Kim Newman/Anno Dracula

Kim Newman is an English author who writes very unusual mashups of historical and public domain characters. His Anno Dracula series (set after an alternate ending to Bram Stoker's Dracula where the vampire wins and takes over the country) has just recently started to be published in the America, and I'm loving it so far.

I've read Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron, and The Hound's of D'Urbervilles (a collection of stories focusing on Professor Moriarty and Colonel "Basher" Moran). All of them are wonderful.

So, are there any other Kim Newman fans about? We do have an Anno Dracula page, but it's rather bare bones at the moment.

Finally someone who enjoys Kim Newman books. I enjoyed his Warhammer Geneive Vampire novels when he was Jack Yeovil and since then I have hunted down all his works. Just read Blood Red Baron and loved the new short story he added in the end. Its sort of a tongue-in-cheek Take That at Twilight phenomenon.

Yeah, Vampire Romance was great. It was also pretty much the only time I can recall ever seeing a character use total Genre Blindness to their advantage. And Mouse was a really interesting character. Kind of weird to see a character who was so blatantly anime-inspired in a 1920's setting, but somehow she fit. Lydia could have been written in an absolutely infuriating way but somehow he managed to make her endearing instead. My only complaint about the story was that it seemed like Genevieve didn't really need to be there at all. In her half of the story, Edwin did everything important. But Genevieve is awesome so I'm glad she was there anyway.

I haven't read any of his Warhammer stuff (not a fan of that setting, personally) but I'm definitely looking forward to reading more from him. Right now, only the first two Anno Dracula books and Professor Moriarty are out over here.

Totally agree, Mouse was adorable and became a {{Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass}} in the end. I mean she was so unassuming that in the end the main cast had a WTF moment when they realized she had saved the day. The {{Chekhov's Skill}} with the Kings of England sure did help, eh? Would love to read a spin-off series with her and the Japanese Schoolgirl character (I wonder where did Newman acquire that from?).

Yeah, Geneive was sorta underwhelming in this one. If I recalled, she supposedly slept through much of the early 20th Century, away from the wars.

edited 5th Jun '12 12:34:32 PM by Exterminatus

I sort of understand Genevieve. I mean, her main motivation is just that she wants to have a good life and not harm anyone. She's an admirable person, and sort of serves as the Vampire moral compass for the series, but this does cause her to be sort of difficult to involve in the plot from the writer's point of view.

I read in an interview (cause I really was annoyed that Vampire Romance didn't come with annotations) that Mouse was designed as a mash-up of multiple anime vampire girls, inspired by the likes of Blood:The Last Vampire and Dance in the Vampire Bund. Which sort of surprised me that Kim Newman apparently knows a bit about anime.

BTW, if you want to do markups, use [[ ]] instead of the {{ }}.

edited 5th Jun '12 11:03:48 AM by Bluespade

For some unfathomable reason the {{}} and {{}} doesn't work for me...

I would love a sort of a prequel short about Genevieve's back story. But I understand the appeal of mystery and speculation surrounding a certain character. I think what Newman wanted in Vampire Romance was the relationship between Carmilla and Genevieve, a slice in the 600 years of her life.

I was annoyed as well, I dearly wanted to find where Newman didn't reference them :/

Where did you hear that? Linky please

Also, here's a very interesting article by Newman and his thoughts on modern Vampire stories. [1]

EDIT: Found it! [2]

edited 5th Jun '12 12:38:00 PM by Exterminatus

Thanks for the link, that was an interesting article. I've felt for the last few years that vampires are really, really overdone and I'm not really interested in them at all, so I was quite surprised when I turned out to enjoy this series. But the interview there really shows why, Kim Newman gets vampires, he doesn't fall into all the same old traps so many others do.

I always loved vampires in fiction, but never really gotten used to reading/watching cheap Gothic stuff because of how horrible it is in recent adaptations. Then I read Genevieve. Newman makes vampires cool and makes it interesting because it doesn't centralizes around vampires but its impact on our world. Throw in excellent writing and pop cultural references of monolithic proportions, I think he is one of the most underrated author out there.

Oh boy, I'm gushing like a fanboy....

You should seriously read his Warhammer books. you don't need to be a fan to appreciate it as plenty of my non-fan friends read it and loved it.

