Dracula: The Modern Prometheus

by Rafael Chandler, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Bram Stoker

A monstrous woman flees across Arctic sea ice, pursued by an implacable nemesis. Three shadowless brothers prowl through wolf-haunted forests in search of fresh victims. And in a subterranean laboratory, an undead Countess conducts a gruesome experiment...Mina Harker’s journey to Transylvania is supposed to advance her career, but instead, it plunges her into a war between an ageless evil and a hideous new form of life. As the streets of London run red with blood, Harker takes up the wooden stake, crucifix, and Kukri knife against her nightmarish foes. But when one hunts monsters, a terrible price must be paid. In this gender-flipped mashup of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus," storylines and characters are combined in unexpected ways, and familiar horrors are transformed into new nightmares.

Genres: Horror

278 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 5, 2015

About the author

Rafael Chandler writes novels (The Astounding Antagonists, Hexcommunicated), video games (SOCOM 4, Rainbow Six: Lockdown), and tabletop role-playing games (ViewScream, Pandemonio). He's a metalhead, kaijuphile, gamer, and gorehound.

Reviews

[Lucy Banks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

What a peculiar idea... but oddly engaging nonetheless!

As someone who reads a lot of gothic horror, I was naturally intrigued by the concept of this book. A mash-up of the two behemoths of Gothic literature, you say? My interest was piqued, and so I commenced reading.

It's about the Countess Dracula (yes, you read that correctly), who invites Mina Harker to her castle in Transylvania. She's got a dastardly plan to move to the UK, and Mina is just the solicitor to help her achieve it. Meanwhile, back in Blighty, Mina's friend Lucy is choosing her husband from Arthur, Dr Seward and Quincy; that is, until a certain vampire takes a shine to her neck. Cue the next bride of the undead, who duly has to be slain to stop her evil doings.

Sound familiar? Yes, that's because until this point, the story basically is Dracula, with whole sections being virtually identical. Strange...

Anyway, here's where the mash-up commences. Countess Dracula wants to breathe life into her old sister Elizabeth, so she starts messing with nature, creating a monstrous creature through the power of electricity. This unholy bride horrifies her so much that she flees, leaving the monster to wreak havoc in her stead. As for the rest, well... I won't spoil the ending, but needless to say, the clues are already there in the original texts.

Okay. Deep breath. So what was good about this? Well, let's face it, the original texts lend themselves to cracking storytelling, and the author's approach felt vibrant and passionate. I can always sense a fellow Gothic horror fan from a mile off. Initially, the mash-up didn't work for me at all, but once the monster was created, it suddenly fell into place, and I found myself reading with a lot more urgency. Yes, I admit it, I was gripped!

However, I felt that as a whole, it was too rooted in the originals. There were also moments where I questioned the author's decisions. For example, turning Dracula into a woman didn't really add much; it didn't twist anything on its head at all, and it certainly didn't feel like a feminist statement. Ditto erasing Jonathan Harker and getting Mina to fill his boots (though I did like her character).

Overall though, an entertaining read. And I LOVE that front cover.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, finally I’ve tired one of these genre mash up stories. I must admit to be somewhat skeptical of the concept, taking two classic works of fiction and squishing them together in an attempt to produce something new. Or newish technically. Or just different. But then again popular entertainment never met an idea they didn’t wish to bastardize, sequelize, remake, revisit or just mess with, so here we are. And reading this one was also sort of inspired by the somewhat disappointing new Frankenstein tv show on Netflix. Turns out this book was much easier to get into than the show. The author squished Dracula and Frankenstein together with a distinctly feminist angle, so that all the main protagonists are female. Mina, the intrepid slayer, Countess Dracula and Eve, the creature. Countess Dracula is obsessed with bringing back to life her dear dead sister Elizabeth, so she turns to modern science of reanimating corpses by the means of galvanism and electricity. Dracula is still a vampire too, she’s just a regular Jill of all Trades, a versatile monstress. So you know the stories, you know just how they’ll play out, but it’s still pretty fun. And what a pleasant surprise this book turned out to be. The language was modernized just enough so that the story wasn’t dragged down by the antiquated narration, although the book does maintain a good amount of it for authenticity. The writing was uniformly good, no idea how creating these sorts of stories works exactly, obviously a good amount of the text was borrowed and the rest heavily inspired, but some work must have gone into remixing it all. Still not sure if I’m sold on the value of mash ups, but if it gets readers excited about classics, that’s something. Maybe it isn’t meant to have an inherent value, maybe it’s just pure entertainment. Either way I liked it, it was a very enjoyable spin on the old prototypes, not sure how one might discuss originality with these sorts of things, but it is a different perspective with a gender switch up. Enjoyable quick read. Thanks Netgalley.

