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Anno Dracula #5
One Thousand Monsters
“There are no vampires in Japan. That is the position of the Emperor. The Emperor is wrong...”
Japan, 1899. A party of vampires – exiled from Britain by Prince Dracula – seeks refuge in Tokyo and are confined to Yokai Town, a ghetto where the Meiji Emperor keeps the country’s vampires – bizarre creatures as different from European nosferatu as they are from living humans. Dr Geneviève Dieudonné, Kostaki, a soldier, Daniel Dravot, a spy, and Christina Light, a revolutionary princess, try to survive in Yokai Town as forces within and outside its walls threaten to destroy the newcomers and the long-time residents. What secret lies under the Temple of One Thousand Monsters?
Japan, 1899. A party of vampires – exiled from Britain by Prince Dracula – seeks refuge in Tokyo and are confined to Yokai Town, a ghetto where the Meiji Emperor keeps the country’s vampires – bizarre creatures as different from European nosferatu as they are from living humans. Dr Geneviève Dieudonné, Kostaki, a soldier, Daniel Dravot, a spy, and Christina Light, a revolutionary princess, try to survive in Yokai Town as forces within and outside its walls threaten to destroy the newcomers and the long-time residents. What secret lies under the Temple of One Thousand Monsters?
312 pages, Paperback
First published October 24, 2017
62 people are currently reading
1424 people want to read
About the author
Kim Newman
288 books949 followersNote: This author also writes under the pseudonym of Jack Yeovil.
An expert on horror and sci-fi cinema (his books of film criticism include Nightmare Movies and Millennium Movies), Kim Newman's novels draw promiscuously on the tropes of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. He is complexly and irreverently referential; the Dracula sequence--Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron and Dracula,Cha Cha Cha--not only portrays an alternate world in which the Count conquers Victorian Britain for a while, is the mastermind behind Germany's air aces in World War One and survives into a jetset 1950s of paparazzi and La Dolce Vita, but does so with endless throwaway references that range from Kipling to James Bond, from Edgar Allen Poe to Patricia Highsmith.
In horror novels such as Bad Dreams and Jago, reality turns out to be endlessly subverted by the powerfully malign. His pseudonymous novels, as Jack Yeovil, play elegant games with genre cliche--perhaps the best of these is the sword-and-sorcery novel Drachenfels which takes the prescribed formulae of the games company to whose bible it was written and make them over entirely into a Kim Newman novel.
Life's Lottery, his most mainstream novel, consists of multiple choice fragments which enable readers to choose the hero's fate and take him into horror, crime and sf storylines or into mundane reality.
An expert on horror and sci-fi cinema (his books of film criticism include Nightmare Movies and Millennium Movies), Kim Newman's novels draw promiscuously on the tropes of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. He is complexly and irreverently referential; the Dracula sequence--Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron and Dracula,Cha Cha Cha--not only portrays an alternate world in which the Count conquers Victorian Britain for a while, is the mastermind behind Germany's air aces in World War One and survives into a jetset 1950s of paparazzi and La Dolce Vita, but does so with endless throwaway references that range from Kipling to James Bond, from Edgar Allen Poe to Patricia Highsmith.
In horror novels such as Bad Dreams and Jago, reality turns out to be endlessly subverted by the powerfully malign. His pseudonymous novels, as Jack Yeovil, play elegant games with genre cliche--perhaps the best of these is the sword-and-sorcery novel Drachenfels which takes the prescribed formulae of the games company to whose bible it was written and make them over entirely into a Kim Newman novel.
Life's Lottery, his most mainstream novel, consists of multiple choice fragments which enable readers to choose the hero's fate and take him into horror, crime and sf storylines or into mundane reality.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
November 15, 2018
Kim Newman writes these books weird this the 5th book in The Anno Dracula series but it's not a sequal to volume 4.This is in fact set just after Volume 1 even before The Red Baron set in WWI this set in Japan in 1899 not that long after Anno But it does not matter if have not read the the others but it will make more fun if read Anno Dracula
Japanese Vampires are not Nosferatu but Penanggalan, & Pontianak weird Yõkai (monsters) of very odd & disgusting forms one has organs outside his body & another looks like an inside out umbrella very horrible.
In Tokyo the Empire does not believe in vampires so his 'none existing vampires' are in a camp like Jews from Nazi Germany.
We flash backs to before Dracula took over Victorian London so parts of the book are set before Anno Dracula but Anno Dracula is his best book I say it is modern classic which of course could not exist with out Bram.
But this volume waffles it has not same dark creepy mess that Volume one has but does fill in Tit bits of info like Mycroft Holmes who isn't with his brother or Moriarty working with Dracula & Inspector Lestrade in Whitechapel in 1880s or Renfield. We learn where Sherlock Holmes, Adam Adamant & Frederick Engels are in the Concentration camp in Devil's Dyke .
These are things you need to be up on to get the in jokes Anno Dracula explains lot of double jokes that got to be quick to get. This the same sort of thing if are not well versed in Holmes,Dracula, Jolly Jack & other classic literature they pass you buy this why they're books for the creme De La cream of the cats whiskers lapping into the bowl of Bibliophiles dream.
Japanese Vampires are not Nosferatu but Penanggalan, & Pontianak weird Yõkai (monsters) of very odd & disgusting forms one has organs outside his body & another looks like an inside out umbrella very horrible.
In Tokyo the Empire does not believe in vampires so his 'none existing vampires' are in a camp like Jews from Nazi Germany.
We flash backs to before Dracula took over Victorian London so parts of the book are set before Anno Dracula but Anno Dracula is his best book I say it is modern classic which of course could not exist with out Bram.
But this volume waffles it has not same dark creepy mess that Volume one has but does fill in Tit bits of info like Mycroft Holmes who isn't with his brother or Moriarty working with Dracula & Inspector Lestrade in Whitechapel in 1880s or Renfield. We learn where Sherlock Holmes, Adam Adamant & Frederick Engels are in the Concentration camp in Devil's Dyke .
These are things you need to be up on to get the in jokes Anno Dracula explains lot of double jokes that got to be quick to get. This the same sort of thing if are not well versed in Holmes,Dracula, Jolly Jack & other classic literature they pass you buy this why they're books for the creme De La cream of the cats whiskers lapping into the bowl of Bibliophiles dream.
October 12, 2021
Another diabolically entertaining tale in the world of Anno Dracula. Satisfyingly gory and blood soaked.
August 12, 2018
The latest in the Anno Dracula series.
The year is 1899 and Genevieve and a few other vampires, including Dravot and Kostaki, have been exiled from the United Kingdom that Dracula is Prince Consort of. They arrive in Japan, a country that officially denies the existence of vampires. They find themselves interned in a special town for vampires. Dracula may be considered the Prince of Darkness, but they find themselves in a Hell not of his making.
Well written and well plotted. The only reason this isn't a 5 star read from me is the way the story seemed to peter out, rather than have a defined ending.
As usual Kim Newman has loaded the book with pop culture references and real people. There are several Buffy references, and noted collector of Asian ghost folklore Lafcadio Hearne gets an outing.
Highly recommended.
The year is 1899 and Genevieve and a few other vampires, including Dravot and Kostaki, have been exiled from the United Kingdom that Dracula is Prince Consort of. They arrive in Japan, a country that officially denies the existence of vampires. They find themselves interned in a special town for vampires. Dracula may be considered the Prince of Darkness, but they find themselves in a Hell not of his making.
Well written and well plotted. The only reason this isn't a 5 star read from me is the way the story seemed to peter out, rather than have a defined ending.
As usual Kim Newman has loaded the book with pop culture references and real people. There are several Buffy references, and noted collector of Asian ghost folklore Lafcadio Hearne gets an outing.
Highly recommended.
pass
February 6, 2018Completely failed to find a way into this. I've read a couple in the series but the worldbuilding is now hugely complex and gnarly and I don't have the moral strength to find out who the giant cast all are.
I also read a book #16 or something in a romance series recently that did this. I get that existing fans will love all the passing mentions of the 40+ people from previous books, but it's a bit wearing for a newbie to the series, not to mention impenetrably dull.
I also read a book #16 or something in a romance series recently that did this. I get that existing fans will love all the passing mentions of the 40+ people from previous books, but it's a bit wearing for a newbie to the series, not to mention impenetrably dull.
November 5, 2019
A weak entry in this series.
This one is simply too long, with a plot that feels more contrived than integral to history. Newman is, as ever, amazingly clever and resourceful in his use of both historic and pop culture characters and he gamely attempts to marshall a cast of thousands of Japanese yokai, oni, and yuurei, but he never quite makes any of them feel authentic and the effect is sometimes more uncomfortably appropriative than fully engaging. Not too surprisingly, the best parts of this book are the reminiscences of two major European characters featured earlier in the series, the vampire doctor, Geneviève Dieudonné, and Carpathian guard, Captain Kostaki. When the novel is deep in their heads, it's fairly interesting but once it's back in Japan, it's all tiresome, overly detailed action scenes or Japanese horror kitsch.
Recommended only for completists.
This one is simply too long, with a plot that feels more contrived than integral to history. Newman is, as ever, amazingly clever and resourceful in his use of both historic and pop culture characters and he gamely attempts to marshall a cast of thousands of Japanese yokai, oni, and yuurei, but he never quite makes any of them feel authentic and the effect is sometimes more uncomfortably appropriative than fully engaging. Not too surprisingly, the best parts of this book are the reminiscences of two major European characters featured earlier in the series, the vampire doctor, Geneviève Dieudonné, and Carpathian guard, Captain Kostaki. When the novel is deep in their heads, it's fairly interesting but once it's back in Japan, it's all tiresome, overly detailed action scenes or Japanese horror kitsch.
