Genevieve Undead

The Vampire Genevieve #2

by Kim Newman (Pseudonym), Kim Newman

Dark and terrible secrets may be found lurking within the cities of the Old World and the savage wilderness that surrounds them. Genevieve Dieudonné, vampire heroine of Drachenfels, battles to outwit adversaries both magical and mundane, human and beast, in this series of three linked novellas: Stage Blood, The Cold Stark House and Unicorn Ivory.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Fiction, Vampires, Audiobook, Role Playing Games, Dark Fantasy

257 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Note: 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.

Reviews

[Federico DN · Rating 2 out of 5]

One third good. Two thirds bad.

A collection of three novellas with Genevieve. This was a very good and very bad sequel. The book divided into three parts. The first one was the best by far, the rest rather forgettable.

★★★☆☆ “Stage Blood” [3.5] After the epic battle at Castle Drachenfels, the vampire Genevieve and actor Detlef Sierck try to carry a normal and peaceful life, or at least give it their best shot. But the millennial necromancer and sorcerer Constant Drachenfels maybe was not so completely vanquished as everyone thought. A tiny part of his essence has remained in a seemingly innocuous object, deviously planning a terrible revenge. Slowly, moving from host to host, corrupting everyone it enters in contact with to complete its abominable goals.

A direct sequel to #1 Drachenfels. It was great to see Genevieve and Detlef back again, still battling their way together. It felt at the same time like a short sequel and one huge messy epilogue all meshed together. A very decent closure to the Drachenfels timeline.

★☆☆☆☆ “The Cold Stark House” Genevieve leaves Altdorf and Detlef behind for his sake, and during her travels she takes shelter in the House of Udolpho, unbeknownst to her the ancient curse that plagues the place and its members, stuck in an endless loop of rewrited memories. Oh no! How on earth is she going to escape?

This was so outstandingly boring, skimmable and overall completely forgettable. All the characters so similar and unidimensional you couldn’t tell them apart not even wearing name tags on their foreheads.

★★☆☆☆ “Unicorn Ivory”. While a guest of Graf Rudiger von Unheinlich, nobleman of the Empire and patron of the League of Karl-Franz, Genevieve is coerced into participating in a group hunt of a unicorn mare, one of the most dangerous beings of the Drak Wald Forest. Covertly, she was also tasked with assassinating a target. She’s not a killer for hire, but if she doesn’t comply someone else may pay for it...

It was ok, at best. Better than Cold Stark House for sure. Still, nothing truly memorable.

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PERSONAL NOTE :
[1993] [288p] [Fantasy] [2.5] [1/3 Recommendable]
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★★★★☆ 1. Drachenfels [4.5]
★★★☆☆ 2. Genevieve Undead [2.5]
★★☆☆☆ 3. Beasts in Velvet [1.5]

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Un tercio bueno. Dos tercios malo.

Una colección de tres novelas cortas con Genevieve. Esto fue una muy buena y muy mala secuela. El libro divido en tres partes. La primera fue la mejor por lejos, el resto bastante olvidable.

★★★☆☆ “Sangre de Escenario” [3.5]. Después de la épica batalla en el Castillo Drachenfels, la vampira Genevieve y el actor Detlef Sierck tratan de llevar una vida normal y apacible, o al menos darle su menor intento. Pero el milenario nigromante y hechicero Constant Drachenfels tal vez no fue tan completamente derrotado como todos pensaban. Una pequeña parte de su esencia ha quedado en un aparentemente inocuo objeto, secretamente planeando una terrible venganza. Lentamente, moviéndose de huésped en huésped, corrompiendo a todos con los que entra en contacto para completar sus abominables objetivos.

Una directa secuela de #1 Drachenfels. Fue genial volver a ver Genevieve y Detlef otra vez, combatiendo su camino juntos. Se sintió a su vez como una corta secuela y un gran desordenado epilogo mezclado todo junto. Un muy decente cierre para la línea temporal de Drachenfels.

★☆☆☆☆ “La fría Casa rígida” Genevieve deja Altdorf y Detlef atrás por su bien, y durante su viaje toma refugio en la Casa de Udolpho, sin saber ella de la antigua maldición que asola el lugar y sus miembros, atrapada en un círculo sin fin de memorias reescritas. ¡Oh no! ¿Cómo por todos los clelos va a escapar?