[David Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dracula: The Modern Prometheus is a retelling of both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stroker's Dracula with a few new twists by Rafael Chandler. I'm not going to spend time describing the story here because if you've read Frankenstein and Dracula you already know it. The reason you would want to get this book is to find out how the author put an original spin on these two literary classics.

I got this book off of Netgalley, what drew me to it was seeing that it was a combination of two horror classics that I love. I also thought it was interesting that the author put the names of the original writers on his book followed by his own. When you first start reading this book it's obvious that Rafael Chandler wrote it as a labor of love and  he has great affection for the source material along with the time period both books were written in. The language used, the way the characters are presented and the way the book is written makes it feel like the book was written in the 1800's.

The best part about this book was that it reminded me how much I love the source material and I loved seeing the changes to both that Rafael made. The worst part of the book is that some parts are too close to the source material. There were points that I felt bored reading it because I felt like I've heard it before and knew what was coming. A lot of the dialogue between the characters could have been cut and more time should have been spent on Dracula and the monster.

All in all though if you love these two classics then Rafael Chandler's book is something you are going to want to read. I enjoyed the fact that Harker, The Monster and Dracula were all female. I also liked the changes Rafeal made to the material and how he blended both stories.  The book may have benefited a little by having the author put more of an original spin on it but there was enough of his own voice here to keep me reading. When I finished this book I felt the need to go reread Dracula and Frankenstein and look for an original work by Rafael Chandler.

[Vakaris the Nosferatu · Rating 3 out of 5]

all reviews in one place:
night mode reading ;
skaitom nakties rezimu

About the Book: Mina Harker had no clue what nightmare her life will become when she ventured out into Transylvanian mountains, to visit her firm’s client, Countess Dracula in her secluded castle. An older, eccentric, scientist greeted her into her home that soon became Mina’s prison. But true dread for her life miss Harker only felt upon finding Dracula’s laboratory where she seemingly tried to raise the dead. Driven by fear Mina not so much escaped as was released, but nightmare didn’t end there. For countess was growing short on scientific material in her homeland, and discovered she could find more in that of Mina’s…

My Opinion: After two gender swaps, one role swap, and a whole load of very dull retelling of too well known tales, we got some good shiny pearls. Dracula’s Monster Eve beautifully evolved before our very eyes, bickering with Dracula like one would: from stages of a child versus motherly figure who wasn’t very motherly, then from a stage of a rebellious teenager. Key difference were the actual fights, for Dracula, as often noted, was indeed a fierce warrior, and stood her ground where mortals fell, killing those virtuous vampire hunters left and right. The whole fight against Dracula, betrayals, crossings and double-crossings were written very well too.

So the biggest flaw in this whole book was the need to base such thick portion of it on a tale we all already heard. If author found a way to do so without stepping into old footprints, the book would’ve been a masterpiece. Which leads me to a conclusion that author has much more to show us, and it might be worth keeping an eye out. This book gets a 3 out of 5, yet I still would consider it one of the better ones out there.

[Dev · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley

So I finally read Frankenstein for the first time last year and I thought it was okay. Dracula I read ...sometime in high school and it was honestly until a few years ago the longest most absolutely boring book I had ever read. I love vampires but I haaate the original Dracula book. Actually I ended up giving this book more stars than I gave to either of the originals, but I also had a lot more fun reading it.

This book is a kind of mash-up of Frankenstein and Dracula with most of the main characters gender-swapped. Jonathan is nowhere to be found and instead Mina is the solicitor that goes to meet Dracula, who is also a woman. "Frankenstein's" monster is also a woman [named Eve] and was made by Dracula instead, which is just such a great idea I can't believe no one has come up with it before. It also features several other characters from both of the novels - Seward, Renfield, Justine, that ship captain dude, Van Helsing, etc and all of these characters are still men.

