A Sharpness on the Neck by Fred Saberhagen

Saberhagen seems to be attempting to create the same sense of mystery about the Dracula story as he did with The Dracula Tapes, by telling the story to the reader through recounting it to the descendents of someone who was part of the story. In The Dracula Tapes, it was Jonathan Harker's family, in this case, it's Philip Radcliffe's. Unfortunately, since we all know just how real the Count of Wallachia is, it falls a little flat.

The meat of the tale takes place during and shortly after the French Revolution, and the title of the tale refers not to  the fangs of a vampire so much as the bite of the newly invented guillotine. Dracula's evil younger brother, Radu, has been inadvertently freed from a long imprisonment by foolish grave robbers, and he is trying to get his revenge on Vlad, while enjoying the bloody mess of the revolution. Radu is one of those guys who gives vampires a bad name, taking more pleasure from his victims' pain and fear than from the sustenance derived from their blood.

The long and the short of it - When Vlad is badly injured by Radu's minions, he takes refuge at the family estate owned by Philip Radcliffe. His debt of honor forces him to aid Radcliff (and all his descendants into perpetuity) when the American falls into the clutches of the French authorities and is destined for the guillotine. The mechanics of the rescue are the only mysterious part of the story.

The sole saving grace of this tale is the amount of interesting trivia about the French Revolution and its victims. I never realized they had executed the famous scientist, Lavoisier, before. Makes me want to read up a bit. It also brought back fond memories of Weber's Honor Harrington novels, in which the revolutionary People's Republic of Haven is led by folks like Rob S. Pierre and Oscar St. Juste.

Seance for a Vampire by Fred Saberhagen

This book is the eighth in the Dracula series by Saberhagen. I think I'd read it once before, but never did a review; the only one of the series I've reviewed here is The Dracula Tape, I believe. For the most part the series is quite enjoyable, though I think when he tried to unite the Dracula and Sherlock Holmes mythic worlds (is the plural of mythos mythi?), he stretched things a little far, and the resulting stories seem a bit diluted. This one is the second in the tales of Holmes and the infamous Count.

In 1765, a group of pirates were hanged by the neck until dead - almost. One of the pirates, Kulakov, had been intimate with  a lady vampire before his execution and, having exchanged blood with her, "survived" the experience, though not without a great deal of psychological trauma, which causes him to insanely pursue those who sent him to the noose through the centuries, trying to recover his lost booty.

The story resumes in 1903, when Holmes and Watson are retained by a minor nobleman, Ambrose Altamont, to come and debunk the performance of a couple of spiritualists, Abraham and Sarah Kirkaldy, who have convinced his wife that they have revived the spirit of their recently dead daughter, Louisa. But Louisa is more than a spirit, and as the famous duo continue their investigations, they find that she was abducted and converted by a powerful vampire, and is risen in body as well as spirit.

Well, "set a thief to catch a thief", as they say and when Holmes is injured and carried off by the bloodsucking villain of the piece, Watson must overcome his scruples and contact Vlad Dracula to have any hope of saving him. Their quest leads them from the English countryside to the palaces of St. Petersburg, in the years prior to the Bolshevik takeover, and we even get to see Rasputin in a cameo appearance.

Not Saberhagen's most inspired work ever, but good for a couple evenings' amusement.

The Dracula Tape by Fred Saberhagen

(written in August 1995)
Just finished re-reading Fred Saberhagen's The Dracula Tape. Much ado has been made recently over Anne Rice's innovative approach to the vampire as protagonist, but I recall several short stories that predated her Interview and this book, copyright 1975, not only was printed earlier, but also features the definitive vampiric hero, Count Vlad Dracula himself. It is a retelling, from Vlad's POV, of the classic novel by Bram Stoker that started it all back in 1897.

The premise is that a cassette tape is found in the back seat of a vehicle abandoned in a snowstorm by a young couple whose last name is Harker. On the tape, the voice of the dread Count sets the record straight regarding the events recorded by Bram Stoker. The young couple are the direct descendents of his beloved Mina, who married Jonathan Harker, as serious Dracula students will recall.

According to Dracula, the horrifying events that drove Jonathan Harker to a nervous breakdown on his visit to Dracula's castle in Bulgaria, were merely a series of misunderstandings. The whispered tauntings of Dracula's female vampiric companions were due to his preoccupation with business matters involved in purchasing property in England, which kept him from exercising more control over their rather sadistic playfulness.

The cries of a child from a burlap sack were actually those of a young pig that, after being drained of blood for Vlad and the ladies, went to provide Harker himself with roast pork during his stay. The mother who cried out to Dracula to return her child to her was merely appealing to him as lord of the manor for help, and after he sent his servants to find the missing child and return it, she didn't come around to wail her gratitude.

Yes, he was having an affair with Lucy, and later Mina, and during the course of their lovemaking he sipped of their blood, but he maintains that neither was drained to the point of danger. What self respecting vampire, (or any other parasite) survives over the long term by killing its host? He characterizes Van Helsing as an egomaniacal bumbler, who causes Lucy's death by transfusing her with the blood of four different people, ten years before the concept of blood typing was known. She died because her body rejected the alien blood types they kept pumping into her veins. She wasn't really ill in the first place, merely lovesick and tired from being kept up all night at amorous play.

The Count goes on to describe the way that he, with the consent and cooperation of his beloved Mina, set the stage for a final encounter with Van Helsing wherein the foolish doctor and his lackeys are convinced that Dracula has been vanquished forever. After all, mortal lives are short and he can wait for Mina to join him in undeath one day.

I re-read this one because I had run into an old friend from my thespian days, a drama professor in my hometown, who had recently directed a Halloween production of Dracula. I told her that she ought to read Saberhagen's version of the tale, and then spent a year or so looking for a copy to send her, as I couldn't bear to part with my own. Anyway, now that I've done this review, I can mail her a copy, which may place an interesting interpretation on her next production of the play. (By the way, Stephanie, if you read this, you could ask your Mom if she still has the book, and I'd be happy to pick it up next time I'm in Lewiston.)

This book by Saberhagen is the start of a series about Count Vlad Dracula, which is continued in The Holmes Dracula File, An Old Friend of the Family, Thorn, A Matter of Taste, and A Question of Time. It seems there is another out on the new bookstore shelves, but I can't recall the name of it right now. He also wrote The Frankenstein Papers, which is the same sort of deal with Shelley's novel, but I didn't find it nearly so entertaining.