Dracula in London
Review by The Mad Bibliographer, submitted on 05-Feb-2002

A version of this review will appear in _The Vampire's Crypt_ 25 (Spring 2002). The Vampire's Crypt web site is: http://members.aol.com/MLCVamp/vampcrpt.htm

Dracula in London. Ed. P. N. Elrod. New York: Ace, 2001. TPB ISBN 0-441-00858-5; $14.95/$21.99.

In her introduction, editor P. N. Elrod says "I wanted to put together a collection of stories with the Count as the focus, not a mere cameo, and ask the question, 'What ELSE was Dracula doing in London when he was not being chased by Van Helsing and company?'" As she goes on to observe, some of the best writers in the business have provided answers. Names particularly familiar to vampire aficionados include Tanya Huff, Fred Saberhagen, Elaine Bergstrom, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and Nancy Kilpatrick.

The interesting or frustrating thing about the stories in this collection is that the basic premise -- Dracula did something in London besides avoid vampire hunters -- is all they have in common. Dracula is a good guy in Fred Saberhagen's "Box Number Fifty," when Count de Ville's last refuge is adopted by two homeless children -- and the count returns the favor. In "Places for Act Two!" Bradley H. Sinor gives Dracula a playful (pun intended) as well as honorable aspect: when an actor comes to his defense against footpads, he returns the favor by serving as stand-in in a performance of _The Pirates of Penzance_ -- and incidentally helping to foil an assassination attempt, in a tale as good-natured as any Gilbert and Sullivan production. Quiet and slightly sharper humor pervades "Everything to Order" by Jody Lynn Nye. Dracula does not appear, but his three companions enjoy taking a bite out of his finances (among other things). The humor is more overt in "Good Help" by K. B. Bogen, which at times borders on slapstick: Renfield takes umbrage when the count finds a more competent assistant. "Dear Mr. Bernard Shaw" by Judith Proctor juxtaposes Dracula and actress Ellen Terry in a story so thoughtful it avoids the cliche of the eternally lonely vampire in search of love, even though that is precisely what Dracula seems to be.

But in the tradition of the work that originally gave us the count, he is a creature of evil in other stories. His evil is of a purely human sort in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's "Long-Term Investment," where a canny foreign nobleman exploits the circumstances of the working poor; supernatural in "Wolf and Hound" by Nigel Bennett and P. N. Elrod, in which the count meets opposition from Sabra of Bennett and Elrod's novels. The evil is more powerful and its origins more fanciful in "Curtain Call" by Gary A. Braunbeck, in which Charles Fort meets the being who is quite literally Bram Stoker's brainchild, a proud shapeshifting monster who assures him that "as long as men read my story, I shall never die."

Perhaps most notable for its trueness to its time -- and Dracula's - -- is "The Three Boxes" by Elaine Bergstrom. Cast adrift in a foreign land, possessed of gold but not the connections that will turn it to coin of the realm, Dracula is aided by a woman masquerading as a man. Dracula plays human for the sake of self- preservation, but Sarah Justin is a woman with a cause -- women's rights, particularly a right to contraception, a topic that has won her the disapprobation of both her husband and the authorities; hence the disguise. Their collaboration in getting each other out of scrapes and from Whitby to London reveals in both of them compassion and adherence to higher principles -- but quite different manifestations of both. (At one point, to reassure his companion, Dracula tells her he had nothing to do with the deaths of several men he killed, swearing to the verity of this untruth on both the Bible and his mother's grave and rationalizing, "My soul is already damned, of course, and my mother, being a deceitful woman in life, would hardly be bothered by my lie.") His and Sarah's differences in belief at last prove irreconcilable, but Dracula is true to his own principles -- fair, if harsh -- to the last.

Readers may find the inconsistency from story to story disconcerting. Is Dracula evil or isn't he? Can he walk in the daylight or can't he? Or is it enough to say that each author is entitled to the universe that works best for the tale being told? That is of course something each reader must decide. Taken as individual tales, the stories are well-written and engaging, a worthy adjunct to the copy of _Dracula_ (you have read it, haven't you?) that should be on every vampire fan's shelf.

Contents:
Introduction by P. N. Elrod.
Tanya Huff. "To Each His Own Kind."
Fred Saberhagen. "Box Number Fifty."
Nigel Bennett and P. N. Elrod. "Wolf and Hound."
Roxanne Longstreet Conrad. "The Dark Downstairs."
Judith Proctor. "Dear Mr. Bernard Shaw."
Elaine Bergstrom. "The Three Boxes."
K. B. Bogen. "Good Help."
Jody Lynn Nye. "Everything to Order."
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. "Long-Term Investment."
Bradley H. Sinor. "Places for Act Two!"
Amy L. Gruss and Catt Kingsgrave-Ernstein. "Beast."
Julie Barrett. "A Most Electrifying Evening."
Gene DeWeese. "An Essay on Containment."
Nancy Kilpatrick. "Berserker."
Gary A. Braunbeck. "Curtain Call."
Bill Zaget. "Renfield or, Dining at the Bughouse."