Dracula of Transylvania

by Ricardo Delgado, Robbie Robbins (Editor)

In Dracula of Transylvania, the year is 1899. Young Solicitor Jonathan Harker braves ghosts, demons, living skeletons, and armies of rats—all of which pale in comparison to his encounters with Dracula of Transylvania, the Son of Satan. The demonic, shapeshifting vampire imposes his wrath, malice and vengeance upon an England about to enter the Modern Era.

An epic gothic storytelling with the pulse-pounding pace of the modern thriller, a cross between The Exorcits and The Lord of the Rings. It is a brilliant and dark reimagining of the classic original story with a fascinating new perspective on one of literature’s most feared characters.

Dracula of Transylvania is footnoted throughout with historical facts from the ancient to the modern world that bring texture to the sprawling and haunting adventure. Murder among English tombstones! Daring chases through the infamous underground Paris Ossuaries! A spectacular gladiatorial battle within Rome's Colosseum during the Witching Hour! And finally, a fever-pitch chase through Europe to the most terrifying place on earth: Castle Dracula.

The all-new illustrated novel Dracula of Transylvania, features an original story and more than 20 lavish illustrations, reimagines Bram Stoker’s classic vampire story like you've never seen it before.

Genres: Horror, Vampires, Graphic Novels Comics, Retellings

560 pages, Paperback

Published December 5, 2023

Reviews

[Shannara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am seriously disappointed. I couldn’t finish this and I can’t really recommend it because of that. Also, it’s not a graphic novel. I wasn’t going to let that affect if I enjoyed the book, but still, they shouldn’t parade a 560 page book as a graphic novel if there’s only a handful of pictures. I hate giving low ratings, but in this case, I had no choice.

I guess thanks to NetGalley for the copy of this to read for my honest and unbiased opinion.

[following fantasies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC of this in exchange for an honest review.

This book, as you can most likely tell, is a Dracula retelling.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. Right off the bat, the formatting of this text was not reader friendly. In order to read correctly, you had to keep zooming in and out and scrolling as opposed to just swiping to the next page. I was also expecting this to be a graphic novel, but it is more of a novel with some illustrations at the beginning of chapters/parts. The illustrations were a nice touch, but not really my style. All the illustrations are in black and white. There were a lot of quotes from the bible and long Greek and Latin monologues followed immediately by the translations. I feel that was a waste, either quote in the native language or use the translation, but not both.

Since I am not the target audience for this, I feel unfair rating it positively or negatively,which is why my rating will be a 3. I think people who are very interested in Dracula lore and how it would have played a part throughout history would like this. If you are someone who would like to know how Dracula would havrle affected other countries and continents, you might also enjoy this.

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a new, freely reimagined Dracula novel based on characters and plot elements from the Bram Stoker classic for audiences used to much more explicit gore and horror. The author, Ricardo Delgado, is known for his art and design on several fantasy and SF movies (Men in Black, Jurassic 3, Matrix 2, …). I have to say the writing for the first 100 pages (of 500) is not very good—every noun is preceded by three or four adjectives when one would do. An editor could have really made this book sing; a proofreader would have been appreciated as well. HOWEVER, once Dracula and his 3 “wives” make a stunning attack on the good guys in London the book just takes off and any writing flaws fade away. The story takes over and and the well-drawn characters make the remaining 400 pages fly by. I REALLY enjoyed this. The story moves from London to Paris and Rome (for a truly amazing scene at the Colosseum and a big chase back to Transylvania. Excellent storytelling. My copy was purchased through the Kickstarter and has 35 beautiful/horrifying color plates in back.

[Sharon]

DNF - page 44 (8%)

Ultimately, I found this book to be unreadable, which I do not say lightly. Multiple characters speak in non-English languages, often multiple languages per character. Which could be a very interesting, diverse array. However, the way in which this dialogue is presented is by having a character speak and then repeating the line, but in English with italics. This makes huge swaths of the novel entirely redundant. It was very frustrating to find myself ignoring lines and lines of prose and just skimming for the italics.
I also thought the three pages of monographs from various classics and Biblical passages was a bit excessive.

Also extremely disappointing was that this was billed as a graphic novel, when it's just an illustrated novel.