Recommended only for completists.
October 26, 2017
Reading this series since: 2000
Likes: Dracula Cha Cha Cha
Dislikes: Johnny Alucard
This book was a risky proposition. It’s a greatly expanded prologue to another novel we know is coming, it’s the fifth book in an extremely elaborate series, and it’s a prequel to nearly everything in that series. If you were worried that this was just scene-setting for the forthcoming sixth book, have no fear, this brief novel more than justifies its own existence with great characters and tricky plotting. Some things are unavoidably setting up future conflicts, with literal prophecies on offer, major players setting plots in motion, and a portentous revelation about the origin of a character who’s been flitting around the stories since 2012’s novella Vampire Romance. But does it work on its own, as the story of a bunch of vampire refugees trying to make a community in the backwaters of Tokyo and stumbling into at least two enormous evil plans already in motion?
Absolutely it does, with a few jagged edges here and there. There’s so many plans in motion that it’s difficult to keep track of all of them, and by the novel’s manic final fifth characters are having to explain a lot of things that happened earlier. It’s not always to satisfying results, either, with at least one significant set-piece apparently coming down to a cruel villain just wanting to see What Would Happen If. To Kim Newman’s credit, nothing that happens is predictable in the particulars. While our heroes seem to be constantly playing catch-up and triumphing mostly through hasty improvisation, that seems to underline what the story constantly emphasizes: that the protagonist characters are out of place in a country they deeply don’t understand.
While previous Anno Dracula books have had vampires with varying relationships to society, at times resembling the parasitic powerful and at other times the vulnerable disenfranchised, I think Yokai Town does something new with the community of vampires in Tokyo, by portraying them as grotesque folkloric figures shifted out of the human realm but still existing within it as abject Others. For the European vampires of the series, and the two familiar faces we follow throughout political maneuverings, religious debates, and murder investigations, it’s a humbling experience that develops the characters beyond what we’ve ever seen before. The whole book is a good read on its own, but it’s also a worthy addition to the series precisely because of what it does differently.
First of all, revisiting the world of Anno Dracula’s nineteenth century rather than pushing on from the 1990s ending of Johnny Alucard underlines how far the series, and Kim Newman’s sensibilities, has changed since the first book was written. Ten years ago, when Anno Dracula was a trilogy, it was possible to describe its fictional universe by saying that around the edges, there were hints that other supernatural powers were at work: werewolves and zombies who might just be variant strains of vampirism, but maybe Cthulhu was real and maybe aliens were too, who could really say. By One Thousand Monsters' ludicrous (in a good way) ending, the top has blown off that particular volcano, and we are in a world of full big-f Fantasy tropes. This novel all ends up in a pastiche of a specifically Japanese movie genre that we don’t normally associate with the time of the novel’s setting, the late 19th century, and there’s implications that we’ll be facing more when book 6 returns in 2018 to tell us all about what happened in 1999 (confusing).
One of the consequences is that Anno Dracula doesn’t really take place in a pastiche of the real world anymore, and as it assembles a consensus reality where all stories are real, leans heavily on the less plausible realms of fiction. I started to feel this pretty distinctly in Johnny Alucard, but it’s in full force here. This has some problematic consequences because the novel is about an exoticized country. I’m not qualified to judge how plausible a version of Japan this is—it seems to rely heavily on the things that Westerners already “know” about Japan, but for all I know, book 3’s Italy was just as bizarre—but I’m not sure that you can really say Anno Dracula is much of an alternate history anymore. That’s not inherently a bad thing, and this book isn’t making a lot of grand statements about the Matter of Japan (one of the things that I don’t like about Johnny Alucard), but it’s definitely different than the original novel. I suspect if you read these in chronological order, you’d get the most genre whiplash between the first book and this one.
It might sound like I don’t like this book much at all, but here’s five things I loved:
5. Popejoy and Higo Yanagi, who both start as window-dressing and silly joke references, but who get something like an arc and ultimately a (very very strange) sweet relationship.
4. The neighbourhood of Yokai Town. I’m a sucker for ramshackle dwellings in fiction, and this one is portrayed vividly, from the amphibious jail guarded by four curiously familiar would-be ninja yokai to the House of Broken Dolls, which reminded me of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s film House. We spend some time in Paris in this book as well, but the extraordinary settings of Yokai Town stand out as particularly well-conceived.
3. The band of misfits structure. There’s a point late in the book where the gang of oddballs we’ve met so far has to go to war, and we get a very cinematic scene of them walking down the street joining up with each other. It feels so close to novelizing a scene from a movie we’ll never see that it hits me in the same place a movie would: genuinely different (and sometimes extraordinarily bizarre) characters teaming up to fight for their way of life. It’s corny and I love it.
2. Genevieve’s narration and flashbacks. Taking one of the most beloved characters in Anno Dracula, and finally showing us significant parts of her past, works extremely well. In 2012’s Aquarius we got to hear evil sociologist Caleb Croft explain what he was up to when Dracula went public and Vampirism got its’ Year Zero, but now we get the Where Were You When story from a considerably more interesting character. Not all your questions are answered, but actually better than that, we get to see why Genevieve became what she was when we first met her twenty-five years ago. Her creator Kim Newman still writes her as a great character with an intriguing voice, to the point where her digressions are just as delightful to read as the main part of the story.
1. Christina Light. I’ll be honest, after the comic series Seven Days in Mayhem earlier this year, I didn’t have high hopes for the Princess at all. In that series she came across as a nonentity to me, and I shuddered to think that I’d be in for two books of another cheap Dracula imitator (I DID NOT LIKE JOHNNY ALUCARD, OKAY?). This book switches that around, and uses an actual cheap Dracula imitator that makes me think it was a self-conscious choice. As it transpires, Christina Light is a much more nuanced character than she has to be: she’s not exactly a villain, but she’s also not exactly a hero. She makes a lot of deeply unethical choices, but she also has much better motives than you’d expect. Whatever Newman does with the character in the future, I’m intrigued in a way I wasn’t before. There’s also a great scene where Christina and Genevieve just chat about things, and the difference between them becomes abundantly clear without making either one clearly wrong.
In brief: Kim Newman gives us another solid Anno Dracula, one that’s unexpected and clever but also finds time to be heartwarming and horrifying at various points. While I don’t think it’s great, it more than justifies the series continuing into book 6 and whatever comes beyond that. If you’re a fan of the series, I suspect you might just love it.
Likes: Dracula Cha Cha Cha
Dislikes: Johnny Alucard
This book was a risky proposition. It’s a greatly expanded prologue to another novel we know is coming, it’s the fifth book in an extremely elaborate series, and it’s a prequel to nearly everything in that series. If you were worried that this was just scene-setting for the forthcoming sixth book, have no fear, this brief novel more than justifies its own existence with great characters and tricky plotting. Some things are unavoidably setting up future conflicts, with literal prophecies on offer, major players setting plots in motion, and a portentous revelation about the origin of a character who’s been flitting around the stories since 2012’s novella Vampire Romance. But does it work on its own, as the story of a bunch of vampire refugees trying to make a community in the backwaters of Tokyo and stumbling into at least two enormous evil plans already in motion?
Absolutely it does, with a few jagged edges here and there. There’s so many plans in motion that it’s difficult to keep track of all of them, and by the novel’s manic final fifth characters are having to explain a lot of things that happened earlier. It’s not always to satisfying results, either, with at least one significant set-piece apparently coming down to a cruel villain just wanting to see What Would Happen If. To Kim Newman’s credit, nothing that happens is predictable in the particulars. While our heroes seem to be constantly playing catch-up and triumphing mostly through hasty improvisation, that seems to underline what the story constantly emphasizes: that the protagonist characters are out of place in a country they deeply don’t understand.
While previous Anno Dracula books have had vampires with varying relationships to society, at times resembling the parasitic powerful and at other times the vulnerable disenfranchised, I think Yokai Town does something new with the community of vampires in Tokyo, by portraying them as grotesque folkloric figures shifted out of the human realm but still existing within it as abject Others. For the European vampires of the series, and the two familiar faces we follow throughout political maneuverings, religious debates, and murder investigations, it’s a humbling experience that develops the characters beyond what we’ve ever seen before. The whole book is a good read on its own, but it’s also a worthy addition to the series precisely because of what it does differently.
First of all, revisiting the world of Anno Dracula’s nineteenth century rather than pushing on from the 1990s ending of Johnny Alucard underlines how far the series, and Kim Newman’s sensibilities, has changed since the first book was written. Ten years ago, when Anno Dracula was a trilogy, it was possible to describe its fictional universe by saying that around the edges, there were hints that other supernatural powers were at work: werewolves and zombies who might just be variant strains of vampirism, but maybe Cthulhu was real and maybe aliens were too, who could really say. By One Thousand Monsters' ludicrous (in a good way) ending, the top has blown off that particular volcano, and we are in a world of full big-f Fantasy tropes. This novel all ends up in a pastiche of a specifically Japanese movie genre that we don’t normally associate with the time of the novel’s setting, the late 19th century, and there’s implications that we’ll be facing more when book 6 returns in 2018 to tell us all about what happened in 1999 (confusing).
