Dracula’s Child is a standalone book by J.S. Barnes, but a spiritual successor of Bram Stoker’s novel. The book is 576 pages long and was first published 2020 by Titan Books. The book occurs around 12 years after the Bram Stoker book and is written in the same manner as the original book, both in language and in style. It is close enough that you will be surprised that it wasn’t written by Bram Stoker. Of course, with the old style of writing comes also problems that would not go over well with modern readers, but before we enter into details. Let’s summarize the plot.
Mina and Jonathan Harker is living a somber life raising their strange child, Quincey. They are still haunted by the memories of Dracula and is straying away from each other as time goes on. Mina notice though that the world seemed out of sorts, as madness grips her friends and people go missing. Sensing something coming and her son being in center, Mina believes that their old enemy might be back, though Jonathan is more sceptic. Unknown to them, London is being prepared to fall and the strigoi has come to prepare the city for the rebirth of their master.
We see many old characters such as Mina and Jonathan. The story set in motion by the death of Van Helsing and with his death, the story escalate. Making previous unimportant characters into larger players. Unfortunately, the story can be confusing. It is in the same style as the original novel, which means that it is built on dairies entries of various characters, along with letters and news articles. The characters feel alive through the letters but there are too many to even try to keep them apart.
Only a few sticks out such as the fat old man, Maurice who is a former actor and gay. He follows a beautiful young man, Gabriel, around and has a crush on him. We have the guy who writes articles for the new council who wants to bring London back to a time where they where strong. We have the two policemen, one American and one British. One dies by the end and the other suddenly get a larger role to play the hero. I think you can guess which one.
I must also mention that I also wonder about the title of the book. It would have been more accurate to name it Dracula’s return than Dracula’s child because the child in question is hardly a character in this book. The child has some plotlines in the beginning but is mere a tool that easily could have been replaced. The boy just feels insignificant in the grand schemes of the book, and yes I know that Dracula cannot fully be reborn without him and he gets a big role in the very final fight but I just feel like it easily could have been replaced, making the boy rather unimportant outside being there as a plot point for possible future books.
As I mention, there is a large shift by two thirds into the book. What before was a quiet horror lead by Mina who needs to investigate the strange occurrence and protect her son, turns into a loud paranormal adventure with explosions, a rebellion and Mina is thrown aside to make the men who before was useless to take the scene as main characters. Some might like it but considering that Mina was a force to be recon with in the original book, and has turned into a silly damsel in distress by newer media, I must wonder why this author did the same. He seemed to have studied the old book vigorously so why does the latter half of the book seem to be far more influenced by American media, enough that I wondered if the author was American himself. Maybe it was to amuse the modern audience who is by far more accustomed to action adventures than slow paced horror.
That said though, the first part is slowed paced and much of it comes by too much random entries that just isn’t necessary for the story. There is for example and entire entry of Mina’s friend who becomes pregnant, kills her unborn child, then go mad and save them from a bomb. This entire plotline felt long and the first half of it felt just unnecessary.
The same goes with Maurice story. A large part of it was just him wandering around or lay in bed. I feel like much of it could have been cut without affecting the story or the atmosphere. This though seem to be a residue of the same problem of the original novel that also had a lot of unnecessary letters and entries. It was acceptable before to write out every detail, but today you might lose some readers by adding too much information. Though I do think that the intended readers might be more lenient since they most likely are fans of the original novel.
Now, this is a horror with all the old stereotypes. Dracula is a monster, so is the majority of the vampires. The men don’t seduce, the women do because women must be beautiful and seduce men to their doom. That is the old stereotype. Illeana, the vampire mistress of Dracula, along with the nurse all fall under this stereotype. The women are often connected to a man, often their husband and has no ambition of their own. Which once again is a stereotype which might not connect as well to the new readers. The author tries to capture the essence of Mina, who is perhaps the greatest deviation of this stereotype but unfortunately, as I mentioned, she is thrown aside to give place to male heroes.
All in all, I think the story is expertly written and capture the spirit of the original. Of course, with that comes the old stereotypes, the slow pacing and the dumps of unnecessary information. Which means that the demographic of this story is the fans of the original novel. The hiccup of this story is the latter part where the story’s pace picks up but it also looses some of the original’s charm and the modern author shines through. You can feel an influence of the American media which younger reader might be more familiar with which means that the latter part might annoy those who were a fan of the old book, but feel better for those who has never read it. I would say that this book is still impressive and deserve a 9 out of 10. I only removed one point for the inconsistencies in the story, but overall, I was impressed and would recommend this for someone who has read and liked the original Dracula by Bram Stoker.
With Kind Regards
Senefer.
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