Esto fue extraordinariamente aburrido, salteable y por sobre todo completamente olvidable. Todos los personajes tan similares y unidimensionales que no se pueden diferenciar aunque tuvieran una etiqueta con sus nombres en la frente.

★★☆☆☆ “Marfil de Unicornio”. Mientras siendo invitada de Graf Rudiger von Unheinlich, hombre noble del Imperio y patrón de la Liga de Karl-Franz, Genevieve se ve coaccionada a participar en una caza grupal de un unicornio hembra, uno de los seres más peligrosos del Bosque Drak Wald. Encubierta, también fue ordenada con asesinar un objetivo. Ella no es una asesina a sueldo, pero si no obedece alguien más pagara por ello…

Esto estuvo ok, cuando mucho. Mejor que la Casa rígida absolutamente. Aun así, nada verdaderamente memorable.

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NOTA PERSONAL :
[1993] [288p] [Fantasía] [2.5] [1/3 Recomendable]
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[Tanya Kuz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great homage to Romantic Gothic Horror novels.

If you love Frankenstein, Jane Eyre or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde you will probably love this book.

[Paulo "paper books only" · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comparing with the previous book i must say i prefer the former. This one was a compilation of 3 stories (not that interconnected althought in terms of timeline they are one after the other). My main problem is that apart from the 3 story thr other two our main protagonist is not the main protagonist. The first story was not to my liking focusing a lot on her lover. The second is a mix of names from novels written between 1800 to 1900 names like vathek, melkor and such... Even the story itself read as a victorian novel. The third is the one it focus more on gene. A solid victorian short story collection... But unfortunally nothing stands out.

[[Name Redacted] · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know that this one has the benefit of being written by Jack Yeovil (aka: Kim Newman, author of the "Anno Dracula" series), but it really does feel like a solid 1/3 of Games Workshop's tie-in novels are legitimate literary works...and this is one of them. Haunting, full of gothic literary references, and gorgeously written.

Meanwhile nearly everything U.S. companies have tried to put out as tie-in fiction reeks of the boiling pot.

[Dominic Trump · Rating 4 out of 5]

A trio of short stories involving the eponymous heroine, I was delighted to find this continued in much the same "vein" as the novel Drachenfels. The Old World has such a charm to it, I found that even in the latter two stories where the plot sometimes dragged, the setting was so rich that I was still captivated! I particularly enjoyed how Genevieve is used as a sort of lens through which the reader can see the developing times and sensibilities of the Empire!

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

So Kim Newman is a phenomenal writer. Again, this book took me about 6 days to finish. I get that it's relatively short and that's not the most impressive record ever, but it's weeks faster than I normally read a book. I love Genevieve as a character, I love his worldbuilding, I love the strangeness of some of his scenes, I love the way he approaches scenes, etc.

SPOILERS

I also love a theme that I noticed between Drachenfels and this book - that those warped by Chaos are not necessarily evil. I think that was a big theme they were going for in the beginning of the Warhammer Fantasy setting - just because you're physically corrupted doesn't mean that you want to be evil and do evil things. Admittedly, Vargr Bruegel (the mutant in the first book) was starting to go evil, but he restrained himself for decades before he was finally caught and he committed suicide rather than hurt others. The Trapdoor Daemon, Malvoisin, is much the same - he is a good person stuck in a terrible body. I loved the nod to Jekyll and Hyde as the play that Sierck was making in the first story btw - and I liked that he changed for the better by the end of it by deciding to be better. As for Drachenfels' Animus, I did not expect him to make another showing in the books and enjoyed that as well.

The second short story was a whirlwind of names and character relations - the mansion where this family, the Udolphos, was trapped in a never ending melodrama was a great touch. I liked the story overall, but I just didn't have enough time with the characters on the page to truly form a mental image of all of them. There were just too many - they were distinctive don't get me wrong, but there were just so many of them and we were with them for so short a time. Still - I liked Kloszowsky and agreed with his ideas of revolution against the aristocracy. I think that's another plot thread in early Warhammer lore that might have been lost.

The third story was very well written, complete with a loathsome father figure who hunts just for glory and the desire to kill, a browbeaten yet moral son whose real father was secretly his uncle, etc. I liked Genevieve's part and I liked the story overall, but really the only thing that stuck out to me was at the end when she killed the Unicorn mare. She taught the son what a hunter is really supposed to do - remove from the world those animals that are not serving the natural order anymore. The unicorn was a relic and did more damage than good, so she killed it. Hunters in the real world could learn a thing or two from that.