One of the consequences is that Anno Dracula doesn’t really take place in a pastiche of the real world anymore, and as it assembles a consensus reality where all stories are real, leans heavily on the less plausible realms of fiction. I started to feel this pretty distinctly in Johnny Alucard, but it’s in full force here. This has some problematic consequences because the novel is about an exoticized country. I’m not qualified to judge how plausible a version of Japan this is—it seems to rely heavily on the things that Westerners already “know” about Japan, but for all I know, book 3’s Italy was just as bizarre—but I’m not sure that you can really say Anno Dracula is much of an alternate history anymore. That’s not inherently a bad thing, and this book isn’t making a lot of grand statements about the Matter of Japan (one of the things that I don’t like about Johnny Alucard), but it’s definitely different than the original novel. I suspect if you read these in chronological order, you’d get the most genre whiplash between the first book and this one.
It might sound like I don’t like this book much at all, but here’s five things I loved:
5. Popejoy and Higo Yanagi, who both start as window-dressing and silly joke references, but who get something like an arc and ultimately a (very very strange) sweet relationship.
4. The neighbourhood of Yokai Town. I’m a sucker for ramshackle dwellings in fiction, and this one is portrayed vividly, from the amphibious jail guarded by four curiously familiar would-be ninja yokai to the House of Broken Dolls, which reminded me of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s film House. We spend some time in Paris in this book as well, but the extraordinary settings of Yokai Town stand out as particularly well-conceived.
3. The band of misfits structure. There’s a point late in the book where the gang of oddballs we’ve met so far has to go to war, and we get a very cinematic scene of them walking down the street joining up with each other. It feels so close to novelizing a scene from a movie we’ll never see that it hits me in the same place a movie would: genuinely different (and sometimes extraordinarily bizarre) characters teaming up to fight for their way of life. It’s corny and I love it.
2. Genevieve’s narration and flashbacks. Taking one of the most beloved characters in Anno Dracula, and finally showing us significant parts of her past, works extremely well. In 2012’s Aquarius we got to hear evil sociologist Caleb Croft explain what he was up to when Dracula went public and Vampirism got its’ Year Zero, but now we get the Where Were You When story from a considerably more interesting character. Not all your questions are answered, but actually better than that, we get to see why Genevieve became what she was when we first met her twenty-five years ago. Her creator Kim Newman still writes her as a great character with an intriguing voice, to the point where her digressions are just as delightful to read as the main part of the story.
1. Christina Light. I’ll be honest, after the comic series Seven Days in Mayhem earlier this year, I didn’t have high hopes for the Princess at all. In that series she came across as a nonentity to me, and I shuddered to think that I’d be in for two books of another cheap Dracula imitator (I DID NOT LIKE JOHNNY ALUCARD, OKAY?). This book switches that around, and uses an actual cheap Dracula imitator that makes me think it was a self-conscious choice. As it transpires, Christina Light is a much more nuanced character than she has to be: she’s not exactly a villain, but she’s also not exactly a hero. She makes a lot of deeply unethical choices, but she also has much better motives than you’d expect. Whatever Newman does with the character in the future, I’m intrigued in a way I wasn’t before. There’s also a great scene where Christina and Genevieve just chat about things, and the difference between them becomes abundantly clear without making either one clearly wrong.
In brief: Kim Newman gives us another solid Anno Dracula, one that’s unexpected and clever but also finds time to be heartwarming and horrifying at various points. While I don’t think it’s great, it more than justifies the series continuing into book 6 and whatever comes beyond that. If you’re a fan of the series, I suspect you might just love it.
August 27, 2020
Disappointing.
I really loved the original Anno Dracula; in fact I'd go so far as to say it was one of my favourite vampire books, but I just couldn't get into this one.
Genevieve Dieudonne and a band of other vampires and malcontents are exiled from Dracula's Britain and end up in Yokai Town in Japan, a ghetto area set aside for vampires. There they are forced to deal with a vampire who would be the Dracula of Asia and Yuki-Onna, the legendary Queen of Snow.
Honestly, I found this book a slog; if it had been by another author I almost certainly would've DNFed it, and I think Kim Newman has used up his good novel credit with me. The story was incredibly dull, going all sorts of nowhere; there was a half-hearted attempt a payoff at the end, but it took forever to get there and wasn't enough to save it for me. There were sections where Genevieve reminisced about her past before Dracula, and they were interesting; if Kim Newman had written a novel about that, I would've been engrossed and entertained. Alas, they just made the other chapters seem even more boring.
I recommend the original Anno Dracula, but I would honestly advise readers to give this one a swerve.
I really loved the original Anno Dracula; in fact I'd go so far as to say it was one of my favourite vampire books, but I just couldn't get into this one.
Genevieve Dieudonne and a band of other vampires and malcontents are exiled from Dracula's Britain and end up in Yokai Town in Japan, a ghetto area set aside for vampires. There they are forced to deal with a vampire who would be the Dracula of Asia and Yuki-Onna, the legendary Queen of Snow.
Honestly, I found this book a slog; if it had been by another author I almost certainly would've DNFed it, and I think Kim Newman has used up his good novel credit with me. The story was incredibly dull, going all sorts of nowhere; there was a half-hearted attempt a payoff at the end, but it took forever to get there and wasn't enough to save it for me. There were sections where Genevieve reminisced about her past before Dracula, and they were interesting; if Kim Newman had written a novel about that, I would've been engrossed and entertained. Alas, they just made the other chapters seem even more boring.
I recommend the original Anno Dracula, but I would honestly advise readers to give this one a swerve.
January 2, 2018
Kim Newman returns to the world of Anno Dracula but throws something of a curveball by setting it shortly after the original Anno Dracula. It's 1899 and Genevieve Dieudonne is on a ship with a bunch of vampires who are exiled from Dracula's England. Gene and her fellow vampires, including Princess Christina Light and former Carpathian Guard Kostaki, find themselves in Tokyo's vampire enclave Yokai Town. It won't take long before trouble finds them.
OK, I have to say from the off that was this was my least favourite Anno Dracula book. For a start, not much really happens here. For three quarters of the book at least it's Gene noting how weird the Japanese yokai vampires are. I love the way Anno Dracula books take in a range of historical and fictional characters from there settings. This might well do this but if it does it uses Japanese folklore which I, and I suspect the majority of readers, have limited knowledge of it.
I also found the plot hard to follow. Characters seemed to come and go and no-one seemed to know what was going on-indeed there were some sections which seemed utterly irrelevant. The book sets up the next Anno Dracula book set in 1999 and I can't help but think that this is the only reason for it's existence.
There were some chapters that I really loved which told us of what Gene was doing before Dracula came to power. It's interesting to see what being a vampire was like when they were hiding from society and how that changed when Dracula came to power. This felt like the Anno Dracula I know and love.
The other highlight was the characterisation of Gene. She has long been one of the best characters in the series, a vampire elder with the face of a sixteen-year old who mostly works as a doctor. She's a great narrator too and it's good to spend time with her again.
Some brilliant moments but an uninspiring read for the most part. I am however intrigued where the next book will go and looking forward to seeing the vampire world of 1999.
OK, I have to say from the off that was this was my least favourite Anno Dracula book. For a start, not much really happens here. For three quarters of the book at least it's Gene noting how weird the Japanese yokai vampires are. I love the way Anno Dracula books take in a range of historical and fictional characters from there settings. This might well do this but if it does it uses Japanese folklore which I, and I suspect the majority of readers, have limited knowledge of it.
I also found the plot hard to follow. Characters seemed to come and go and no-one seemed to know what was going on-indeed there were some sections which seemed utterly irrelevant. The book sets up the next Anno Dracula book set in 1999 and I can't help but think that this is the only reason for it's existence.
There were some chapters that I really loved which told us of what Gene was doing before Dracula came to power. It's interesting to see what being a vampire was like when they were hiding from society and how that changed when Dracula came to power. This felt like the Anno Dracula I know and love.
The other highlight was the characterisation of Gene. She has long been one of the best characters in the series, a vampire elder with the face of a sixteen-year old who mostly works as a doctor. She's a great narrator too and it's good to spend time with her again.
Some brilliant moments but an uninspiring read for the most part. I am however intrigued where the next book will go and looking forward to seeing the vampire world of 1999.
July 26, 2020
As a fan of Kim Newman and the Anno Dracula series for almost 10 years, I have made my peace that while A.D. is an amazing feat of storytelling and writing in many ways, climaxes and endings are its weakest points. I read with great happiness two near-masterpieces by Newman (Johnny Alucard and the non-A.D. The Hound of D'Ubervilles) only to be let down by the fact that they just...ended, leaving a sour taste in my mouth (that wasn't blood). The first three novels of Anno Dracula had left me with a similar feeling. Before reading this novel, I had also noticed the reviews in Amazon and GoodReads, singling it out as the weakest entry of the series, along with Judgement of Tears/Dracula Cha Cha Cha. So my standards were low.
Boy, I was so happy when the reviews proved to be wrong. One Thousand Monsters is the most solid novel in the series from beginning to end. I was so pleasantly surprised to read an Anno Dracula book with an exciting, all-guns-blazing climax and an ending that left me smiling.
The story focuses on vampires exiled by Dracula's court years after the conclusion of the first Anno Dracula, sent to "Yokai Town" in Japan. The wonderful Geneviève Dieudonné narrates the novel and writes an account to her "warm" lover, Charles Beauregard, about her life as a medical student in Paris, hiding in the shadows like all vampires, until Dracula's ascension to the British throne. Sympatethic Carpathian Guard captain Kostaki narrates additional chapters.
Fans of Japanese folklore, myth, cinema, literature, manga and television will have a smashing good time with all the famous fictional characters, yokai and famous ghosts that appear in the novel.
