From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman—named for Anno Dracula (1992), the series' first novel—is a work of fantasy depicting an alternate history in which the heroes of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula fail to stop Count Dracula's conquest of Great Britain, resulting in a world where vampires are common and increasingly dominant in society.

The series is known for its carefully researched historical settings and the author's use as supporting characters of both historical people and fictional characters of the appropriate period. While Dracula is a central figure in the events of the series, he is a minor character in the books themselves, and usually appears in only a few climactic pages of each book.

Entries in the series have won awards from the Dracula Society, the Lord Ruthven Assembly, and the International Horror Guild, and been short-listed for the Bram Stoker Award and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History.

The series currently consists of three novels and a number of short stories and novellas.

Contents 1 Novels 1.1 Anno Dracula 1.2 The Bloody Red Baron 1.3 Dracula Cha Cha Cha 1.4 Johnny Alucard 2 Short stories and novellas 2.1 Red Reign 2.2 "Castle in the Desert" 2.3 Coppola's Dracula 2.4 "Andy Warhol's Dracula" 2.5 "Who Dares Wins" 2.6 "The Other Side of Midnight" 2.7 "You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings" 2.8 "Concert for Transylvania" 2.9 "Dead Travel Fast" 3 Newman's vampires 4 Characters from other works of fiction 4.1 Anno Dracula 4.2 The Bloody Red Baron 4.3 Judgement of Tears (aka: Dracula Cha-Cha-Cha) 5 Notes 6 External links

Main article: Anno Dracula (novel)

1888. Dracula has married the widowed Queen Victoria, and rules as Prince Consort. A virtual checklist of fictional vampires have come out of hiding and gained new social status. But all is not going smoothly for the new regime: Jack the Ripper stalks Whitechapel, murdering vampire prostitutes. Charles Beauregard, a (non-vampire) agent of the Diogenes Club, is sent to track the murderer down, and finds himself enmeshed in a plot to free England from Dracula's rule.

Unusually for the series, several of the borrowed characters in Anno Dracula have no links to the period. To give just two examples: the heroine Geneviève Dieudonné is recycled from Newman's own Warhammer novels (first appearing in 1989 Drachenfels, written under the name Jack Yeovil), and Carl Kolchak has a brief cameo as a reporter following the Ripper case. (Newman has said that if he had realised he would get so many sequels out of the premise, he would have saved Kolchak up for a story set in the character's native 1970s.)

Anno Dracula has won the Dracula Society's Children of the Night Award, the Lord Ruthven Assembly's Fiction Award, and the International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel, and was short-listed for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.

The Encyclopedia of Fantasy classifies Anno Dracula as "recursive fantasy", and further describes the work as not "strictly steampunk, but echoing in gaslight romance terms steampunk's dense reworking of a 19th century London." (The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, pp. 803, 896).

First published October 1992.

Main article: The Bloody Red Baron

Set during World War I. The Graf von Dracula, after being expelled from Great Britain in 1897, spread his brand of unstable vampirism (and with it raging lycanthropy) throughout the Russian Imperial Family. He now leads Germany and the Central Powers against the Entente, with vampires - now a part of everyday life - fighting (and dying) on both sides. The Red Baron of the title is the historical ace fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, who in this altered history leads a squadron of monstrous flying vampires.

The Bloody Red Baron was shortlisted for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, Long Form.

First published November 1995.

• also published as Judgment of Tears

Main article: Judgement of Tears

1959. Every vampire who is anybody is flocking to Rome for Dracula's wedding, but there is a mysterious vampire killer on the loose. Events are complicated by the arrival of a British secret agent called Bond (but not James Bond), on the trail of a Russian spymaster who never goes anywhere without his cat. The films of Federico Fellini are an influence on the setting and atmosphere, and several of his characters appear in the novel.

First published November 1998.

1980s. Newman has stated he is working on a fourth novel in the series. Several of the novellas listed below contain material that will be incorporated into this book.

1888. Written in 1991, this novella was the first work in the series. It was later expanded into the novel Anno Dracula.

First published in The Mammoth Book of Vampires, 1992.