It was a really fun read because - in my opinion - the author managed to take all the most interesting and relevant parts from both novels and edit them together into something new. There are a lot of passages that I recognized as being lifted straight from the source material, but there is also a lot of new stuff as well so you definitely won't be bored. Sometimes the styles don't match up perfectly - these books were published almost 80 years apart, that would be like mashing up something this year with something written in 1938 - but overall it's a really fun story and I'd definitely recommend it for classic horror fans or fans of retellings.

[Kevin Cannon (Monty's Book Reviews) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read Bram Stoker's Dracula but not Mary Shelley's Frankenstein so was interested in how this 'mash-up' would deal with the different stories.

The gender reversals on the main characters gave the narrative a new perspective and this is an easier read than the originals.

This is well worth a read whether you have read the originals or not and might even whet your appetite for the source material

If you've ever been curious about Dracula or Frankenstein but didn't feel up to reading the gothic novels then this will give you all you need to know to blag your way.

[Rita Wilbur · Rating 2 out of 5]

The thing is, anyone who reads this book has probably already read the original Dracula and Frankenstein. So why rehash most of the plot from those books? Oh no! What will Van Helsing discover about Lucy’s mysterious illness?!?! Duh - we already know! This books does better when it explores something original, some genuine twist on the source material. But I feel like making Dracula and Harker female was kind of a missed opportunity. I will say this, though: the author does a much better job capturing the language of classic gothics than most people do.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked how this novel managed to blend some of the most famous horror novels and still managed to find a new and fresh angle to explore.

I really enjoyed reading the original Dracula (I enjoyed Frankenstein far less) and loved the author's fresh take on the characters, especially its re-writing of Mina.

The monsters were interesting, I liked the conflict between Eva and her creator, and would have loved to see more.

[Fangs for the Fantasy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mina Harker, newly qualified solicitor, was just going to Transylvania to aid in the transfer of property – the Countess is certainly a little unusual but she is also educated and worldly and she certainly appreciates that

Until it becomes clear she’s stumbled onto something very unworldly, one she barely escapes – but when that threat follows her to London she gathers her fellows and is determined to fight

Even while the Countess’s grizzly experiments rise from the grave with her own desperate purpose.



This book has that very elaborate writing that is quite common with a lot of books set in the Victorian era. This does a lot to convey a greater sense of time and place – which did work very well to create that sense of place that these books needed. But it does make for a book that is quite long winded – it does slow the plot down.

This slow speed is a particular problem because, certainly in the beginning, we kind of know what the story is going to be like. Yes, bits have been changed and the book combines both Dracula and Frankenstein. We all know when Mina Harker arrives at Countess Dracula’s castle roughly how this plot is going to play out. Elaborate and beautiful language may be good for the setting – but we know this setting – and it may set the tone but it makes the book very slow to start and get past the basic plot lines we don’t already recognise.

Once we do get past that beginning it develops excellently, weaving the two stories together into a coherent whole. The Countess and her drive to bring back her beloved sister resorts to any means she can – both mystical and “scientific” – regardless of the cost and with her obsessive focus and brilliant intellect, leading to both vampirism and the monster being created.


How the heroes came together to oppose her was decently done, though I do think it was convenient that the poor, discarded Lucy had 3 separate fiances ready to recruit for the cause and that two of them were so well placed to be useful.

Still the group worked really well together – extremely well. And they fought the Countess with dual not so much of might and magic but cunning and traps and resources trying to push each other into a trap without facing the strengths either had (the Countess’s mystical might and all the religious defences the Van Helsing’s group could bring together in response).


Read More

[C.C. Campaign · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Disclaimer: I received an ARC copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not effect my opinion nor review in any way.*

I've read various classic mashups (i.e. Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Little Vampire Women, etc.) and each has their own flair to our beloved classics. This one, though, combines both Dracula and Frankenstein while gender swapping the characters. Lady Dracula is seeking out Mina in order to resurrect her sister Elizabeth through the reanimation of corpses.

I will not spoil all the details, but this mashup stands on its own among the rest of it's horror mashup brothers and sisters. I was skeptical at first, despite the description since it is Dracula and Frankenstein after all. Combining these two is quite a stretch but Rafael pulled it off quite well.

Definitely would recommend this if you are a fan of literary classic mashups.