I'll write a longer, better review down the road. In the meantime, I'm happy to report that GoodReads was wrong this time around and I'm happy about it. I just want to say that Newman has outdone himself this time. Also, there are some genuinely creepy and gory scenes in the novel, some very funny moments and some deeper character development for this endearing cast of vampire adventurers.
Boy, I was so happy when the reviews proved to be wrong. One Thousand Monsters is the most solid novel in the series from beginning to end. I was so pleasantly surprised to read an Anno Dracula book with an exciting, all-guns-blazing climax and an ending that left me smiling.
The story focuses on vampires exiled by Dracula's court years after the conclusion of the first Anno Dracula, sent to "Yokai Town" in Japan. The wonderful Geneviève Dieudonné narrates the novel and writes an account to her "warm" lover, Charles Beauregard, about her life as a medical student in Paris, hiding in the shadows like all vampires, until Dracula's ascension to the British throne. Sympatethic Carpathian Guard captain Kostaki narrates additional chapters.
Fans of Japanese folklore, myth, cinema, literature, manga and television will have a smashing good time with all the famous fictional characters, yokai and famous ghosts that appear in the novel.
I'll write a longer, better review down the road. In the meantime, I'm happy to report that GoodReads was wrong this time around and I'm happy about it. I just want to say that Newman has outdone himself this time. Also, there are some genuinely creepy and gory scenes in the novel, some very funny moments and some deeper character development for this endearing cast of vampire adventurers.
February 17, 2019
Clearly not my favourite in the series. I struggled to get to the end, I did not enjoy it as much as I hoped. I felt like not much happened and I got really bored...
November 12, 2017
I couldn't wait to read this as I liked the other books in the Anno Dracula series. I don't know if it was just me but it took me ages to get into the story, but once it got going I really enjoyed it.
December 28, 2025
remaining heterosexual in immortality grow up Gené
April 10, 2020
Watch out for the Princess!
Because we are wrenched away from most of the action and characters of the earlier installments, 1,000 Monsters is less accessible than those books were. Newman’s bringing on board a very large, almost completely new cast, mostly of characters unknown to readers who are not up on Japanese legends and pop culture can be a little wearying as well. But as he goes on, the Newman strengths begin to fire up the book. We get a lot of insight into Genevieve’s past and motives, especially her relationship with Charles Beauregard, and Kostaki, not seen in any depth since the first book, is back, and evolving in the wake of his expulsion from England.
Another plum is the formidable Christina Light, the eponymous Princess Casamassima from Henry James’s novel (introduced in Roderick Hudson). She’s a great frenemy for Genevieve, and an interesting antagonist/protagonist here. (Their rapport/manipulation/contempt is a bit reminiscent of Peter Davison and Anthony Ainley in Doctor Who). I enjoyed Newman’s ability to make Christina a credible evolution from James’s original.
So, worth sticking with, is my verdict—it gets better as the reader is embedded in this new millieu. If you enjoyed the prior volumes, stay with this one. It’s worth it.
Because we are wrenched away from most of the action and characters of the earlier installments, 1,000 Monsters is less accessible than those books were. Newman’s bringing on board a very large, almost completely new cast, mostly of characters unknown to readers who are not up on Japanese legends and pop culture can be a little wearying as well. But as he goes on, the Newman strengths begin to fire up the book. We get a lot of insight into Genevieve’s past and motives, especially her relationship with Charles Beauregard, and Kostaki, not seen in any depth since the first book, is back, and evolving in the wake of his expulsion from England.
Another plum is the formidable Christina Light, the eponymous Princess Casamassima from Henry James’s novel (introduced in Roderick Hudson). She’s a great frenemy for Genevieve, and an interesting antagonist/protagonist here. (Their rapport/manipulation/contempt is a bit reminiscent of Peter Davison and Anthony Ainley in Doctor Who). I enjoyed Newman’s ability to make Christina a credible evolution from James’s original.
So, worth sticking with, is my verdict—it gets better as the reader is embedded in this new millieu. If you enjoyed the prior volumes, stay with this one. It’s worth it.
June 4, 2023
Set in Japan in 1899, it has a great sense of place and atmosphere. I also liked the many different types of Japanese vampire. About half way through, it did occur to me that I had no ideas what the story actually was. Even at the end, there was the suspicion it was something of a shaggy dog tale, but I greatly enjoyed the ride.
December 4, 2020
This labyrinthine narrative, dealing with a hundred (if not thousand) characters all going their own ways and yet contributing towards an ending where the world (of this novel) literally ends in fire and ice, was not a very easy read.
Genevieve helped. So did the drily pedantic British voice which described goriest details and horrifying thoughts with wit and world-weariness. The action sequences were also presented with a chilling precision that hid their fiery impact.
It seems that I have enmeshed myself too deeply in the rather illuminating finish!
Nevertheless, if you can prevent yourself from getting lost in the maze of characters and their motives, then you would reach a hugely satisfying finish. But to do that you have to overcome a lot of tedious yet meaningful stuff.
"Persevere and you will succeed." etc. etc.
Genevieve helped. So did the drily pedantic British voice which described goriest details and horrifying thoughts with wit and world-weariness. The action sequences were also presented with a chilling precision that hid their fiery impact.
It seems that I have enmeshed myself too deeply in the rather illuminating finish!
Nevertheless, if you can prevent yourself from getting lost in the maze of characters and their motives, then you would reach a hugely satisfying finish. But to do that you have to overcome a lot of tedious yet meaningful stuff.
"Persevere and you will succeed." etc. etc.
February 1, 2018
Found this one brand-new at a thrift shop - a fate the book definitely does not deserve.
Although being Part 5 in Newmans "Anno Dracula" series you don't have to know the previous instalments (chronologically it's the second story anyway), since the novel itself brings you up to speed...
The premise is "Dracula" by Bram Stoker was basically a true story, except in the end Dracula won, married Queen Victoria and is now de-facto ruler of the British Empire. That's ten years ago now, and a flock of Dracula's enemies or otherwise unwanted Vampires are steaming to Japan to find a refuge from Dracula's grasp - among them Genevieve Dieudonne (a character borrowed from Newman's Warhammer novels), former Dracula's guard captain Kostaki, the revolutionary-socialist princess Christina Light and the slightly mad/psychic Drusilla Zark.
The vampires aren't exactly welcomed with open arms, since by the Emperor's decree there ARE no vampires in Japan, but are allowed to take shelter in Yokai Town, a part of Tokyo that's exclusively for the monsters of Japanese folklore (which in this universe's logic are vampires, just from different bloodlines. The classic euro-vampire is therefore born from the "nosferatu" bloodline).
While Genevieve writes a letter to the only person possibly to be named "her lover" and describes Dracula's ascent to power and the consequences suffered by vampires in other places (e.g. France, were Genevieve lived), the vampires soon find out that Yokai Town is less of a shelter but a prison for monsters, and Lt. Majin, member of a secret society AND possibly a demon, who's in charge of the township, basically treats it as his playground, showing the monsters who's boss.
Kostaki gets seduced by a western-styled vampire and wanna-be Dracula named Dorakuya and Genevieve is framed for the brutal murder of a revered (but crazy) Yokai general - as it turns out, all part of Majin's plan to turn the vampires against each other as a blood sacrifice for his demon master. When this does not work, Majin turns to direct action and attacks Yokai town. Genevieve must help Christina Light to get to Yokai Towns protectoress Yoko-Anno who sleeps under the temple of thousand monsters...
While you read Newman's incredibly fast-paced yarn you'll probably won't notice how paper-thin the plot really is - it really starts to develop only in the last third of the book. But Newman will entertain you with the intertwined stories of Genevieves past and Dracula's rise to power on one side and the discovery of the bizarre Japanese characters in Yokai Town on the other side. Newman handles the whole series as meta-fiction, incorporating tons of references to other literary works from "Varney the Vampire" and other early vampire stories, Hammer movies like the Karnstein cycle and "Captain Kronos" up to completely out-of-leftfield references to the likes of "Popeye" and even the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". These references alone make "One Thousand Monsters" a terrific read and when Newman finally ups the carnage in the big final battle, even gorehounds will have a field day.
Besides that "One Thousand Monsters" is beautifully written, contains tons of memorable characters and will keep you page-turning...
Although being Part 5 in Newmans "Anno Dracula" series you don't have to know the previous instalments (chronologically it's the second story anyway), since the novel itself brings you up to speed...
The premise is "Dracula" by Bram Stoker was basically a true story, except in the end Dracula won, married Queen Victoria and is now de-facto ruler of the British Empire. That's ten years ago now, and a flock of Dracula's enemies or otherwise unwanted Vampires are steaming to Japan to find a refuge from Dracula's grasp - among them Genevieve Dieudonne (a character borrowed from Newman's Warhammer novels), former Dracula's guard captain Kostaki, the revolutionary-socialist princess Christina Light and the slightly mad/psychic Drusilla Zark.
The vampires aren't exactly welcomed with open arms, since by the Emperor's decree there ARE no vampires in Japan, but are allowed to take shelter in Yokai Town, a part of Tokyo that's exclusively for the monsters of Japanese folklore (which in this universe's logic are vampires, just from different bloodlines. The classic euro-vampire is therefore born from the "nosferatu" bloodline).
While Genevieve writes a letter to the only person possibly to be named "her lover" and describes Dracula's ascent to power and the consequences suffered by vampires in other places (e.g. France, were Genevieve lived), the vampires soon find out that Yokai Town is less of a shelter but a prison for monsters, and Lt. Majin, member of a secret society AND possibly a demon, who's in charge of the township, basically treats it as his playground, showing the monsters who's boss.
