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spestock's review
4.0
A fun, quick novella set in Newman's Anno Dracula universe, though it stands just fine on its own. As always, plenty of references to other real and fictional characters, some more blatant than others. I really liked the meta elements of the academic essay on Warhol scattered throughout. (Having some background on Warhol would help in reading this; I had to do a quick scan of his Wikipedia, as I wasn't all that familiar with him, honestly.) The evolution and fall-out of "drac" was a neat touch, very imaginative.
acknud's review
2.0
This didn't move me at all. The pairing of a dracula bloodline vamp and an avant garde artist could have been interesting. The gore provides some good horror scenes but the tone and the alternate history lessons grew boring. Do some much needed editing and you are left with a decent short story.
latepaul's review
4.0
This is a vampire story set in the late 70s. It mixes a straight-forward narrative with excerpts from an academic paper on the life and work of Andy Warhol – who was a vampire. Or at least in this alternate world he was.
Despite being a huge fan of Buffy I generally avoid vampire fiction whether in movie, TV or book form. There’s just so much of it and so much of it isn’t that original. Given that, and given that I didn’t really care for the interruptions to the story that the academic paper provides, I was a little surprised to find myself won over by this. Even more so because the writing generally was so ‘busy’ – the exact opposite of the kind of spare, simple prose I think I like. Florid descriptions and colourful word-pictures abound.
In the end though it had an engaging main character and an intriguing concept. Johnny Pop is a vampire who at the outset kills a punk girl Nancy and frames her drug-addled boyfriend Sid for it. The story goes on to chart his rise in the 70s nightlife of New York as he creates the drug ‘drac’ which is a form of powdered vampire blood that allows you to feel the rush of being a nosferatu for a night.
This is an alternate reality where not only do vampires exist and are widely known about, almost accepted, but also is peopled with a wide variety of characters from fiction and celebrities from our world. I guess it makes sense – Warhol is someone who made art using figures from popular culture, someone who arguably ‘fed’ off the celebrity of others, and so it’s fitting that in this world where he’s a literal vampire we bump into Travis Bickle and Tony Manero , as well as Blondie, Sid and Nancy and a whole host of others.
Spotting the references was fun – I had to look up a couple and I’m sure there’s ones I missed – but in the end it was the story that pulled me through. I did want to know what happened next.
Despite being a huge fan of Buffy I generally avoid vampire fiction whether in movie, TV or book form. There’s just so much of it and so much of it isn’t that original. Given that, and given that I didn’t really care for the interruptions to the story that the academic paper provides, I was a little surprised to find myself won over by this. Even more so because the writing generally was so ‘busy’ – the exact opposite of the kind of spare, simple prose I think I like. Florid descriptions and colourful word-pictures abound.
In the end though it had an engaging main character and an intriguing concept. Johnny Pop is a vampire who at the outset kills a punk girl Nancy and frames her drug-addled boyfriend Sid for it. The story goes on to chart his rise in the 70s nightlife of New York as he creates the drug ‘drac’ which is a form of powdered vampire blood that allows you to feel the rush of being a nosferatu for a night.
This is an alternate reality where not only do vampires exist and are widely known about, almost accepted, but also is peopled with a wide variety of characters from fiction and celebrities from our world. I guess it makes sense – Warhol is someone who made art using figures from popular culture, someone who arguably ‘fed’ off the celebrity of others, and so it’s fitting that in this world where he’s a literal vampire we bump into Travis Bickle and Tony Manero , as well as Blondie, Sid and Nancy and a whole host of others.
Spotting the references was fun – I had to look up a couple and I’m sure there’s ones I missed – but in the end it was the story that pulled me through. I did want to know what happened next.
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