Anno Dracula: The Bloody Red Baron

Mr. Kim Newman has fast become one of my favorite writers. It started with Anno Dracula which is one of my favorite books. It combines some of my favorite elements in fiction: Victorian fiction, alternate universes, meta-fiction, shades of the Wold Newton Family, Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes references, but most of all good writing, an engaging plot, and interesting characters. I couldn't put it down and eagerly waited for the sequel hoping for it to be as good as the original... It wasn't- But it is damn close. The book actually contains two separate stories, The Bloody Red Baron which takes up the first 2/3rds of the book and a new novella Vampire Romance which finishes out the last third. In the interest of fairness I will review the stories separately. Bloody Red Baron is a four star book. It suffers a little bit due to the absence of Geneviève but mostly makes up for it with a larger role for Kate Reed who had a smaller part in the previous review. Charles Beauregard also has a reduced role to the books detriment. His replacement character is not as strong but works well enough. The real sticking point is the over reliance on the flying scenes which is understandable considering it is about the Red Baron but they just distracted from the stuff I loved with stuff I just liked. But if you like action scenes in a book this won't be a problem for you. Vampire Romance is on the other hand a five star story.It heavily features Geneviève at a party to try to find the new King of Vampires. It is both a manor house mystery as well as a wicked burn on the Paranormal Romance genre that has become so popular. This novella is worth the nine buck by itself. One of Newman's best abilities is to combine humor and horror without detracting from either. This book gets a strong recommend.

I ordered this bookon my Kindle after a friend told me it was a great re ad. I can't stop thinking about the book and have ordered the other two in the series. Dracula is now Queen Victoria's consort in the late 19th century. Mayhem is the order of the day since Vampires have gone public. We also have a behind the scenes group of "agents" who are on top of the real threats. Victorian life is covered in detail and the famous characters included in the series make for some great guessing games. Jack the Ripper is included along with other notables...... The book gives you shudders galore and is an amazing story. It includes historic detail which seems to fit the changed scenery. All in all I would recommend the book highly to fright buffs, alternate history addics and anyone who just enjoys a good read.

I've read "Anno Dracula" and have just finished "Bloody Red Baron" I've enjoyed both novels and my interest was held and my enjoyment complete by the writing style of Mr. Newman. I fully enjoy the way he weaves real life history and other well know fictional characters into his stories. He puts a number of different twists into the storylines to keep the plots intriguing. I look forward to the other two books in the series.

The second book in the series, and it is almost as good as the first. In this one, Dracula is the leader of the allied armies during WWI, and we get to follow the air battles between the bloody Red Baron (who is a vampire, of course) and the human pilots fighting against the vampires. It is a very weird but successful alternate history with vampires, and it is a lot of fun.

"Anno Dracula: The Bloody Red Baron" is the 2nd novel of 4 in the Anno Dracula Series from Kim Newman, a thought provoking, thoroughly frightening alternative history set in WW1. Visit the popular notion of vampires surviving and openly living among mankind. Kim Newman's novel reveals how a different sort of evil could have influenced and affected this historical period. Graf von Dracula is the military commander-in-chief of Germany and, as usual, is filled with egomaniacal dreams of wresting power over the world with his evil cohorts. The Red Baron is portrayed in a grand, twisted manner I found both bizarre and extraordinary. There are a cast of well-developed characters including Dracula's nemesis, the human Charles Beauregard, and vampires inimical to Dracula's desires, the audacious Kate Reed, vampire reporter extraordinaire, and the mysterious and beautiful vampire, Genevieve Dieudonne, who, in an irreverent poke at literature, infiltrates the Diogenes Club. I recommend reading "Anno Dracula" before this novel.

First off I have to say that the Anno Dracula series is one of the greatest fantasy book series out there. The plots, the characters, and, last but not least, the crossover references to all things vampires - books, movies, etc. And this is where the Kindle comes in. I have had so much fun using the Kindle's ability to access Google for tracking down all of the characters in these books. It so enriches the storyline as well as introduce me to all of the source materials. Reading a paper book now has become so 1 dimensional without the direct access to the internet. While I own and use a Kindle, the software best used on a tablet or smart phone for full search capabilities.

ich habe das buch für meinem freund als geschenk gekauft. seiner meinung nach ist das buch außenordentlich interessant. das geld war auch gut.