Kostaki gets seduced by a western-styled vampire and wanna-be Dracula named Dorakuya and Genevieve is framed for the brutal murder of a revered (but crazy) Yokai general - as it turns out, all part of Majin's plan to turn the vampires against each other as a blood sacrifice for his demon master. When this does not work, Majin turns to direct action and attacks Yokai town. Genevieve must help Christina Light to get to Yokai Towns protectoress Yoko-Anno who sleeps under the temple of thousand monsters...
While you read Newman's incredibly fast-paced yarn you'll probably won't notice how paper-thin the plot really is - it really starts to develop only in the last third of the book. But Newman will entertain you with the intertwined stories of Genevieves past and Dracula's rise to power on one side and the discovery of the bizarre Japanese characters in Yokai Town on the other side. Newman handles the whole series as meta-fiction, incorporating tons of references to other literary works from "Varney the Vampire" and other early vampire stories, Hammer movies like the Karnstein cycle and "Captain Kronos" up to completely out-of-leftfield references to the likes of "Popeye" and even the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". These references alone make "One Thousand Monsters" a terrific read and when Newman finally ups the carnage in the big final battle, even gorehounds will have a field day.
Besides that "One Thousand Monsters" is beautifully written, contains tons of memorable characters and will keep you page-turning...
December 13, 2017
Note: This really is closer to a 3.5, but the pure insanity of the last several chapters moved me to round up instead of down.
Anno Dracula has become an odd series for me. The first three books were all great in their own way, with Cha Cha Cha serving as a satisfying ending point. However, more books were required as part of Newman's deal with Titan in exchange for reprinting the series, which resulted in the entertaining if somewhat uneven Johnny Alucard, with multiple novellas/short stories somewhat haphazardly strung together, ending on a major cliffhanger, presumably to be resolved in Book 5. The Anno Dracula 1899 collection didn't help matters, ultimately being a shameless cash grab, with only one story tied into the series (the first few chapters of this book, to be precise). Don't get me wrong, that collection had plenty of merits on its own, but the way it was packaged as an Anno Dracula book left a bad taste in my mouth. That being said, it did advertise an upcoming book, due later in 2017- Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju... which we still haven't seen.
Which brings us to One Thousand Monsters. Apparently, it was supposed to be part of Daikaiju, but proved strong enough to stand on its own. And for the most part, it does. A prequel/interquel hodgepodge set between the first two books, it follows Genevieve, Kostaki, and company as they flee Dracula's England, and get caught up in a power struggle in Tokyo's ghetto for supernatural creatures, Yokai Town. There follows many bizarre incidents, twists and cameos from various figures from Japanese folklore and pop culture. It's a fun romp, packed with atmosphere, entertainment, and a finale chock full of the most insane action imaginable. The cameos (the ones I picked up on, at least) tickled me pick, especially the ones I didn't pick up on at first. And some of the new characters introduced ended up being worth the time spent with them, especially the ever surprising Christina Light. Also, Genevieve's flashbacks to Dracula outing vampires to the world finally gives some insight into how the world at large reacted in the immediate aftermath, something that was never really covered before.
However, there are still plenty of negatives to go around. The plot takes its time to set everything up, only for things to draw to a close rather quickly, just as it feels like the story has picked up. This is probably a consequence of Daikaiju being split into two books, as evidenced by the prophecies mentioned, as well as the sequel hook at the end. Also, the status quo of the vampire world in Japan has been shifted in such a way that it really should have been mentioned in the books that take place after this, especially the novella where vampires gathered to select a new ruler. I suppose that's just one of the risks of writing a prequel.
Overall, it's a worthwhile read for fans of the series, but I wish Newman would get on with it and just finish things already. I'm seeing shades of George R. R. Martin here... -_-
Anno Dracula has become an odd series for me. The first three books were all great in their own way, with Cha Cha Cha serving as a satisfying ending point. However, more books were required as part of Newman's deal with Titan in exchange for reprinting the series, which resulted in the entertaining if somewhat uneven Johnny Alucard, with multiple novellas/short stories somewhat haphazardly strung together, ending on a major cliffhanger, presumably to be resolved in Book 5. The Anno Dracula 1899 collection didn't help matters, ultimately being a shameless cash grab, with only one story tied into the series (the first few chapters of this book, to be precise). Don't get me wrong, that collection had plenty of merits on its own, but the way it was packaged as an Anno Dracula book left a bad taste in my mouth. That being said, it did advertise an upcoming book, due later in 2017- Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju... which we still haven't seen.
Which brings us to One Thousand Monsters. Apparently, it was supposed to be part of Daikaiju, but proved strong enough to stand on its own. And for the most part, it does. A prequel/interquel hodgepodge set between the first two books, it follows Genevieve, Kostaki, and company as they flee Dracula's England, and get caught up in a power struggle in Tokyo's ghetto for supernatural creatures, Yokai Town. There follows many bizarre incidents, twists and cameos from various figures from Japanese folklore and pop culture. It's a fun romp, packed with atmosphere, entertainment, and a finale chock full of the most insane action imaginable. The cameos (the ones I picked up on, at least) tickled me pick, especially the ones I didn't pick up on at first. And some of the new characters introduced ended up being worth the time spent with them, especially the ever surprising Christina Light. Also, Genevieve's flashbacks to Dracula outing vampires to the world finally gives some insight into how the world at large reacted in the immediate aftermath, something that was never really covered before.
However, there are still plenty of negatives to go around. The plot takes its time to set everything up, only for things to draw to a close rather quickly, just as it feels like the story has picked up. This is probably a consequence of Daikaiju being split into two books, as evidenced by the prophecies mentioned, as well as the sequel hook at the end. Also, the status quo of the vampire world in Japan has been shifted in such a way that it really should have been mentioned in the books that take place after this, especially the novella where vampires gathered to select a new ruler. I suppose that's just one of the risks of writing a prequel.
Overall, it's a worthwhile read for fans of the series, but I wish Newman would get on with it and just finish things already. I'm seeing shades of George R. R. Martin here... -_-
March 11, 2023
Honestly I kind of gave up on “Anno Dracula” as a series after the third novel, because it was just ‘eh’ and the fourth novel was incredibly unsatisfying. So I found out that the digital library had this one, which is a sort of in-between-quel novel set between the first two, and taking place in Japan.
The premise of “Anno Dracula” is this: what if, at the end of Stoker’s novel, Dracula actually won? And then he turned Queen Victoria into one of his vampire brides and took over Britain? The United Kingdom is turned into a vampire-controlled state, and with Dracula in charge, vampires come out of the woodwork and go public. Some of our cast members are original characters, but quite a few are characters drawn from other works of Victorian Era fiction (some of whom are public domain, some of whom are not and have to be carefully and cleverly written). The following books depict different time periods in Dracula’s new world. The first being Victorian England, the second World War I, the third is Rome in the 50’s, and finally the US in the late 20th century.
This one is set between the first two. After Dracula’s grip on England begins to slip, he cracks down on a lot of his enemies, and so a ship full of vampire refugees from England–including one of our heroes, Genevieve Dieudonne–tries to find sanctuary half the world away, in Japan. They’re shuffled off to an undead ghetto called Yokai Town, in which they meet a strange assortment of Japanese vampires, all the while being under the watch of a human sorcerer who would be happy to wipe them out.
The Plot is alright, I think–much better than a couple of the weaker books in the series, for sure. I think what makes this book really work is that while the feel of Dracula’s effects on the world is obviously present, the Vampire King himself is absent, letting Newman focus on what’s really interesting: the world this all takes place in.
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about shoving all yokai under the umbrella of “vampire”, but given how Newman’s built his world, I don’t know how else you even *would* include them in the world. It does allow us to see a completely different kind of creature than the nosferatu infesting England. Newman, as always, also goes a bit crazy with how much he includes. Aside from Newman’s Dieudonne, The Ninja Turtles appear, kind of? And Popeye, Sanjuro, and Drusilla (I *think* from “Buffy” but how the heck would that be legal???) are all major characters. Heck, there’s a veiled reference to Zorro towards the end of the novel, though he’s not a character who appears.
Also, as you can probably imagine given the subject matter, there’s quite a lot of horrific violence.
It’s not a book I’d recommend picking up if you haven’t picked up the first one. And it’s a bit of an investment because it leads into a future book also set in Japan later (which I might find myself looking into!). But if you do like the idea of a massive vampire crossover, and in Japan, then it’s worth taking a look.
The premise of “Anno Dracula” is this: what if, at the end of Stoker’s novel, Dracula actually won? And then he turned Queen Victoria into one of his vampire brides and took over Britain? The United Kingdom is turned into a vampire-controlled state, and with Dracula in charge, vampires come out of the woodwork and go public. Some of our cast members are original characters, but quite a few are characters drawn from other works of Victorian Era fiction (some of whom are public domain, some of whom are not and have to be carefully and cleverly written). The following books depict different time periods in Dracula’s new world. The first being Victorian England, the second World War I, the third is Rome in the 50’s, and finally the US in the late 20th century.
This one is set between the first two. After Dracula’s grip on England begins to slip, he cracks down on a lot of his enemies, and so a ship full of vampire refugees from England–including one of our heroes, Genevieve Dieudonne–tries to find sanctuary half the world away, in Japan. They’re shuffled off to an undead ghetto called Yokai Town, in which they meet a strange assortment of Japanese vampires, all the while being under the watch of a human sorcerer who would be happy to wipe them out.
The Plot is alright, I think–much better than a couple of the weaker books in the series, for sure. I think what makes this book really work is that while the feel of Dracula’s effects on the world is obviously present, the Vampire King himself is absent, letting Newman focus on what’s really interesting: the world this all takes place in.