Well, I have sort of an aversion to the Warhammer setting, but I'm willing to give it a try. I'll have to see if they're available here, his other books just started getting released here even though they've been published for years.

Well it seems only just recently they republished all his books after like a decade of inactivity. I think its because of the publishers trying to capitalize on the vampire craze. Looks like the Twilight (a pox on its name) sensation actually turned out for the better.

For his Warhammer books, they are all released in one single volume: [1]

Can't wait for Cha cha Cha to be released this year and the overdue Johnny Alucard.

Somebody mentioned wanting annotations for "Vampire Romance", and, well... The author triumphs when the fictionally literate do nothing.

• The whole thing is based on Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries. It's probably no coincidence that Lydia's aunt is named Agatha.
• Lydia's chinless Cousin Bertie must be Bertie Wooster, from Wodehouse's works.
• Lydia's favorite movie, The Count is The Sheik WITH VAMPIRES.
• The Cult of Saamri that Beauregard apparently helped curb could be from Hindi film Purana Mandir.
• Roderick Spode is the lovable British fascism advocate from the works of P.G. Wodehouse.

• Kleopatra as a vampire could be from several works, can't pinpoint it.
• Professor Bey is Imhotep's alias from the Mummy movies.
• Kah Pai Mei is from Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires.
• Zaleska is from Dracula's Daughter. Ilona Harczy is from Daughters of Darkness.
• I get the feeling that all of Hodge's aliases have some fictional basis but I can't find them.
• Geneviève mentions vampires who can grow gills... anyone know it?
• The "gods" of Mildew Mansion include Pazuzu (The Exorcist); Shuma-Gorath (Marvel Comics); some of Lovecraft's old standards and Azal from Third Doctor serial The Daemons.

Any other anyone saw that I missed?

Hi - Stumbled across this conversation while searching for references in Vampire Romance. Like you, HWMNBU I was frustrated not to find a nice list, so great to find yours - thanks.

Have a few more: Aunt Agatha - is Bertie Wooster's Aunt, the battle axe who keeps threatening to deprive him of his allowance to a T. (So Lydia's chinless cousin is defo Bertie Wooster himself). Although it might be a convenient nod to Christie as well.

Frightful Fritton of Lydia's bum-numbing Double Geog is the headmistress of the glorious St Trinians.

Liam Karnstein's eye with its red wiggly line & his powerful mesmer might be a nod to Lelouch from the anime Code Geass.

The alias Kleopatra uses - Akasha Kemet - is Ann Rice's Queen of the Damned, but I would guess Newman's Egyptian vampiress is a pastiche of multiple Kleopatras.

There's a bolywood film called Saamri, & the title character rises from the dead to kill his enemies. Might be that?

Hodge - I drew a blank too, but I vaguely remembered a character who tried to survive hanging by swallowing a steel tube in Dickens? or Dumas? Something set in that period. There was a real life Aussie, Joseph Samuel, who survived three attempts to hang him & was pardoned. A man surviving hanging is a trope that's been used in lots of Westerns & books, but none of the examples I found matched Hodge.

Hope that added something.

edited 16th Jul '14 7:16:35 AM by Ravena

I like Kim Newman's writing quite a bit, but it's generally not very scary at all. I am aware that it's not necessarily supposed to be, but I feel like billing him as a horror writer per se is a bit insincere. He's more a comic fantasist in the vein of Terry Pratchett, but with a dark streak and a fondness for old pulp horror tropes.

Which isn't to say that he is incapable of writing effective horror. He just generally doesn't.

I've only read Anno Dracula but I quite liked it. Love playing "spot the reference." Even von Krolock got a mention.

Tracked down another one for Kleopatra. Appearing on stage as 'Queen Katrina' and Genevieve thinking she's just a'kooch dancer' from Spanish Town Jamaica?

That's the hometown of Grace Jones, who played an Egyptian vampire called Katrina in Vamp.

Eta: Matey the butler, from JM Barrie's play Dear Brutus I think.

edited 18th Jul '14 2:57:27 PM by Ravena

I just got into this series a little while ago, so it's great to find a discussion thread on it. I loved the first book, and its exploration of a world where vampirism has become, well, mainstream. The "spot the reference" aspect was pretty fun as well, especially Lord Ruthven and his obscenely long list of vampire elders.