[Vakaris the Nosferatu]

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

About the Book: Theater life is inseparable from legends, myths, mysteries, dark secrets, and other oddities. And while mere mortals might be put off by the idea of a demon in the walls or mirrors, giving tips to actors, Genevieve is more curious than anything else. She tried being patient and gentle in her coaxing, but her hand was forced by an old enemy resurfacing, it’s tool of Chaos appearing, to wreck havoc on the theater vampire called her home for a while now.

My Opinion: This is, by no means, a good story, no. But the… The mass of it is amusing. There is a trapdoor demon dubbed fella, deformed by some kind of stone of Chaos or whatever, who is essentially the phantom of the opera. There’s theater drama, aging leads, rivalry, gothic witchcraft, deadly unicorns, and Kim Newman’s signature writing: a wall of complex text that provides almost a theater-like setting of the scene, while at the same time it reads like a parody of one. And so, this is, by no means, a bad story, no…

Characters, while following their near-stereotypical roles, were actually well written, and were easy to invest into, that kept me reading. So, the book gets a solid 3 out of 5, despite not being anything I could recommend to anyone.

[Heiki Eesmaa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an excellent series, very early on in Warhammer Fantasy, not bothering really to conform to the world. More a real-world pastiche but somehow creative and while cartoony, still psychologically somewhat plausible.

The trouble is that the second volume is a compilation of novellas, and as such, I did not like the audio format. While competently done, it's somehow wrong to just continue when the first novella wraps up with such beautiful melodrama. A mash-up of Jekyll & Hyde with Phantom of the Opera, interspersed with contemplations about acting and aging.

I continued with the book version. The second story is a confusing and somewhat intgeresting riff on The Fall of House Usher. The third one is a unicorn hunt, and the weakest of the bunch.

If this were the first volume, with no goodwill built up, no way would I continue. As it stands, I feel the collection is in principle skippable.

A thought I had whilst listening: I've been trying forever to get through Fevre Dream, GRRM's Dark South vampire novel. It's really quite good, but I don't enjoy it very much. Yet I really enjoy Genevieve, despite, or lets be fair, because it does not attempt to be a proper vampire story. It has some of the gothic horror trappings, but still a lot of the comic dark humor of Warhammer as well.

[Matthew Pennell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Suffers massively from comparison to its predecessor Drachenfels, but even without that caveat this is not a great book; three disconnected stories featuring characters you don't get to know well enough to really care about.

[Yanik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last year for Halloween I read Drachenfelsand loved it.
This year I started the tradition of reading a Genevieve book around that time, which gives me 2 more years of spoopy Warhammer vampire books to look forward to!

Where Drachenfels was a full-length novel, Genevieve Undead is a collection of (technically) 2 novellas and a longer short story (around 50 pages). This allows for a larger variety of settings and characters, though they do take place in chronological order with more or less consecutive plot points and characters. Genevieve is not so much the main character in these as the thread that weaves the stories together. As before, they are in a traditional Gothic Horror style ranging from tragically sad to visceral bloody terror. There’s always a twist to it all and Newman does a fantastic job of layering and paralleling stories. The writing is witty, clever and at times beautiful. Overall, the shorter format does hamper the speed of the stories which was especially noticeable in Stage Blood, the other two were paced fine even going as far as shortening the chapter lengths the further the stories progressed and tensions mounted.
I’ll review each one briefly.

Stage Blood
This is a direct sequel of Drachenfels. Detlef and Genevieve are still together and he and his stage troupe are about to launch his newest production. There are many returning characters from and musings on the previous book. Like its predecessor, the plot and story beats are heavily styled after stage play. The parallels between script and real life blurring, the story being told on stage reflecting what the characters are going through.
The themes explore dark tendencies and character traits lurking beneath psyches and how certain events, relationships and obsessions can bring these to the surface. Through this, several types of ‘monster’ are touched upon; there’s a chaos mutated being that is still human inside despite his outward appearance, there is a foul mask bound on vengeance unshackling the dark side of its wearers and of course there is Genevieve who by nature would be considered a monster by many but chooses to be good person. In that way, it reminded me of the The Witcher stories.
The story is mainly set in Detlefs theater in Altdorf; an ancient building with many secret passages in its walls and a place for drama both on and off the stage. It’s an interesting rendition of the haunted house that was Drachenffells. Through it all subjects like toxic relationships, domestic abuse and violence and prejudices are touched upon. I would have liked to see the murderous, vengeful mask that unleashes its wearer’s deepest, darkest impulses and desires to be explored deeper and its journey felt rushed and too convenient.