And keep Lilith out of this :(

[Jamilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dracula of Transylvania
by Ricardo Delgado
A Review

“He was dark majesty.”

An ambitious retelling of the beloved Dracula by Dram Stoker filled with strange and terrifying illustrations!

“You look upon history itself.”

Perfect for fans of the genre, especially those that love the rich lore of Dracula and want an expansive story that reads like a historical text with informative foot notes galore and filled with Latin, Romanian and Arabic.

“And you three filthy women of pleasure will leave this plane of existence with dry, barren, childless wombs.”

Likes:

The Brides. This retelling added a voice and layers of complexity to Venus, Petra and Andromeda, the ‘brides of Dracula’.

The Illustrations. Perfectly dark and violent! I can just imagine how lush they’d be in a hardback!

The Coda, in Amsterdam, at the end! The banter was extremely well done!

Dislikes:

The author used internet searches and translation engines to translate bits of dialogue to the various languages used in this book as opposed to real people from the cultures depicted.

All in all, this was a lush, beguiling tale that’s not for everyone, but is definitely a stunning retelling!

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest review!

[Daira · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bram Stoker‘s „Dracula“ is one of my favorite classics, so when I saw an opportunity to read a graphic novel retelling of it, I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, I landed hard. This book was not for me and just a let down in a myriad of ways. This was a DNF for me (I gave up around page 40).

The first sign of trouble showed as soon as I opened my e-galley and instead of a graphic novel I found a novel with a few illustrations. It‘s fine, I told myself, as I zoomed in and out and pushed the page this way and that, trying to read a pdf that had two vertical pages in a horizontal page (and 6 pages per screen when zoomed out). This wouldn‘t be a problem for readers that would pick up a physical copy of the book and thus, I kept going.

However, while the beginning of the story looked very promising, with short chapters from different times throughout the ages, rich with historical references and pretty language, it soon turned into a negative aspect instead of a positive. To make sure the readers knew that people in the Roman Empire spoke in a language that was not the text language (English), we got paragraphs of dialogue written in Latin and Greek (with paragraphs of translation following it), making it an unusual reading experience where I just skipped everything not written in English (like, half a page of text, sometimes). And from there it only went downhills. Every noun just had to have an adjective to it; no one ever just ‚said‘ something, they hissed, seethed, gurgled etc. Another major problem I had were the biblical references and themes which just felt uncomfortable and in-your-face (and I‘m saying that after taking the original work it was based on into consideration).

When the story finally got to where the original begins, with Jonathan Harker coming to Transylvania, I just lost any semblance of interest. The stylistic problems with the text I pointed out before continued, but here we just got some unusual changes to the story (Jonathan was now an American and friends with Quincy Morris??) and I decided, from my experience with bad movies based on „Dracula“, that I would just keep getting more angry about a book that was just not for me.

I received an advance review copy for free from NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Marissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this so much. I didn't like the reference and talk about God. But I love how the retelling of Dracula by Bram Stoker was told. I love the Art and the Latin in the book as well. It has made me more and more want to learn Latin as its a fascinating language I also want to learn other languages as well on top of Latin. I highly recomment this to everyone and I want to get a physical copy and a ebook copy of it as well. So when I am not in the house my physical copy doesnt get ruined or lost.

[Neveen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such an interesting book for any fan of Bram Stocker's Dracula. Indeed the historical sequence of the novel is very informative. Also, as an Academia, I have enjoyed the footnotes


Yet, my issue is that Arabic does not come out as consistent words but as letters; maybe it is a problem with the Netgalley's reader, but as a bilingual reader, I wished to see Arabic written well as the other languages.

Overall, it is wonderfully, written. Thank you for allowing me to review this book

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huge fan of Delgado's AGE OF REPTILES, and I always like a good Dracula story, so I thought to pick this up. The story starts off a little...difficult....to read, but then really picks up and proved hard to put down. He put a ton of detail into it, sometimes maybe too much, if that's possible. The art included is just incredible, and looking at it periodically while taking a break from the text really solidified the visuals in my head while I was reading this.

[Tristan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an adaptation of Dracula, which I have not read, nor have I watched any of the Dracula movies, so this review is me going into the story completely blind.