Ho apprezzato molto la costruzione dei personaggi (molti celebri), l’atmosfera horror senza inutile splatter, la ricostruzione ambientale della prima guerra mondiale. La saga per me si ferma qui perché il mondo alternativo creato diventa troppo complesso e l’autore è in netta difficoltà a gestirlo. Anche il finale è piuttosto brusco, come a indicare una difficoltà a immaginare il seguito.

Anno Dracula the Bloody Red Baron is a fantastic & bloody rip-roaring yarn, continuing on from Anno Dracula & building on the premise of what might have happened after Bram Stoker's original Dracula story. Newman models the motives of all his vampires very individually & very distinctly but the story is steeped in vampire mythology & he shows some real understanding of the pioneering aerial combat of First World War. The monstrosity of the von Ritchthofen & Winthrop's own descent into obsessive bestiality maybe being a comment on what war does to men. There's a huge cast of interesting characters based on real and fictional people, Albert Ball (who is almost forgotten by history), Edgar Allen Poe, Mellors (who I guessed was Lady Chatterley's lover) surviving in No Man Land & Bela Lugosi playing his part were all great fun. The post-war story is almost a pastiche of the Famous 5 type investigate, very readable, very funny but it does seem quite a lurch from the war-time tale to the other. Newman was one of the first (credit also to Philip Jose Farmer) to create a world where real people & characters from fiction could co-exist & seems to be given little credit for his pioneering approach. I increasingly get the feeling that many things packaged as "entertainment" are becoming instantly forgettable once they been consumed, almost as if it's inviting you to instantly need something else to consume, as I said in the title, this will at least give you something to think about as well. If you decide to buy it, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

More a continuation of the alternate, vampire-ridden history established in Newman's 'Anno Dracula' than a sequel, this novel moves on thirty years, and plunges the reader into The Great War. With vampires and humans on both sides, there are brand new atrocities to perpetrate, particularly in the skies above No Man's Land. For all of of the richly sourced vampire mayhem, the war itself is startlingly familiar in how it's portrayed here, exactly as grimy and bleak as it should be, and Newman avoids the trap of turning the aerial hijinks into a boys own adventure parody. Where characters from the first novel pop up again, it's great to see them, but the new cast hold their own, and fold themselves into this evolving mythos. The book also contains the novella 'Vampire Romance', set shortly after the war and featuring Genevieve Dieudonne (a primary character in these books, missing from 'Baron' except via the occasional reference). It's an amusing shift in tone, setting up a nineteen twenties murder mystery in a country manor, and throwing a bunch of ancient predators in as suspects. Extremely good fun. Vampire novels are usually a hard sell for me, but the Anno Dracula series continues to be utterly refreshing.

Ich habe mir die neue Paperback-Ausgabe gekauft, weil mein altes Taschenbauch, ebenso wie AD selbst, schon ziemlich zerlesen ist. Nachdem bei AD noch die Lust am bloßen Entdecken von literarischen Figuren im Vordergrund stand, war für mich die Weiterentwicklung der Figuren, egal ob untot oder entsprechend ihres fortschreitenden Alters, das Unerwartete an diesem Buch. wie bei fast jedem Buch von Newman entfacht auch dieses den Drang, sich zu einzelnen historischen Persönlichkeiten oder aber bekannten oder weniger bekannten Figuren der Hooro/Fantasy/Pop-Geschichte weiter zu informieren, um herauszufinden: Gab es den jetzt wirklich, ist es eine Erfindung Newmans oder von wo sonst? Die Geschichte bietet auch einen moralischen Sprung vom viktorianischen Schauer Londons zum mechnistischen Gräuel des Krieges. Und auch hier zeigt sich, dass die Vampire beileibe nicht das schlimmste Übel sind. Strengste Empfehlung. Die Freude auf Johhny Alucard wird immer größer, auch wenn einige Teile daraus schon erschienen sind.