The Cold Stark House
This one is kind of crazy, creative and chaotic. I won’t spoil too much of the weird plot twists and things happening as they’re fun to find out for yourself.
It’s another haunted castle blend with a sorta kinda stage play, but the Gothic Horror is dialed up to 11 and the plot is a semi-random rollercoaster. The castle is located in the mountains bordering the Tilean Blighted Marshes. There’s a fun, diverse cast of troubled people finding themselves in an unliving nightmare of an enchanted family. The horror is more visceral and gorey than the other stories, the characters hornier and the humor charred black to a crisp.
Genevieve is just another of these characters bound to caprice of herself and everyone around her.
Once the set up is taken care of, the chapters follow each other in quicker and quicker succession of escalation and reveals rising in a chaotic crescendo in the last handful of chapters of less than a page long.

Unicorn Ivory
I ended up enjoying this one a lot. It has a slower start and by far the most repulsive characters, but the themes and story it tells are quite well done. This one is shorter, more concise than the other two but didn’t feel rushed. It’s interesting how Newman drifted towards short stories as this series progressed.
The main theme here is hunters and the hunted. Predators and prey. And more specifically, the implied relation between man and woman.
It leans heavily into the macho, hyper-masculine hunters’ culture that I despise and it takes a bit before the narrative stars swinging against it. It does give you a very good intro into hating the antagonists of the story.
As usual Newman is great at nuance. While Genevieve doesn’t play a huge part is the first half of the story, her nature as a vampire and current employment as assassin makes her the predator and gives ample time for wonderful introspection.
As in the other stories, escalation snowballs and soon one murder follows the other. The short story form is handled expertly; moving in brisk, short chapters, but never feeling too bloated or fast for its content and progression.

So, I was once again very impressed with Newman’s writing and skillful, layered storytelling. I will look into his other vampire stories, though they appear to be slightly more whimsical than the grimdark Warhammer setting usually allows.

[Lukas Rosgaard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first and second story were the best

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was slightly surprised to discover that I hadn't read this, being as I'm such a fan of Newman's work, but there you go. It's probably been a the bottom of a box of books somewhere for the last ten years or so. Anyway, this is back from when, as Jack Yeovil, Kim Newman was writing for the Games Workshop, a series of novels and stories set in the Warhammer universe. By the by, here's Stephen Baxter's fascinating account about how a small group of young writers who had been published in Interzone in the eighties came to write tie-in novels for Games Workshop, with all sorts of interesting results: http://www.vectormagazine.co.uk/artic...

Anyway, Genevieve Undead is a series of three novellas, featuring the eponymous heroine, a six-hundred year old vampire in a sixteen year old body. The first, Stage Blood, sees an artifact of the evil Drachenfels - defeated in the book of the same name - set out to avenge the dark lord. Genevieve's human lover Detlief, a playwright and actor, has just begin a run of his dark new play, much to the approval of the audience and the Trapdoor Daemon, a phantom-like figure who haunts Detlief's theatre. Newman's literary playfulness is in full force here. The setting of the Warhammer universe is a Germanic Mittle-European 17th century sort of place, and the play is 'The Strange History Of Dr Zhiekhill and Mr Chaida.' Cue lots of troubled angsting about man's dark side and the evil within, while the poor hideous Trapdoor Daemon clings to his innate humanity and the artifact bears down on our cast, bringing out the worst inside whoever it touches.

The Cold Stark House takes the literary games to a whole new level as Genevieve is trapped in a remote, crumbling old house to become part of a horrible family who plot, steal, poison and kill each other in endless, bloody variations of the most insane, twisted, gothic melodramas. The arrival of a revolutionary on the run and a courtesan help break the spell, but it may be too late for all of them.

