Book: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Seance for a Vampire
ISBN-13: 978-1848566774
Author: Fred Saberhagen
Series: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Publisher: Titan Books
Genre: Mystery
Release: June 22, 2010 (Rerelease)
Length: 192 pages (Paperback)
Rating: C (70 / 100)
Verdict
Despite a bizarre premise, Seance for a Vampire is a light, fun read and one of the more entertaining titles in the increasingly popular “mash-up” genre. If you’re a fan of mash-ups like Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or the original Sherlock Holmes stories, this book is worth picking up. It helps to read The Holmes-Dracula File first, though.
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Pros: Original premise. Entertaining.
Cons: Lack of clear Holmes twist. Distracting shifts in narration. Inauthentic language.
Synopsis
In Brief: When Sherlock Holmes attends a séance to expose a group of spiritualists as charlatans, instead he encounters a girl that should be deceased. He realizes that the girl is a vampire, but in the ensuing confusion, he is kidnapped, leaving Watson turns to Holmes’ cousin (yes, cousin), Prince Dracula, to help him track down the detective.
Official: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation returns in a new series of handsomely designed, long out-of-print detective stories. From the earliest days of Holmes’ career to his astonishing encounters with Martian invaders, the Further Adventures series encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the worlds’ greatest detective.
When two suspect psychics offer Ambrose Altamont and his wife the opportunity to contact their recently deceased daughter, the wealthy British aristocrat wastes no time in hiring Sherlock Holmes to expose their hoax. He arranges for the celebrated detective and Dr. Watson to attend the family’s next seance, confident in Holmes’ rationalist outlook on the situation. But what starts as cruel mockery becomes deadly reality when young, beautiful Louisa Altamont appears to her parents in the flesh as one of the nosferatu–a vampire! The resulting chaos leaves one of the fraudulent spiritualists dead. Sherlock Holmes missing, and Dr. Watson alone and mystified. With time running out, Watson has no choice but to summon the only one who might be able to help–Holmes’ vampire cousin, Prince Dracula. Alternately narrated by Watson and the charismatic Dracula himself, Seance for a Vampire demonstrates that heroes are sometimes found in the most unlikely places. Saberhagen has recast Bram Stoker’s paragon of evil into a noble, witty and chillingly powerful character.
Review
Despite the initial absurdity of its premise, Seance for a Vampire is one of the more compelling takes on Sherlock Holmes be published in recent years. The combination of two of the most memorable literary figures of the nineteenth century, Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, turns out to be a peanut butter and chocolate situation in which two characters inhance readers’ enjoyment of the other. In particular, Saberhagen nails the characters (if not the language) of the pair, making this a worthwhile read. Just don’t expect literary greatness.
On one hand, the match up leaves this novel anything but dull. On the other hand, casting not one but two beloved literary characters creates an enormous set of expectations that are all but impossible to fill.
Though the book is written as if it were a lost Watson manuscript, it’s language is overly modern and clearly written in an American voice. (For lovers of British fantasy this oversight will be more glaring than for casual readers.) This would only be a minor inconvenience if not for the distracting shifts in narration between Watson and Dracula, which really serve to diffuse the tension of the story more than they enhance the narration. But the book’s single greatest shortcoming is its lack of a big reveal – the revelation of the final convolution in the mystery that is the signature of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Seance for a Vampire is simply too straightforward a story to fill Doyle’s shoes.
Although Seance for a Vampire is a stand alone novel, it is one of a series of Dracula novels written by Fred Saberhagen over the years. Readers may want to pick up The Holmes-Dracula File before reading Seance for a Vampire for the sake of learning the back story. In Saberhagen’s series, Dracula isn’t the villain. Stoker’s novel is characterized as a pack of self-serving lies, and Sherlock Holmes is family. Seance for a Vampire may stand on its own, but it takes Dracula’s presence for granted without explanation.
All in all Seance for a Vampire is a good bit of light reading.
Disclaimer
Titan Book sent The Great Geek Manual did receive a complimentary advance reviewer’s copy of Seance for a Vampire. We are very grateful, but we did not consciously alter out review because of it.
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