Sat 16 Mar 2019
Reviewed by Walter Albert: SIMON HAWKE – The Dracula Caper.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Science Fiction & Fantasy[6] Comments
SIMON HAWKE – The Dracula Caper. Timewars #8. Ace, paperback original, 1988.
Monsters (werewolves and vampires) created genetically in the future begin turning up in Victorian England. Arthur Conan Doyle and H. G. Wells join with the time-traveling Time Commandos to eradicate the plague.
The novel is prefaced by several pages of a Time Wars Chronology which I read with about as much interest as I read the potted summaries of fiction in standard literary histories.
This will probably interest the science fiction fan more than the mystery fan, but the crossover fan (like me) may not find this well enough written to engage either side of his dual personality. Maybe if I had read the eight earlier volumes I would have appreciated this more, but dropping in on it, well along in the series, I found it something of a bore.
Maybe it’s time to re-read Don Sturdy or Bomba the Jungle Boy.
The Time Wars series –
The Ivanhoe Gambit (1984)
The Timekeeper Conspiracy (1984)
The Pimpernel Plot (1984)
The Zenda Vendetta (1985)
The Nautilus Sanction (1985)
The Khyber Connection (1986)
The Argonaut Affair (1987)
The Dracula Caper (1988)
The Lilliput Legion (1989)
The Hellfire Rebellion (1990)
The Cleopatra Crisis (1990)
The Six-Gun Solution (1991)
EDITORIAL NOTE: From Wikipedia: “TimeWars is a series of twelve science fiction paperback books created and written by author Simon Hawke beginning in 1984. The story involves the adventures of an organization tasked with protecting history from being changed by time travelers. In the world of the series, many people and events considered fictional are historical, and vice versa; the action of each book in the series weaves in and out of the events of a famous work of literature. For example, in the first book in the series, time travelers contesting the fate of Richard I of England become caught up in Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.”
March 16th, 2019 at 3:35 pm
I once owned copies of the complete series, but it may have been 20 years or more before I ever sat down to read one of them. My reaction was the same as Walter’s: theoretically very interesting, but missing something I needed to keep that interest going.
March 16th, 2019 at 3:40 pm
I have a soft spot in my head for time travel stories so I;m sure I read these as they came out. And don’t remember a thing about any of them. Well, I must have remember how underwhelming they were because I was surprised that the series had reached number 8.
March 16th, 2019 at 8:51 pm
Sounds more like an excuse to use other people’s plots than writing your own series. I suspect the comparison to Don Sturdy and Bomba was apt. Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol did it better and with more literacy.
March 16th, 2019 at 9:49 pm
I think I’ll stick to de Camp and Pratt’s Harold Shea.
March 16th, 2019 at 10:23 pm
Simon Hawke’s real name was Nicholas Yermakov, and he’s written a ton of books both under that name and as Hawke. Most of his books seem to have been in long series, mostly SF or fantasy. That the TimeWars books made through 12 books is a big achievement.
I finally got around trying one — I don’t know if it was the first one, or if it was another one that was just handy — after reading one of his few mystery novels. It was the first of a humorous series about William Shakespeare as a young lad and a sidekick by the name of Tuck, and of course they solved mysteries together. I enjoyed the one I read, but if I remember correctly the books never came out in paperback. I’d put myself on an allowance then, so hardcovers were out of reach, and I didn’t read another.
I thought the TimeWars books might have the same humorous touch, but when I discovered they didn’t, I never tried another. I like the premise of the books a lot, though. I’m really tempted to try another, and if I do, I’ll report on it on this blog.
March 16th, 2019 at 11:28 pm
Hawke pretty much stopped writing when he started working full time at Home Depot in the late 90’s. He was a forty-something guy who wanted health insurance and some money in the bank.
No doubt there are some lovely payoffs for being a prolific novelist. Apparently big checks aren’t always one of them.