Unicorn Ivory is the final story. Genevieve is inveigled into a plot to assassinate a political rival, something she is initially reluctant to do. Graf Rudiger, however, turns out to be exactly the sort of person who needs a bit of killing, and Genevieve tags along as he takes his party on a unicorn hunt. The story twists and turns and reverses and tables are turned and humans and vampires become the prey as Genevieve and Rudiger match hunting skills in a deadly game.

This is a quick read: fast-paced, intelligent gory fun. Genevieve proved to be such a compelling character that Newman uses no less than two more alternative versions in his Anno Dracula series and his Diogenes Club series. It'd be interesting to see him return her to the fantasy setting from whence she sprang for another couple of stories, but then it'd be also great to see the Dark Future series finished, and neither seem likely, which is a pity.

June 2022 - audiobooked it, the reader for the Yeovil books is FANTASTIC.

[Benjamin L. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Genevieve undead is a collection of three novellas of varying quality, and to reflect that I have rated the whole book as the average of the three (3, 1, 2, respectively). Rather than focus my review on each novella in turn, I wanted to focus on some patterns and commonalities that emerged between them, and including it's predecessor, Drachenfels.

This series is colloquially known as the adventures of Genevieve, but a more appropriate title might be 'adventures happening in the general vicinity of Genevieve'. Over the four narratives i have read so far (The three novellas herein, + Drachenfels), they have all followed the same basic meta-outline, though the themes, settings, and direct plot have varied considerably. In each, The story focuses on - and is primarily told through the eyes of - another character, and includes a variety of secondary supporting POV's of which out supposed hero is only one. On the face of it, this is not necessarily a bad thing; actually, it's quite an interesting idea - a life or series about a secondary character, each book focusing on their interactions with a different main character. Unfortunately, this would only work if that through-line character - in our case, Genevieve - was a strong one, and she isn't. Our vampire rarely becomes important to the plot until the inevitable climactic fight scene, where the her status as a vampire functions to absolve the author - in his eyes - of coming up with any kind of subtly, charisma, or cleverness to beat the bad guy. Genevieve can do it because she is a vampire, and vampires are super strong. Before this climax where she jumps in claws-slashing, she is hardly a character at all - relegated to observing what is going on around here, with no meaningful impact. A ghost could - and in some cases does - have more plot relevance than her. She exists as a plot device, a dues ex machina in another's (or several others') story (or stories).

Aside from the second novella in this volume, which literally made no sense whatsoever and felt like aimless rambling for 50 pages, the stories themselves are not bad. They are not terribly good, either, but do contain some interesting and genuinely interesting, uncommon and thought-provoking ideas. I did particularly enjoy the first novella in the current text (3 stars) and would recommend reading it as a standalone, though it could be much stronger if it were written as a standalone.

[Chip Hunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second book of the chronicles of The Vampire Genevieve, and is actually composed of three independent short stories only loosely tied together. I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did Drachenfels. The three short stories just don't develop to the same scope as Yeovil's first Warhammer novel. Nevertheless, this book is very enjoyable and won't disappoint Warhammer fans who're looking for something a bit darker than you get from most fantasy books. Many of the scenes here are downright disturbing.

The fist story, Stage Blood, is highly similar to the novel Drachenfels, with many of the same characters (including Deitlef Seirk) and having a theatre theme. Drachenfel's mask retains its creator hatred for the heroes and sets out to do them in. The danger is not as potent as in the first novel, but the characters are just as realistic and likable. An unlikely hero emerges in the form of a chaos-altered (but kind-hearted) mutant.

The second story reads like a mystery/horror, with Genevieve becoming lost in some kind of bizarre dream-like haunted house where murders occur regularly but without long term effect. Some of the most disturbing and graphic scenes of any novel I've ever read are found in this story. I liked it a lot, but it was fairly anticlimactic.

The final story, Unicorn Ivory, is my least favorite. Here Yeovil introduces some deeply disturbed individuals with some rather strange behaviours (like hunting real people) and impulses. Genevieve has been blackmailed into murdering Graf Rudiger, but she needs to find out more about his before she is willing to. Hunters are sort of made out to be a bit evil in this one, killing unicorns just for the sake of the kill. It is only a so-so story in my book.

Overall, this novel is mildly disappointing, not having much depth and not really contributing too much to Genevieve's character or the greater story of her finding purpose in life.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as Drachenfels, but still very good gothic fantasy horror. Note that although this subtitled as "The Vampire Genevieve #2", it should actually be read AFTER Beasts in Velvet, as all three novellas are set after this and there are frequent references to events in this novel, including the huge spoiler of who committed the Beast murders and why. No idea why the publishers chose to release the collected series numbered in that order - I can only imagine they didn't actually read the books.

