa]

I remember reading somewhere (can't remember where though) that Ian Holt was the actual writer of the pair. Dacre Stoker was a track-and-field coach.