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A review by verkisto
Anno Dracula 1899 and Other Stories by Kim Newman
3.0
I have a habit of prioritizing books as part of a series I'm reading to the top of my list, so I started this book, since I've come so far with the Anno Dracula series so far. I was disappointed to learn that this isn't really an Anno Dracula book; instead, it's a collection of various stories by Newman, only one of which is set in the Anno Dracula universe. Even then, it's more a teaser to a larger work than anything else.
There are a lot of movie-related stories, where Newman takes his expansive knowledge of horror and cinema and does a kind of mash-up/conversion of the tales, much like he did with Anno Dracula. It's clever and interesting, but after a while, you realize that, like Alan Moore and his skill at deconstructing mythologies, this is all he does. There are a handful of tales that buck this trend, but they're not nearly as interesting as the others.
Like any collection, some of the stories are OK, some are "Huh?", and some are outstanding. My favorite is probably "Is There Anybody There?", not just because it's one of those stories that buck the trend, but also because it's a spooky, effective story of time, space, and spiritualism. Newman is a good writer, but my disappointment in this not being a sincere book in the Anno Dracula series took a bit of the shine off it.
There are a lot of movie-related stories, where Newman takes his expansive knowledge of horror and cinema and does a kind of mash-up/conversion of the tales, much like he did with Anno Dracula. It's clever and interesting, but after a while, you realize that, like Alan Moore and his skill at deconstructing mythologies, this is all he does. There are a handful of tales that buck this trend, but they're not nearly as interesting as the others.
Like any collection, some of the stories are OK, some are "Huh?", and some are outstanding. My favorite is probably "Is There Anybody There?", not just because it's one of those stories that buck the trend, but also because it's a spooky, effective story of time, space, and spiritualism. Newman is a good writer, but my disappointment in this not being a sincere book in the Anno Dracula series took a bit of the shine off it.