Anyway, I mentioned this book contains three novellas. These progress chronologically and feature the same central character, the vampire Genevieve. The first, "Stage Blood", was the best. It's very much a sequel to Drachenfels with something called the Animus attempting to exact revenge on the playwright Detlef Sierck and the vampire Genevieve on behalf of Constant Drachenfels. It was clearly inspired by the Phantom of the Opera, with elements of of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (re-imagined as the play "The Strange History of Dr Zhiekhill and Mr Chaida"), and even scenes reminiscent of The Terminator. Excellent stuff, and the sort of re-imagining that Jack Yeovil/Kim Newman does superbly.

The second novella was "A Cold Stark House" was more of a mystery, focused on the strange goings-on at the lonely storm-lashed house of Udolpho, with three strangers stranded at night seeking shelter from the storm at this mansion. Took a while to understand what was going on, but nicely atmospheric in a classic-feeling supernatural mystery.

The third and final novella was "Unicorn Ivory", about an aristocrat's obsessive hunt for unicorns in a wintry Drakwald Forest. This seemed the weakest and shortest in the collection, and had little in the way of horror or supernatural mystery, although I enjoyed the setting of the hunting lodge.

[Gally · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a full-length novel, but rather a novelette and two short stories.

Picking up some years after the first book, the novelette is probably the highlight of the three tales. Maintaining the themes and highlights of the first novel, this novelette follows a mystery-drama unfolding at Detlef's playhouse alongside a grotesque revenge plot of escalating focus. An enjoyable mix of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde with Beauty and the Beast that makes good use of the setting.
The second story finds Genevieve in a spellbound mansion and is just wonderfully eclectic.
The last story follows Genevieve's stay at a hunter's lodge where a unicorn hunt is taking place. I did not care much for this one at all.

While all these stories have fun concepts and are delivered competently, they largely lack the sense of adventure and heroism of the first book. They are fundamentally stationary tales, with any branches moving towards the central character with minimal sense of movement. These stories certainly grasp the grim-dark setting of Warhammer Fantasy, but where are the "mighty heroes," "bold deeds," and "great courage"? The grim-dark is good, but the setting explicitly describes itself in the opening paragraphs of every book as a place too of adventure and heroism, which unfortunately the stories in this book do not really deliver.

[James Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

A trilogy of stories featuring the vampire Genevieve.
In 'Stage Blood' Genevieve is living with Detlef in his theatre in Altdorf. While he is putting on one of his most challenging plays of his career their old foe Drachenfels has sent his revenge on them from beyond the grave. Meanwhile in the theatre itself the Trapdoor Daemon has decided to mentor the young upcoming star Eva.
Fleeing her life in Altdorf Genevieve gets wrapped up in the curse of a noble family in Telia until freed by the arrival of a revolutionary upsets the balance of the place, in 'The Cold Start House'.
At a hunting lodge deep in the Drakenwald Forest a group of nobles and Genevieve are hunting one of the most dangerous of prey in Unicorn Ivory.

Love these stories. They are clever parodies of existing properties including 'Phantom of the Opera', 'Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde' and 'Bleak House' as well soap operas. Mr Newman's love of film really comes through. But they work on their own two as effective and entertaining horror and adventure stories set in the time where the Warhammer world was wild and only partially formed.

[Sebastien · Rating 2 out of 5]

Autant que Drachenfels et Beast in Velvet m'ont accrocher à l'univers de Warhammer, autant Genevieve Undead à failli me faire décrocher. La première histoire étant une suite logique à Drachenfels était intéressante, mais donnait l'impression que l'auteur était presser de l'écrire et de la publier. Les histoire (qui sont des mini-histoires :() sont inégales et manquent gravement de vie.

Même si dans la première on revoit certains personnage qu'on a tant aimé dans Drachenfels, ils deviennent fade dans cette histoire. Je suis du genre à me rappeler des histoires que je lis et je me rappel même pas les deux dernières histoires et peu de la première. Je crois que j'ai passé au travers juste par principe.