I haven't finished it yet, but I am enjoying this novel a lot so far. There is a lot of cool graphic descriptions that beautifully paint the scene or make my skin crawl. Dracula pulls no punches. There's scenes where he savagely torturers and mutilates people, it's brutal and very scary. Some dialogue is written in the languages the characters are speaking (like greek or latin) which is one of the things that made me want to buy the book in the first place! I can’t read any of these languages, but I think it’s a nice touch that adds to the reader’s immersion in the story. There is also some sections that are made to look hand written, which has a similar effect, although these sections are a bit hard to read. I also like the art a lot. In the back there is a few pages of drawings by the author.

Something I don’t like too much about this book is the parts without Dracula are kind of boring. The book switches back and fourth between Dracula and a posh English family as Dracula is coming to kill them. This does a great job of creating tension and unease in the story, but I find myself getting bored reading about some rich Englishmen preparing for a wedding. It’s not all bad though, there is some interesting character building in these sections, and some horror surrounding the criminally insane Renfield.

In the beginning of the book, we learn of Dracula's origin. He is the son of Satan! There's a lot of references to satanic things in this book, so if you are very religious, keep this in mind. I am not religious so it doesn't bother me.

It seems like a lot of people are giving this book low reviews because it is mislabeled as a graphic novel, which seems unfair to me, but I understand being upset with being misled. People who are thinking of buying this book should keep in mind it is a pretty hefty (non-graphic) novel, over 500 pages.
I am currently on page 208.

[Eule Luftschloss]

dnf

Yes hi another dnf. Excuse me for not starting with a synopsis, this is a retelling of Dracula and since any reader probably is a member of GR, a page for readers, I am sure you have at least heard about the original novel, so I won't bother.

This one starts with a few lines from the bible and then goes on to Ancient Rome, and this is where the problems start. To sum them up, I am not in the target audience. I am studying archaeology and just spend my whole week talking about life in Antiquity, and what I read so far before quitting was not what I want to spend my time on.
Since I really didn't get far I refrain from giving this any stars.

There are huge chunks of monologues in Ancient Greek and Latin, followed by the translations, which feels obnoxious. Great, you've either done the translation yourself or were able to find somebody who did it for you. Either you're impressed by that or you roll your eyes, and if you, like me, belong to the latter category, you probably won't have fun with this.

Additionally, I somehow wound up thinking this would be a graphic novel, which it is not. It has illustration by the author, most of them are black and white. Rather sketchy, as in not very detailled and look like they were drawn in between chapters in a few minutes.

Just let me get back to that I am probably not the target audience. If you want another version of Dracula, with a few pictures thrown in, and don't spend a lot of time with your head stuck in other time periods that touch on this novel, you might have fun with it.
As usual in these cases, I'd urge you to read more reviews on this title to form an opinion.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

[Vivienne · Rating 1 out of 5]

My thanks to Diamond Book Distributors/Clover Press for providing a Read Now copy of ‘Dracula of Transylvania’ by Ricardo Delgado.

Unfortunately this book wasn’t for me. I had downloaded it with the expectation that it was a graphic novel as it was listed in this category. Instead, it is an illustrated retelling of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.

It is also a long book presented in very tiny text with no ability to enlarge aside from zooming in. It was far from an ideal format.

So while I am sure that it will have its audience, especially given the author’s listed works, I DNFed it. Therefore, I will only post this feedback to my Goodreads account and its NetGalley feedback page.

[Kirstyn (readwithkirstyn) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this was certainly not what I expected because I really thought I saw this advertised as a graphic novel, which it wasn't. That's okay though, I was willing to work with it anyway. That being said, the copy that was sent was kinda confusing and not super clear or easy to read. Once I got everything figured out I enjoyed the story but found certain parts to be boring or unnecessary. That being said, the art that was included was gorgeous, I just wish it had actually been more of a graphic novel.

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me three attempts to read this book. When finally read I enjoyed the tale and the original characters from Dracula by Bram Stoker

[Sjoukje Vandenberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a DNF

For genre it said it was a graphic novel this was not a graphic novel it was now with a few illustrations.

There was a huge chunks of dialogue in Latin and Ancient Greek and then translated in English which was a waste of space.

I wanted to read something that was a graphic novel version of the original Dracula story which this was not. I will not recommend us to anyone