Anno Dracula (novel)
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| Author | Kim Newman |
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| Audio read by | William Gaminara |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Anno Dracula series |
| Genre | Alternate history, Horror novel |
| Publisher | Simon & Schuster |
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Publication date
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1992 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 409 (paperback) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 31220886 |
| Followed by | The Bloody Red Baron |
Anno Dracula is a 1992 novel by British writer Kim Newman, the first in the Anno Dracula series. It is an alternate history using 19th-century English historical settings and personalities, along with characters from popular fiction. The interplay between humans who have chosen to "turn" into vampires and those who are "warm" (humans) is the backdrop for the plot which tracks Jack the Ripper's politically charged destruction of vampire prostitutes. The reader is alternately and sympathetically introduced to various points of view. The main characters are Jack the Ripper, and his hunters Charles Beauregard (an agent of the Diogenes Club), and Geneviève Dieudonné, a senior vampire.
In this world, Count Dracula has killed Van Helsing- an injury sustained to Doctor John Seward's hand during a fight with Renfield resulted in the group lacking the men to drive Dracula away from Mina Harker, resulting in Dracula killing Quincey Morris and Jonathan Harker before escaping with Mina. With no one to oppose him, Dracula turns Mina into a vampire, adding her to his collection of brides, and proceeds to spread his vampire curse creating thousands of undead throughout England. He soon marries Queen Victoria, ushering in a period of increasing British vampire domination. Dracula is well-advanced in imposing a police state in the United Kingdom, where dissenters may be jailed or impaled without trial.
Dieudonné has come down in the world, attending sick vampires in a clinic run by a doctor with a shady past. When a prostitute is murdered, Scotland Yard turns to them for an opinion. In the meantime Beauregard's social marriage preparations are interrupted by a summons to the mysterious Diogenes Club, which represents the crown in matters that cannot be made public. There, he is charged with finding Jack the Ripper. At the inquest for the recently destroyed vampire prostitute, Dieudonné and Beauregard appear, with Lestrade from Scotland Yard, and Dr. Jekyll. Each sets out independently, with differing agendas.
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Wikipedia