Wed 19 Aug 2009
PAUL WITCOVER – Dracula: Asylum. DH [Dark Horse] Press, softcover, 2006.
I recently read, and enjoyed, Barbara Hambly’s Renfield, a retelling of Stoker’s Dracula from the point of view of Renfield.
Now Paul Witcover has resurrected Renfield, who’s working as an orderly at the Carfax War Hospital, converted from its former use as a hospital for the insane to an institution hastily adapted (in 1916) to the treatment of victims of shell shock.
A young doctor (Lisa Watson) arrives at the hospital, ostensibly to work under the supervision of the director. She has, in fact, pulled strings to get the post, which will allow her access to her fiance who has lost his memory and imagines himself to be Sherlock Holmes.
Holmes/Watson? Well, that’s the level of the humor in this undistinguished novel, and pretty much the level of the invention.
As you might expect, Dracula, still lying in his coffin in nearby Carfax Abbey with a stake in his heart, will be resuscitated (by the hapless Renfield) and Dr. Watson will become Dracula’s prospective bride.
This is one in a series of novels that attempt to revive the classic Universal monsters. I would hope that the other novels in the series are more successful than this one.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:54 am
Evidently while they have seen the movie and maybe the play, no one involved read Dracula. As for resurrecting Renfield didn’t Dracula break his neck in the movie? I didn’t know stake pulling was effective for that problem.
Seriously I don’t mind a little inventive amnesia when the result is good, but sounds as if it isn’t here.
Back in the seventies a series of paperback novels were published under the house name Carl Dreadstone novelizing the Universal pictures. Most were nothing special, but if I’m right for The Werewolf of London, The Creature of the Black Lagoon, and The Wolfman the man behind Carl Dreadstone was British horror master Ramsey Campbell.
I read the first two and they were pretty good. Of course my critical faculties were a set a bit lower then.