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about shoving all yokai under the umbrella of “vampire”, but given how Newman’s built his world, I don’t know how else you even *would* include them in the world. It does allow us to see a completely different kind of creature than the nosferatu infesting England. Newman, as always, also goes a bit crazy with how much he includes. Aside from Newman’s Dieudonne, The Ninja Turtles appear, kind of? And Popeye, Sanjuro, and Drusilla (I *think* from “Buffy” but how the heck would that be legal???) are all major characters. Heck, there’s a veiled reference to Zorro towards the end of the novel, though he’s not a character who appears.
Also, as you can probably imagine given the subject matter, there’s quite a lot of horrific violence.
It’s not a book I’d recommend picking up if you haven’t picked up the first one. And it’s a bit of an investment because it leads into a future book also set in Japan later (which I might find myself looking into!). But if you do like the idea of a massive vampire crossover, and in Japan, then it’s worth taking a look.
November 14, 2017
Kim Newman's first Anno Dracula novel was released in 1992 which put it in the vanguard of the "new wave" of modern vampire fiction - a genre so well established now that it is easy to forget the hiatus of the late 70's and 80's, when those seeking stories of the best of monsters had to really dig to find something decent (apologies to Anne Rice who obviously bucked the trend).
Kim Newman came up with a something to shake the foundations of the Genre. His vampire world was ground-breaking in its visceral nature; some of the vampires are simply animal-like predators grafted on to a human shell; others would be better described as humans with a dark and violent edge. The question of what makes a person become one type or another when they "turn', is a source that Newman uses throughout the series to introduce depth to his monsters and makes us think "what would happen to me?"
"One Thousand Monsters" is different in this respect. Set in Japan, rather than Europe, Newman has taken the opportunity to introduce a wealth of new types of vampire - born of research into the myths and legends of those islands - that again moves the goalposts. There are fire vampires, a toad vampire and even one that takes the form of a bloody umbrella, amongst many other - the eponymous "one thousand" - varieties of monsters.
The result is mixed. To me, Newman's strength in this series has always been the fascination of the world he creates, combined with the question of "what makes a monster?" that is asked whenever someone who used to be human behaves otherwise. In his other books, these issues can be easily absorbed by the reader because of the legacy of the European vampire story, and Stoker's "Dracula" novel in particular, provide the context and a cultural backdrop to Newman's explorations. In "One Thousand Monsters" this aspect is generally missing and the novel is weaker as a result; in places, it drifts into a plain old blood and gore horror story. But one of those needs, at a minimum, scary monsters and a good plot. There are lots of great monsters, but tight plotting has never been what the "Anno Dracula" offerings have been about and in this novel it shows.
Having said all that I liked it, largely because I have read the others and my previous involvement with the characters made this experience richer. I've given it 3 stars imagining what it would be like for someone else, reading it cold; at home, alone, in a gloomy room with just a wood-burner going it is a 4 star one for me.
Kim Newman came up with a something to shake the foundations of the Genre. His vampire world was ground-breaking in its visceral nature; some of the vampires are simply animal-like predators grafted on to a human shell; others would be better described as humans with a dark and violent edge. The question of what makes a person become one type or another when they "turn', is a source that Newman uses throughout the series to introduce depth to his monsters and makes us think "what would happen to me?"
"One Thousand Monsters" is different in this respect. Set in Japan, rather than Europe, Newman has taken the opportunity to introduce a wealth of new types of vampire - born of research into the myths and legends of those islands - that again moves the goalposts. There are fire vampires, a toad vampire and even one that takes the form of a bloody umbrella, amongst many other - the eponymous "one thousand" - varieties of monsters.
The result is mixed. To me, Newman's strength in this series has always been the fascination of the world he creates, combined with the question of "what makes a monster?" that is asked whenever someone who used to be human behaves otherwise. In his other books, these issues can be easily absorbed by the reader because of the legacy of the European vampire story, and Stoker's "Dracula" novel in particular, provide the context and a cultural backdrop to Newman's explorations. In "One Thousand Monsters" this aspect is generally missing and the novel is weaker as a result; in places, it drifts into a plain old blood and gore horror story. But one of those needs, at a minimum, scary monsters and a good plot. There are lots of great monsters, but tight plotting has never been what the "Anno Dracula" offerings have been about and in this novel it shows.
Having said all that I liked it, largely because I have read the others and my previous involvement with the characters made this experience richer. I've given it 3 stars imagining what it would be like for someone else, reading it cold; at home, alone, in a gloomy room with just a wood-burner going it is a 4 star one for me.
June 24, 2019
In 1992, Kim Newman, film critic and writer, wrote one of my favorite books: Anno Dracula. Imagine a world where Dracula (from Bram Stoker’s iconic novel- another of my favorites) thwarted Van Helsing and his ragtag group of companions, ascended to the throne of England and turned (and married) the reigning queen, Victoria. Newman chronicled a late Victorian world painted red and turned upside down with the spread of Vampirism. Using both “warm” and vampire characters from popular literature, history, and from his own impressive roster of original characters, Newman detailed what it would be like if Stoker’s novel had turned out very differently.
Flash forward nearly thirty years, and Newman is still at it. The Anno Dracula series now boasts five novels (soon six), novellas, short stories, and a compiled collection. I had the pleasure to read One Thousand Monsters, the latest novel (however, the closest in chronological time to the original) and can honestly say I was not disappointed.
It’s 1899. Dracula has reigned for more than a decade. The novel opens with a ship filled with European Vampires, all exiled by Dracula, seeking refuge in the Japanese city of Tokyo. The main perspective characters are Genevieve Dieudonne, a French vampire and doctor, and Kostaki, a former vampire member of the Carpathian guard. The novel flips from Kostaki’s and Genevieve’s perspective, and includes Genevieve’s account of her life in France before and during Dracula’s conquest of Britain. Genevieve is ubiquitous in Newman’s body of work, making appearances as a vampire in Newman’s early novels and in works that take place outside of the Anno Dracula timeline.
In Yokai town, the European vampires begin to feel less like they have found sanctuary among their strange and twisted Japanese counterparts, and more like they’ve been penned into a ghetto. The mystery here is what exactly do the reigning powers over Japan plan to do with them (also, just who is running the show?). As tensions build, the vampires must battle for their existence in an orgiastic climax of supernatural terror and bloodshed.
Although, Newman’s world may not be for everyone, this particular reader is chomping at the bit to read more of his alternate history opus. The following is a short list of strengths in the work. If any of these sounds even mildly interesting, you’ve got some fun reading ahead of you.
To read the entire review: https://www.tlbarrett.com/post/book-r...
Flash forward nearly thirty years, and Newman is still at it. The Anno Dracula series now boasts five novels (soon six), novellas, short stories, and a compiled collection. I had the pleasure to read One Thousand Monsters, the latest novel (however, the closest in chronological time to the original) and can honestly say I was not disappointed.
It’s 1899. Dracula has reigned for more than a decade. The novel opens with a ship filled with European Vampires, all exiled by Dracula, seeking refuge in the Japanese city of Tokyo. The main perspective characters are Genevieve Dieudonne, a French vampire and doctor, and Kostaki, a former vampire member of the Carpathian guard. The novel flips from Kostaki’s and Genevieve’s perspective, and includes Genevieve’s account of her life in France before and during Dracula’s conquest of Britain. Genevieve is ubiquitous in Newman’s body of work, making appearances as a vampire in Newman’s early novels and in works that take place outside of the Anno Dracula timeline.
In Yokai town, the European vampires begin to feel less like they have found sanctuary among their strange and twisted Japanese counterparts, and more like they’ve been penned into a ghetto. The mystery here is what exactly do the reigning powers over Japan plan to do with them (also, just who is running the show?). As tensions build, the vampires must battle for their existence in an orgiastic climax of supernatural terror and bloodshed.
Although, Newman’s world may not be for everyone, this particular reader is chomping at the bit to read more of his alternate history opus. The following is a short list of strengths in the work. If any of these sounds even mildly interesting, you’ve got some fun reading ahead of you.
To read the entire review: https://www.tlbarrett.com/post/book-r...
December 8, 2023
The world of Anno Dracula assumes that Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula was largely a factual account until the end. Instead of Professor Van Helsing leading a pursuit of the good count through the Carpathians, Dracula eludes his pursuers and marries Queen Victoria, becoming the prince regent and bringing vampires out into the open. In the aftermath of the struggle against Dracula’s corruption, a handful of vampires including Geneviève Dieudonné are exiled from Great Britain and travel to Japan. They settle in Yokai Town, a district of Tokyo set aside for Japan’s own vampires. Newman dives extensively into Asian vampire lore to populate Yokai Town with a wide variety of strange, frightening, tragic, and even sometimes humorous vampires. As the British vampires attempt to settle in, they find the district is under the watchful eye of Lieutenant Majin, who runs the district like a prison. What’s more, sinister things are afoot as vampires make plots in the shadows.
In addition to Geneviève Dieudonné, we get to know several interesting vampires from both European and Asian stories and movies. Leading the European vampire contingent is Princess Casamassina, a vampire who can literally become light. Two soldiers, Danny Dravot and Kostaki work with Geneviève to unravel the mysteries of Yokai Town. Fans of Rudyard Kipling will recognize Dravot from the story “The Man Who Would be King.” There’s even a sailor named Popejoy, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the sailor of Elzie Segar’s comic strip. Among the Asian vampires are a Chinese jiang shi, the cat-like bakeneko, and a child-vampire who controls creepy puppets. There’s even a brief reference to Dance in the Vampire Bund.
