'Anno Dracula' answers question of 'What if Dracula had won?'

I finished reading any awesome book a few days ago, (Mr.) Kim Newman’s 1992 novel, “Anno Dracula.”

The idea behind the novel is simple and elegant and results in one of the best “what if” books I’ve ever read. In short, the novel tries to answer the question of what would have happened if Abraham Van Helsing and his colleagues had failed to killed Count Dracula? In Newman’s novel, Dracula not only survives his undoing, but ends up rising in power and marrying Queen Victoria. As the Royal Consort and Protector of the Realm, Dracula rules the British Empire with a bloody, iron fist.

In addition to Dracula’s rise in power, London is full of vampires, many of which have been turned voluntarily for political reasons. Enter Jack the Ripper, as in, Dr. John “Jack” Seward, who was in love with early Dracula victim, Lucy Westenra. Seward, Van Helsing and others put Westenra out of her vampiric misery with a wooden stake, and Seward is driven mad by the experience.

Seward begins waging a one-man war on vampire prostitutes, who bare the same names as the canonical Jack the Ripper victims of real history. Government agent Charles Beauregard, a member of the mysterious Diogenes Club, is called in to capture Jack the Ripper, aka, “Silver Knife,” and the story goes from there.

Probably the most fun and interesting thing about this novel is its entertaining mix of historical and fictional characters. It’s Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” meets “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” meets “From Hell” – ON STERIODS! Real, historical characters that appear in the book include Jack the Ripper investigator Fred Abberline; Joseph Merrick, aka, The Elephant Man; playwrights George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde; Wild West outlaw Billy the Kid; “Dracula” author Bram Stoker; the poets Algernon Charles Swinburne and Alfred, Lord Tennyson; London police commissioner Charles Warren; all of Jack the Ripper’s victims (Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly); as well as Queen Victoria.

Characters from fiction that appear in the novel and intermingle with the characters mentioned above include Gunga Din, Fu Manchu, Mina Harker, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Henry Jekyll, Inspector Lestrade, the Vampire Lestat, Doctor Moreau, Professor Moriarty, Allan Quartermain, Abraham Van Helsing and others.

The edition of the novel I read was published in 2011 by Titan Books and features a number of extras. In addition to 29 pages of interesting annotations, acknowledgements and an afterward, the extras include an alternate ending to the novel, which was first published in “The Mammoth Book of Vampires”; extracts from the screenplay for “Anno Dracula: The Movie”; an article by Newman titled “Drac the Ripper,” which was originally published in the 2005 magazine, “The Ripperologist” No. 60; and a short story by Newman called “The Dead Travel Fast,” which was originally published in 2000’s “Unforgivable Stories.”

“Anno Dracula” is the first book in a four-part series of novels that explore the vampire-what if? theme. Other books in the series include “The Bloody Red Baron” (1995) and “Dracula Cha Cha Cha” (1998). The fourth novel in the series, “Johnny Alucard,” is scheduled to be published sometime next year by Titan Books.

I have to admit that “Anno Dracula” is the first Kim Newman book that I’ve had the chance to read, and I’m looking forward to checking out some of his other books.

Newman’s other novels include:

- The Night Mayor (1989)
- Bad Dreams (1990)
- Jago (1991)
- In Dreams (1992)
- The Quorum (1994)
- The Original Dr. Shade and Other Stories (1994)
- Famous Monsters (1995)
- Back in the USSA (1997)
- Andy Warhol’s Dracula (1999)
- Life’s Lottery (1999)
- Where the Bodies are Buried (2000)
- Seven Stars (2000)
- Unforgivable Stories (2000)
- Binary 2 (2000)
- Time and Relative (2001)
- Dead Travel Fast (2005)
- The Man from the Diogenes Club (2006)
- Secret Files of the Diogenes Club (2007)
- Mysteries of the Diogenes Club (2010)

For more information about Newman and his books, visit Newman’s official Web site at www.johnnyalucard.com.

In the end, how many of you have read “Anno Dracula” or any of Newman’s other books? What did you think about them? Let us know in the comments section below.