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Bram Stoker, Michael Burgan, Benny Fuentes, Tod Smith, Jose Ruiz: Dracula (2021, Capstone)

English language

Published Nov. 7, 2021 by Capstone.

ISBN:
978-1-6663-2466-2
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4 stars (8 reviews)

This diary style book by Bram Stoker continues to put fear into the hearts of many who read it. Count Dracula after acquiring land in London near Carfax Abbey is wreaking havoc on innocents. Dr. Abraham Van Helsing recognizes the counts calling card and the hunt to destroy this centuries old vampire begins.

103 editions

Horror is outside of my comfort zone

4 stars

Reading Dracula for me is a huge step outside of my comfort zones. My literary genres tend to be fantasy and science-fiction, and classical dramatic, and/or coming of age, feminist stories etc. I don't think I ever read a horror book, whilst the closest would be Du Maurier's Rebecca (which is Gothic, a genre shared by Dracula).

Dracula is also outside of my psychological comfort zone, as I've never been into vampires and tend to avoid novels where the possible levels of gory and bloody details would potentially trigger my hemophobia (= fear of blood), and in fact, I expected this to happen with this novel, as vampires, in all variations, suck their victims' blood.

I noticed that on several occasions, during reading, I was dozzing off and had at first attributed it to fatigue, the heat and the fan's white noise. I came to understand that it was also, …

La costruzione di un immaginario

5 stars

Uno dei libri più importanti per la creazione del vampiro come lo conosciamo noi, con tutte le leggende, le credenze e i personaggi iconici ormai di dominio pubblico. Il pregio più grande per me è la qualità della narrazione, che riesce a costruire immagini molto forti che ti si tracciano in testa mentre leggi; sono queste il lascito più prezioso che mi rimane di questo libro.

I heard you like vampires

4 stars

Just a list of thoughts I had as I thought them:

  • Very enjoyable, fast read.
  • A little bit too much of all the characters basically falling in love with each other on first meeting and becoming best friends. A lot of “oh won’t you be my best friend for life now since we’ve been through this together?”
  • Characters are a little dumb in places where they really shouldn’t be. They literally just got done talking about how Dracula can turn into a bat, and then Quincy sees the bats sitting outside the windows staring at them and they don’t think anything more of it when it flies away.
  • Same with how they got done talking about how Dracula can turn into a mist and a control the fog, and Mina goes up to her room and sees the fog coming at her and sees them mist in her room, and …

reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker (Signet Classics)

A great read, not just for codifying vampire lore, but the way it's built from letters and diaries.

5 stars

The original novel is a great read. Not just for the way it codified modern vampire lore. But for the way it's built entirely out of diary entries, letters, news fragments, telegrams and so on. For the way it shows modern science coming to grips with ancient superstition and figuring out how to deal with it. For showing an early example of a woman participating in her own rescue. And for some of the parts that didn't make it into general pop culture. (Count Dracula spends an awful lot of time in a shipping box.)

In some senses it's the written-word equivalent of the "found footage" horror genre. Except the "sources" are wildly varying. John and Mina write their journals and letters to each other in shorthand. Business letters are of course written formally. Dr. Seward keeps an audio diary on a phonograph. Van Helsing's speech is rendered with every …

reviewed Dracula by Bram Stoker

Even if you think you know Dracula, this still holds up!

4 stars

I had never given classic horror a go before, but this one was a pleasant surprise. The original Dracula story was something I thought I knew, elements like Dracula’s castle and the power possessed by that monster make an appearance here, but despite what you might expect of the original vampire, the book is still filled with great characters and moments that were truly nerve-wracking.

I couldn’t help but read faster and faster at times where the tension raised up, hoping for it to end when it was only getting worse. But its not all bad, there is always hope, and the determination of the characters to defend their loved ones and the future of humanity from the reign of the un-dead, is just great, but a few moments of old English were a little hard to read.

I listened to different audiobooks while reading, which was quite atmospheric too. …

avatar for Haz_I_Read_Dis@books.solarpunk.moe

rated it

5 stars

Subjects

  • Comic books, strips, etc.
  • Horror stories