All in all, Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters was a great romp. We got to know some familiar characters better and were introduced to some new characters. Newman deftly juggles the many types of vampires from world lore and draws us in to believe they’re all part of one big shared universe. Not only does the book start with a quote by Lafcadio Hearn, but Hearn makes a cameo appearance at the end of the novel. There aren’t many series that I feel compelled to read every book, but the more I read, the more I want the next Anno Dracula in line.
In addition to Geneviève Dieudonné, we get to know several interesting vampires from both European and Asian stories and movies. Leading the European vampire contingent is Princess Casamassina, a vampire who can literally become light. Two soldiers, Danny Dravot and Kostaki work with Geneviève to unravel the mysteries of Yokai Town. Fans of Rudyard Kipling will recognize Dravot from the story “The Man Who Would be King.” There’s even a sailor named Popejoy, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the sailor of Elzie Segar’s comic strip. Among the Asian vampires are a Chinese jiang shi, the cat-like bakeneko, and a child-vampire who controls creepy puppets. There’s even a brief reference to Dance in the Vampire Bund.
All in all, Anno Dracula: One Thousand Monsters was a great romp. We got to know some familiar characters better and were introduced to some new characters. Newman deftly juggles the many types of vampires from world lore and draws us in to believe they’re all part of one big shared universe. Not only does the book start with a quote by Lafcadio Hearn, but Hearn makes a cameo appearance at the end of the novel. There aren’t many series that I feel compelled to read every book, but the more I read, the more I want the next Anno Dracula in line.
February 14, 2023
A solid, but unessential entry into the Anno Dracula.
Having hopped off the Anno Dracula series a few years back, I was mainly convinced to return for this one because I have a lot of love for and interest in Japanese horror and I figured their monsters could add some spice to this series that really needed it. And it... sort of worked. He introduces a whole lot of new beasts, monsters, and vamps into the story (including his usual Western pop culture references - notably Popeye and a pretty funny take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I think there were references being made to Tetsuo the Iron Man and some of Toshiro Mifune's characters as well). The problem is the story still primarily revolves around the vampire characters from the mainline novels, meaning that the Japanese monsters are more or less sidelined and one note. One Japanese spirit in particular was set up as a primary threat, only to basically have her plotline go nowhere and the characters concluding she was just annoying people. I also thought Newman was a bit constrained in what he could do given that this novel is set in between stories in the mainline novels, so he couldn't truly endanger a lot of the main characters since we know they show up later.
Despite my complaint that the story focuses too much on the preexisting characters, the best part was easily learning more about Genevieve's (the main vampire hero in the series) past and how Dracula's rise to power impacted vampires across the globe. All of her reminiscences about her time in France learning to become a doctor were compelling and interesting. I also won't deny that this is probably the biggest climax in any book and was very engrossing despite at least one major villain getting dispatched far too easily.
The ending allows Newman to go in two different directions - follow up on the state of the Japanese monsters after the climax or jump back into other stories featuring Genevieve and co. And as much as I enjoy Genevieve, I'd much rather he focus fully on his new brood of monsters whose stories haven't been exhaustively told already.
Having hopped off the Anno Dracula series a few years back, I was mainly convinced to return for this one because I have a lot of love for and interest in Japanese horror and I figured their monsters could add some spice to this series that really needed it. And it... sort of worked. He introduces a whole lot of new beasts, monsters, and vamps into the story (including his usual Western pop culture references - notably Popeye and a pretty funny take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I think there were references being made to Tetsuo the Iron Man and some of Toshiro Mifune's characters as well). The problem is the story still primarily revolves around the vampire characters from the mainline novels, meaning that the Japanese monsters are more or less sidelined and one note. One Japanese spirit in particular was set up as a primary threat, only to basically have her plotline go nowhere and the characters concluding she was just annoying people. I also thought Newman was a bit constrained in what he could do given that this novel is set in between stories in the mainline novels, so he couldn't truly endanger a lot of the main characters since we know they show up later.
Despite my complaint that the story focuses too much on the preexisting characters, the best part was easily learning more about Genevieve's (the main vampire hero in the series) past and how Dracula's rise to power impacted vampires across the globe. All of her reminiscences about her time in France learning to become a doctor were compelling and interesting. I also won't deny that this is probably the biggest climax in any book and was very engrossing despite at least one major villain getting dispatched far too easily.
The ending allows Newman to go in two different directions - follow up on the state of the Japanese monsters after the climax or jump back into other stories featuring Genevieve and co. And as much as I enjoy Genevieve, I'd much rather he focus fully on his new brood of monsters whose stories haven't been exhaustively told already.
April 8, 2018
I’ve enjoyed Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula series since the first came out a decade or two ago. The premise is simple: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, written in the 1890s, was real and the real Dracula arrived in England, after which he married Queen Victoria and began an era known as Dracula Ascendent. Later books carry the story through to (almost) the present day, with fairly good success throughout. The latest in the series, "One Thousand Monsters," is set in 1899 and has one of the oldest of the vampires, Genevieve Dieudonne (who looks 16 but was actually born in the 1400s), sent by Dracula to a kind of prison island in Japan, where Japanese monsters and many Western vampires are being detained. It soon becomes clear that there are political intrigues, interspecies warfare and all sorts of nefarious things going on, and Genevieve is, of course, right in the thick of it…. As I said, I’ve enjoyed this series, but this particular novel fell flat for me. I have studied some Japanese history and have seen lots of Japanese fantastical films (courtesy Montreal’s own FantAsia Festival, the best genre fest anywhere), so I’m familiar with some of the monsters Mr. Newman embodies in this book. But in general, it felt to me that he was more or less showing off his knowledge of such arcane creatures, throwing in everything he could think of and ending up with more of a “look how much I know” snark rather than an evolving story. Don’t get me wrong: Mr. Newman is a very talented writer and I’ve liked lots of his stuff beyond the Anno Dracula series, but this one just didn’t do it for me. A pity.
August 21, 2018
ONE THOUSAND MONSTERS (stylized going forward as OTM) is at once a frustrating and immensely satisfying piece of fiction. It is, to be gauche, the literary equivalent of getting blue balls after a lovely date.
OTM struggles to justify its existence as a prologue-turned-novella to Kim Newman's next ANNO DRACULA book, set in 1999. Settling this book between the first and second novels in the series allows Newman to do a lot of character-exploration he probably wouldn't be able to do otherwise, and while there is a lot of elements to OTM that I love and cherish, especially what it adds to Newman's vampiric mythos, the ending feels way too pat. It wants to convince you it's more than just table setting for another book, but ends with a quite literal clearing of the table to establish what directions its sequel will go.
Newman crams a lot of ideas in here, and like most alt-history novels dealing with pop cultural figures, a lot of stuff blows by with a brief mention. I was a little disappointed that the introduction of "Japanese Dracula", Dorakuraya Nemuri, is brushed away in the finale because I was almost certain it was going to establish that the Dracula of Konami's CASTLEVANIA series was, in fact, another culture's Dracula. But we do get vampire Sanjuro so I can't be too mad, I guess.
All in all, as a newborn fan of the ANNO DRACULA series, I can't help but feel a little bit let down by Newman promising us a millenium set AD book and failing to deliver right away, but AD 1899: OTM is quite a fulfilling appetizer to the impending main course, whenever the fuck that will be.
OTM struggles to justify its existence as a prologue-turned-novella to Kim Newman's next ANNO DRACULA book, set in 1999. Settling this book between the first and second novels in the series allows Newman to do a lot of character-exploration he probably wouldn't be able to do otherwise, and while there is a lot of elements to OTM that I love and cherish, especially what it adds to Newman's vampiric mythos, the ending feels way too pat. It wants to convince you it's more than just table setting for another book, but ends with a quite literal clearing of the table to establish what directions its sequel will go.
Newman crams a lot of ideas in here, and like most alt-history novels dealing with pop cultural figures, a lot of stuff blows by with a brief mention. I was a little disappointed that the introduction of "Japanese Dracula", Dorakuraya Nemuri, is brushed away in the finale because I was almost certain it was going to establish that the Dracula of Konami's CASTLEVANIA series was, in fact, another culture's Dracula. But we do get vampire Sanjuro so I can't be too mad, I guess.
All in all, as a newborn fan of the ANNO DRACULA series, I can't help but feel a little bit let down by Newman promising us a millenium set AD book and failing to deliver right away, but AD 1899: OTM is quite a fulfilling appetizer to the impending main course, whenever the fuck that will be.
January 27, 2018
Note: I received an advance review copy of this book through Goodreads
I have been greatly enjoying Kim Newman's series of alternate history vampire books ever since "Anno Dracula", and this book continues the series in a fun direction. Set in the turn of the 19th/20th century Japan, "One Thousand Monsters" delivers a fun and engaging story featuring some great new characters, as seen through the perspective of the familiar character Geneviève Dieudonné. One of the wonderful things about Newman's books is a sense of wry humor, peppered with some great 'Easter egg' pop references as a nice counterpart to the darker elements of the mythos. One of the wonderful qualities of this book is the sense that using Japanese demon or 'yokai' archetypes really allows him a marvelous varieties of new forms and shapes to play with, pushing well beyond the traditional European vampire forms into some truly imaginative and surreal directions. This book also allows for the interesting idea of a sort of evolution or mutation that is possible in the various species, and having Genevieve's medical assessment of the various vampires and other creatures she encounters brings a nice perspective. The pacing and overall story is fun and engaging with plenty of action and good character interaction.
I can solidly recommend this book!