1977. The story's first-person narrator, a private investigator, investigates the death of his ex-wife, found at the bottom of her swimming pool with an iron stake driven through her, and the disappearance of her daughter, last seen falling in with a crowd of vampire cultists. (The private investigator, though not named in the story, is clearly Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, and his ex-wife is the recurring character Linda Loring, whom Marlowe married in Chandler's unfinished final novel Poodle Springs—after initially rejecting the idea because he knew it would not last.) (online)

1976. Francis Ford Coppola is making the film for which he will always be remembered—an adaptation of Dracula starring Marlon Brando as Dracula and Martin Sheen as Jonathan Harker. (Yes, it is Apocalypse Now, complete with all the famous quotes and mishaps during filming, albeit in Romania instead of the Philippines.) The film crew is befriended by a young-looking vampire, who leaves with them when they return to America. (online)

Coppola's Dracula won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Long Fiction, and was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction.

First appeared in The Mammoth Book of Dracula, 1997.

1978. New York. Johnny Pop, the young-looking vampire who came to America with Coppola's film crew, finds his place in his new homeland, on his way to becoming the next Dracula. He becomes rich (creating a drug ring that sells "drac", derived from vampire blood) and socially successful (befriending many luminaries, including Andy Warhol), but risks losing it all when the many enemies he makes along the way join forces against him.

April 30, 1980. The Romanian Embassy in London has been taken over by "freedom fighters" who want Transylvania to become a homeland for the undead. As Special Air Service troops mass for an assault, vampire/journalist Kate Reed is invited into the embassy to meet the leader of the terrorists. (The equivalent event in our history involved the Iranian embassy: see Iranian Embassy Siege.) (online)

1981. Orson Welles receives funding from a mysterious source to film the ultimate version of Dracula, and hires a private detective to find out why. (The title combines those of two of Welles' movies: Chimes at Midnight and The Other Side of the Wind, the latter of which was left uncompleted at Welles' death in 1985. Welles also appeared as a minor character in Dracula Cha Cha Cha.)

"The Other Side of Midnight" was shortlisted for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, Short Form.

1984. A covert mission using undead agents to unseat the Ceauşescu regime in Romania.

Not yet published: due to see first publication as part of Johnny Alucard. (May be about an alternate version of The Concert for Bangladesh.)

Published in the anthology Dracula in London, this story features an untold tale of Dracula's deeds during the events of the original novel. Although it is not technically an Anno Dracula story, as it occurs before the events of Anno Dracula diverge from those in Dracula, it may still be considered as an adjunct to the series. In the story, Dracula visits the manufacturers of one of the earliest automobiles.

Newman's series presents vampires as more or less natural beings, passing on a biological change through the sharing of blood. "We are natural beings, like any other," one vampire says. "There's no magic." (Though when confronted with the vampire's inexplicable inability to cast a reflection, she allows, "Maybe a little magic.... Just a touch.")^[1]

Newman's series brings together characters from a large number of legends and fictional works that portray the vampires in many different ways. He tries to explain this in part through the concept of "bloodline", in which particular vampiric traits are passed on from vampire to vampire. Lord Ruthven, the British prime minister, says of Dracula:

There's grave-mould in his bloodline, Godalming. That's the sickness he spreads. Think yourself lucky that you are of my bloodline. It's pure. We may not turn into bats and wolves, my son-in-darkness, but we don't rot on the bone, either, or lose our minds in a homicidal frenzy.^[2]

Some vampires have an aversion to crucifixes, holy water and the like, but Newman portrays this a superstition; vampires without such "silly ideas" show no ill effects from religious symbols.^[3] Garlic, too, is only effective against vampires who believe their own folklore.