Si vous voulez mon avis vous pouvez passé sur celui-là et vous ne perdrai pas grand chose. A moins que vous soyez un fan de Jeckyll and Hide, qui est le fond de la première histoire. Sinon passé votre chemin, il existe d'autre livre de loin meilleur.

[JM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I'm not really familiar with Warhammer's fantasy universe, Jack Yeovil's novels about the vampire Genevieve have enough fantasy tropes to make them familiar but also enough differences to keep me interested. This is not a novel, though, but a collection of chronologically related short stories dealing with what happened to the character after the events described in the previous novel Drachenfels. I like that Kim Newman (Yeovil's a pen name) uses a different version of the character he uses in his Anno Dracula series, and that he still makes her an interesting character. Sure, she's a vampire and she's beautiful and bla bla bla, but Newman manages to make her more than a cliché. The stories themselves are fun and varied enough to keep you interested.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

The second book chronicling the vampire Genevieve. It's actually three separate stories that are only very loosely tied together. Overall, it was as good as Drachenfels, although Warhammer fans will love the darker and more disturbing themes of the three stories. The first story is set with theatre theme. It has believable characters and is a good plot that relates back to Drachenfels. The second story is being in a disturbingly haunted house. The setting itself was very good but it didn't end very well. The last story is about perverse behaviours and well, didn't really like it.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book loosely related to previously Genevieve novel. You can definitely read them in either order.

This is really three separate pieces, all loosely involving Genevieve. A Novella, which is a Warhammer flavored retelling of Phantom of the Opera. A short horror story based on a pretty cool premise that an evil wizard can suck people into enacting plays for his entertainment, becoming the characters of the script. And the best of the three stories, involving Unicorn Hunting and corruption.

Can be fun, but definitely not a satisfying sequel.

[Tyler Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Newman’s Genevieve is always compelling and in this trio of novellas, ideas fulminate with such rapidity that one can barely keep up with the fun. It is, alas, something less than the sum of its parts with each novella treating Genevieve as an observer who never really gets to engage in the way Drachenfels lets her.

If you’re a Newman (or Yeeovil) completionist, there is nothing to dislike here, but there are better places to start and it can feel like empty calories after some of the dizzying highs of his other books.

[Zezegef · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this novel after "Beasts in Velvet"! "Stage Blood" is an homage to The Phantom of the Opera with a reference to the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, while "The Cold Stark House" is an homage to the The Old Dark House by J. B. Priestley.

I'm surprised by the other reviews - the writing is incredible, making you stay up in a trance. I wish all Warhammer novellas were written at this level. Each story gives a different flavor, Newman skillfully calls back to other incidents from his own stories as well as other Warhammer novels, and his characterization is excellent.

[Paweł · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jako, że nie znalazłem rodzimego wydania "Wieczna Genevieve" skrobnę krótkie przemyślenia w tym miejscu. Książka jest ... rozczarowująca. Zarówno w odniesieniu do świata Warhammer'a jak tytułowej bohaterki. Akcje mogłaby się toczyć w zasadzie w dowolnym świecie spod znaku Magii i Miecza, a Genevieve mogłaby się w 2/3 w ogóle nie pojawiać. Można by pewnie podciągnąć pod 3* ale z uwagi na słabe wrzucenie w świat Warhammer'a subiektywnie 2*.

[Nicola · Rating 2 out of 5]

old school, Old World, Warhammer Fantasy. I read it in my youth while RPG'ing Warhammer Fantasy and loved picking up immersive novels for the setting. It's a different experience picking up the novels again as an adult when many years have passed since I last read books of this ilk. My tastes have somewhat changed and I didn't enjoy it nearly as much although it was fun to reminisce.

[Phillip Krzeminski · Rating 2 out of 5]

As others have said, this entry suffers from comparison to the amazing Drachenfels. But it doesn’t stand up very well on its own, either. It’s really three short stories, none of which have enough substance to stand on their own.

[Rixene · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's basically Phantom of the Opera.
The mirror scene- the catacombs, living in the lagoon- several moments are directly lifted from Phantom.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a summation.

[John Somers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read as part of The Vampire Genevieve omnibus.

[Carlos Santiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tres historias requete chulas que rayan en el terror, las traiciones, la oscuridad mas perpetua y el asco roñoso y maravilloso del Viejo Mundo. Genial, muy genial.

[Arterius · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first story was OK

The Second Story was awful

The Third Story was by far the best. Very interesting.