I'm working on The Bloody Red Baron at the moment, but I think it's already outdone the first in a couple of respects. The references are more insane. I mean, Pinhead? Man-Bat? Dear Lord, I'm in heaven with this stuff.

Bloody Red Baron is cool and I like the innovations that were brought in because of vampires. War becoming a 24 hour deal, napalm being invented early, the fact that silver has become very rare outside of military uses. Sad that they killed off the Shadow though

edited 13th Jul '15 7:41:42 AM by tricksterson

Finished The Bloody Red Baron just now. Excellent, excellent book. Funnily enough, it took me a while to figure out that guy was The Shadow, but I guess that's what I get for only having seen the movie. Also, poor Bela Lugosi got offed as well. Admittedly, that was a rather clever twist.

Well, on to Vampire Romance now.

edited 15th Jul '15 2:09:32 PM by GrandmasterKiramidHead

They are sneaky about it. He's better known as Lamont Cranston but Allard was his real name, Cranston was just an alias. Actually is was hinted in the books that even Allard was an alias for another, unrevealed identity.

Thanks, that clears up a lot. The hat and the scarf did make it a little obvious, now that I think of it.

Anyway, Vampire Romance was a lot of fun. Winthrop did feel like a much different character, though, than he did in The Bloody Red Baron. I don't remember him being so... snarky.

I'm also pretty far along into Dracula Cha Cha Cha. I think it might be even more insane than the first two. And I have to say, I don't know whether I should be overly proud and hispter-y about knowing the Crimson Executioner before reading the book, or feel deeply embarrassed about having actually sat through The Bloody Pit of Horror.

The Argento references are rather nice, though.

Bluespade: well, as a warhammer fan and having read drachnelfs series, let said is.....weird, to said the least.

First a all, his books come with some early instalment weirdness(like genevive being fine and dandy with imperial nobility even when she is a vampire) bretonnia being a pre-revolution expy than arthu esque land that is now, but he manage to give it his own flavour that actually fit every well, the first one while dark, actually avoids many typical warhammer storylines(after all many of the things happen in a castle with the big bad defeat at first), the second one while having good stories(like the falcon, a serial killer) it dosent engage so well....

But the beast of velvet? dear god it was pure awsome, I really capture the dark spirit of warhammer better than anyone else, and in fact many of thing he put where sitll reference a times, even when everything else was change to hell and back.

Also....dear god, he love puting shout out, dosent it? I saw everything, from phantom of the opera to the three stooges

Finished off Dracula Cha Cha Cha earlier today. I honestly loved it, might even be my favorite of the series. Having watched a bunch of Argento films relatively recently helped enhance the experience quite a bit.

Now to see how I feel about Aquarius...

Well, I've finished the series as it now stands, just have to wait however long it takes for Newman to write Anno Dracula 5. Now as for my thoughts on the rest of the series:

"Aquarius": It was decent enough, but not my favorite story by a long shot. Maybe I'm just not that interested in the whole hippie thing, I dunno.

Johnny Alucard: While I liked the book a lot on the whole, it's nature as a series of linked stories made it something of a mixed bag for me. Some of the stories just weren't as good as others.

One complain I have for both of them is the lack of annotations. I still caught a great deal of the references, namely the insane group of vampire hunters in "Andy Warhol's Dracula," but annotations would have been nice.

Oh, I hear you about Johnny Alucard. I want to say it's brilliant because it's actually retelling Dracula in a story where Dracula is already a celebrity but I also feel like it didn't pay enough attention to its overall plot and lacked a good resolution. The reveal that the three vampire women in the story had become Charlie's Angels made me kick myself.

As long as we're on about pinpointing references, can anyone help me out with one from Dracula Cha Cha Cha that's been eluding me? In chapter 2 Charles goes into the various nicknames for Diogenes' Cabal- one of them is "Pavilion", a name apparently used by Cricketers. Anyone get it? I have no idea.

Also! Here's a more complete (not completely complete, though) list of the references posted on the Wold Newton website:

http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/AnnoDracula.htm

Newton does love going overboard with references, doesn't he? Anyone ever read his Tales from the Shadowmen story Angels of Music?