One trait that vampires share is an almost instantaneous healing ability. "Vampire physiology is such that wounds inflicted with ordinary weapons heal almost immediately," vampire expert Dr. Jekyll says in Anno Dracula. "Tissue and bone regenerate, just as a lizard may grow a new tail. Silver has a counteractive effect on this process." However, "any major breach of the vital organs seems to produce true death," explaining why a stake through the heart is an effective tactic.^[4]

Sunlight is also dangerous to vampires, particularly to the "new-born"—those recently turned into undead. For vampire "elders", those with years or centuries of experience, sunshine may be tolerable though still strength-sapping.

Newman's vampires do need to drink blood for sustenance, though the taking of blood need not be fatal and is often voluntary. Indeed, several characters in Anno Dracula are vampiric prostitutes who service "warm" men in exchange for coin or, preferably, quaffs of their blood. Animal blood is also used by vampires as a second-rate substitute for human blood.

All of these characters appear in the series, and come from a variety of different sources. Some, mostly those from public domain works are listed by name. Some of the others are listed by mere descriptions.

• Barnabas Collins - From Dark Shadows.
• Sergeant Dravot - From The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling.
• Gunga Din - From the story of the same name by Rudyard Kipling.
• Doctor Fu Manchu - From the novels by Sax Rohmer.
• Mina Harker - From the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.
• Mycroft Holmes - From the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Sherlock Holmes - From the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Doctor Jekyll - From Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
• Lestat - From Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice.
• Inspector Lestrade - From the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Prince Mamuwalde - From Blacula
• Sebastian Moran - From the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Doctor Moreau - From The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells.
• Professor Moriarty - From the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Orlando - From Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf.
• Allan Quatermain - From the books by H. Rider Haggard.
• Lord Ruthven - From The Vampyre by John Polidori.
• John Reid - From The Lone Ranger
• Doctor John Seward - From Dracula by Bram Stoker.
• Sir Francis Varney - From Varney the Vampire by J. M. Rymer.

• Kent Allard - From The Shadow series by Walter B. Gibson.
• Jake Barnes - From The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemmingway.
• Paul Bäumer - From All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque.
• Biggles - From the Biggles series by W. E. Johns.
• Doctor Caligari - From the 1920 film The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.
• Jules and Jim - From the movie Jules and Jim.
• Nick Knight - From the TV series Forever Knight.
• Doctor Mabuse - From the works of Norbert Jacques.
• Colonel Nicholson - From the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai.
• Count Orlok - From the 1922 film Nosferatu.
• Rotwang - From the movie Metropolis
• Snoopy - From Peanuts by Charles Schultz (possibly Snoopy. It's a small black and white dog shot by the Red Baron)
• Captain Elliot Spencer - From Hellraiser.
• Švejk - From The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek.
• Dr Thorndyke - From the novels of R Austin Freeman.

• Mr and Mrs Addams - From The Addams Family by Charles Addams.
• Blofeld - From the "James Bond" novels by Ian Fleming.
• Commander Hamish Bond - Probably James Bond from the works of Ian Fleming. The character drives an Aston Martin, drinks martinis, "Hamish" is the Scottish version of the name "James", he carries a Walther PPK and works for British Intelligence.
• Michael Corleone - From The Godfather movies and books.
• Dondi - From the comic-strip of the same name.
• Lord Greystoke - From the Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
• Clark Kent - From the Superman comics published by DC Comics. But not as we know him; he is identified as a football player from Kansas, and (although his appearance includes several Superman-related injokes) there is no indication that he is Superman (or indeed that Superman exists in the world of the novel). In a particularly subtle joke, several details from the character's backstory were borrowed from the life story of the actor Steve Reeves, who (unlike George Reeves and Christopher Reeve) never portrayed Superman on screen.
• Jeddidiah Leland - From the movie Citizen Kane.
• Father Merrin - From the film The Exorcist.
• Tom Ripley - From the "Ripley" novels by Patricia Highsmith.

1. ^ Anno Dracula, Chapter 27.
2. ^ Anno Dracula, Chapter 7.
3. ^ Anno Dracula, Chapter 2.
4. ^ Anno Dracula, Chapter 6.

• Anno Dracula Character Guide: a complete guide to all the fictional characters appearing in the Anno Dracula series.