I have been greatly enjoying Kim Newman's series of alternate history vampire books ever since "Anno Dracula", and this book continues the series in a fun direction. Set in the turn of the 19th/20th century Japan, "One Thousand Monsters" delivers a fun and engaging story featuring some great new characters, as seen through the perspective of the familiar character Geneviève Dieudonné. One of the wonderful things about Newman's books is a sense of wry humor, peppered with some great 'Easter egg' pop references as a nice counterpart to the darker elements of the mythos. One of the wonderful qualities of this book is the sense that using Japanese demon or 'yokai' archetypes really allows him a marvelous varieties of new forms and shapes to play with, pushing well beyond the traditional European vampire forms into some truly imaginative and surreal directions. This book also allows for the interesting idea of a sort of evolution or mutation that is possible in the various species, and having Genevieve's medical assessment of the various vampires and other creatures she encounters brings a nice perspective. The pacing and overall story is fun and engaging with plenty of action and good character interaction.
I can solidly recommend this book!
January 14, 2021
Picking up shortly after Anno Dracula, this book takes Genevieve and company to Japan. If you've read (and enjoyed) Anno Dracula or the other books in the series, you probably have some idea what you're in for:
- twisty plots and schemes
- more references to history and especially fictional characters than you can shake a stake at
- strange monsters
- multiple viewpoint characters
I expected a lot of references that I would get and ones that I wouldn't and was not disappointed. I had to look up several and came across some really interesting looking additional books and movies along the way. These references could be cloying but they always feel well integrated into the story without sidelining it. Part of the fun once you finish the book is going through and reading about the connection points with other fiction.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. I know a fair bit of Japanese culture and history, so in some ways it was the easiest for me to follow since the original Anno Dracula. (This is nothing against the sequels, I'm just not as familiar with some of the media they invoke.) The setting of Yokai Town is wonderfully macabre and Kim Newman really brings it to monstrous life.
Highly recommended; I've already started on the next one, Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju.
- twisty plots and schemes
- more references to history and especially fictional characters than you can shake a stake at
- strange monsters
- multiple viewpoint characters
I expected a lot of references that I would get and ones that I wouldn't and was not disappointed. I had to look up several and came across some really interesting looking additional books and movies along the way. These references could be cloying but they always feel well integrated into the story without sidelining it. Part of the fun once you finish the book is going through and reading about the connection points with other fiction.
Overall, I really enjoyed this one. I know a fair bit of Japanese culture and history, so in some ways it was the easiest for me to follow since the original Anno Dracula. (This is nothing against the sequels, I'm just not as familiar with some of the media they invoke.) The setting of Yokai Town is wonderfully macabre and Kim Newman really brings it to monstrous life.
Highly recommended; I've already started on the next one, Anno Dracula 1999: Daikaiju.
February 7, 2018
I had forgotten how much I enjoy Newman's pastiche series and its many, many, many nods to classic and contemporary works of fiction.
Just in the first couple of chapters we get things like a sailor by the name of Popejoy who gets his face scarred by a lash from a tar-covered rope but gets his eye saved only to squint forever on and sadly lose his original nickname of Hawkeye the Sailor Man. No amount of Spinach can cure that, I wager.
I'm partial to stuff like the Wold-Newton books and Alan Moore's work on the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, so Newman's Anno Dracula and the Man From The Diogenes Club parallel series, are endlessly fun. Especially since they share alternate versions of many the same characters. Hell, his Warhammer Fantasy series under the pen name Jack Yeovil stars yet a third alternate version of the vampire Geneviève Dieudonné.
Hell, if you can't appreciate a scene where the characters arrive to a Japanese town at the turn of the 20th Century and they come across the dog with the severed hand in its jaws from the beginning of Kurosawa's "Yojimbo," we can't be friends.
Just in the first couple of chapters we get things like a sailor by the name of Popejoy who gets his face scarred by a lash from a tar-covered rope but gets his eye saved only to squint forever on and sadly lose his original nickname of Hawkeye the Sailor Man. No amount of Spinach can cure that, I wager.
I'm partial to stuff like the Wold-Newton books and Alan Moore's work on the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, so Newman's Anno Dracula and the Man From The Diogenes Club parallel series, are endlessly fun. Especially since they share alternate versions of many the same characters. Hell, his Warhammer Fantasy series under the pen name Jack Yeovil stars yet a third alternate version of the vampire Geneviève Dieudonné.
Hell, if you can't appreciate a scene where the characters arrive to a Japanese town at the turn of the 20th Century and they come across the dog with the severed hand in its jaws from the beginning of Kurosawa's "Yojimbo," we can't be friends.
March 19, 2023
This was a very interesting and fun take on the vampire mythos and vampire fiction. I also liked how this book stood very well on its own. I haven't read the rest of this series, having picking up his novel in a thrift shop not knowing it was in a series (I know I guess that's partially my fault), but despite that I could follow the characters and story told very well without having to read the previous books. Not to mention I adored Geneviève and Kostaki as characters.
While the story was well written and the characters we followed were compelling and fun to read, there was a hint of a "white savior" type beat that just rubbed me a little wrong during the climax of this book. Maybe it's just me but idk, it took me out of the experience a bit. That and some chapters and scenes just felt a bit tedious to read through, I would read a chapter and then immediately forget the details of what the hell just happened. The only scenes that stuck with me were the climax and the main character (Geneviève) being jailed for a murder she was framed for. It just felt like it took too long to get to the juicy bits.
While the story was well written and the characters we followed were compelling and fun to read, there was a hint of a "white savior" type beat that just rubbed me a little wrong during the climax of this book. Maybe it's just me but idk, it took me out of the experience a bit. That and some chapters and scenes just felt a bit tedious to read through, I would read a chapter and then immediately forget the details of what the hell just happened. The only scenes that stuck with me were the climax and the main character (Geneviève) being jailed for a murder she was framed for. It just felt like it took too long to get to the juicy bits.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 5, 2019
The only thing that stopped me joining the carnage was Christina's hand on my shoulder. I know she is as bloodthirsty as the rest of us... but she has control. An iron will I hadn't appreciated.
'We can't,' she said to me. 'This is beneath us.'
I agreed with her, but finer feelings were asleep, like the upper head of Ryomen. The conscienceless, appetite-driven monster in my chest took charge. Open a vein in the next room and I cease to be Dr Dieudonné. I am Grendel, I am Cronus. I am a berserker.
I am – hateful to think it – Dracula.
A ship-full of vampires who have been exiled from England finally finds a port that will accept them. Although the Japanese emperor says that vampires do not exist, vampires and other monsters are allowed to live in a ghetto called Yokai Town.
The refugees led by vampire elder Geneviève Dieudonné, Kostaki a former officer in Dracula's Carpathian Guard, and newly turned Christina Light, Princess Casamassima, take up residence in a
temple although a lot of the vampires are still asleep so their coffins are stored in a warehouse. The story of their first few weeks in Japan is narrated by Geneviève and Kostaki as they try to work out how Yokai Town works and how they can fit in and prosper.
Unfortunately, I found this the dullest story I have read in this series so far. I felt that the author was desperate to cram as many creatures from Asian folklore into the stories as possible - from Ninja Turtles to a monster who looks like an inside-out umbrella - at the expense of the plot.
Geneviève has good intentions and understands both spoken and written Japanese, but she blunders her way though, misunderstanding the society and underestimating the other leaders of their group. I think the story could have been improved by having some of it narrated by Christina.
'We can't,' she said to me. 'This is beneath us.'
I agreed with her, but finer feelings were asleep, like the upper head of Ryomen. The conscienceless, appetite-driven monster in my chest took charge. Open a vein in the next room and I cease to be Dr Dieudonné. I am Grendel, I am Cronus. I am a berserker.
I am – hateful to think it – Dracula.
A ship-full of vampires who have been exiled from England finally finds a port that will accept them. Although the Japanese emperor says that vampires do not exist, vampires and other monsters are allowed to live in a ghetto called Yokai Town.
The refugees led by vampire elder Geneviève Dieudonné, Kostaki a former officer in Dracula's Carpathian Guard, and newly turned Christina Light, Princess Casamassima, take up residence in a
temple although a lot of the vampires are still asleep so their coffins are stored in a warehouse. The story of their first few weeks in Japan is narrated by Geneviève and Kostaki as they try to work out how Yokai Town works and how they can fit in and prosper.
Unfortunately, I found this the dullest story I have read in this series so far. I felt that the author was desperate to cram as many creatures from Asian folklore into the stories as possible - from Ninja Turtles to a monster who looks like an inside-out umbrella - at the expense of the plot.
Geneviève has good intentions and understands both spoken and written Japanese, but she blunders her way though, misunderstanding the society and underestimating the other leaders of their group. I think the story could have been improved by having some of it narrated by Christina.
May 1, 2018
The fifth Anno Dracula novel by Newman, and the rough edges are showing despite moving the action to a Japanese background rich with possibilities. Set just after Dracula's ascendancy, we get three intertwined stories, of which I found Genevieve's recollections of her time in Paris in the 1870s and early 1880s to be the most interesting. It was still fun to play "spot the imaginary characters" from literature and film, but the disjointed plot failed to engage me, and eventually fell victim to the tired cliche of an arrogant and all powerful protagonist crushing the villain(s) in a Deus Ex Machina finale. This volume feels like Newman's version of one those albums turned in by bands under a contractual obligation : still the same familiar tunes, but no passion. Lets hope he's saved his enthusiasm for Anno Dracula 1999 (vol 6, which Titan contracted Kim for in return for reissuing the earlier books).
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