Some backstory. This past summer I worked in a tourist centre and we sold paperbacks from the library for 50 cents each. I was flipping through them and found this book. Dracula is one of my favourite novels AND Quincey is my favourite character. I was intrigued, and then forgot about it. After that I kept thinking I should buy it but never did. I was telling my co-worker about it and she's like, "did you buy it?" and I was like, "I better make sure it's still there." So I checked and thought someone bought it. I was so sad and then found it and bought it. This book could either be really horrendous or really amusing. We shall see.
Also, it is published by Baen Books. You might recognize them as the the publisher of Ghost, which remains the only book I've recapped for this blog that I just couldn't finish.
According to the book jacket, the basic premise of the novel is that Quincey didn't really get killed after he killed Dracula...he just got turned into a vampire as well. Presumably Dracula lives somehow. But Van Helsing thinks Quincey needs to die.
Predictions:
Van Helsing dies.
Quincey and Mina fall in love.
Quincey and Dracula have homoerotic interactions.
Lastly, here's the cover:
Quincey's looking like some kind of bloated boy band member past his prime. Don't even have the first clue as to who that swooning woman is in the background. Mina? One of Dracula's slutty vampire brides? Vampire Lucy?
Anyway, here we go.
The book starts with a quote from Quincey basically saying that he is surprised the story of their exploits (Dracula) was so popular and that his story is just beginning.
Quincey is just waking up after dying. I have to say I already love this book by virtue of it being in first person from Quincey's POV. It always made me mad that he was the only person who never got to tell his story. Mina and Jonathan had their diaries and letters, Lucy had a diary and letters, Jack had his phonograph diary, Van Helsing had a diary or something or letters at least. Even Arthur, the most boring character, had a letter printed! Poor Quincey. He gets no love.
Wolves are dragging Quincey somewhere. He's all, "Oh yeah, this reminds me of that time in Siberia." Good to see you have time to reminisce when wolves are taking you somewhere.
One of the wolves transforms into DUN DUN DUN Dracula! But Quincey, didn't you kill him with the bowie knife you always carry for no apparent reason?
Quincey looks down a hill and sees his friends. For no real reason, Dracula grabs him by his face and slams him into a tree. Quincey wants to go there to let them kill him. Dracula's all "whatever, but don't give me away or I'll sic the wolves on them."
We find out that Dracula didn't turn Quincey into a vampire, but someone else. It also might be implied that he was a vampire before dying. So who did it? Lucy?
Also, they didn't really win their fight with Dracula. Dracula spared them for some reason. Not only that, he engineered the whole climactic fight solely so that he could talk to Quincey. All you had to do was ASK, Drac. Quincey's not scared of anything. He would have had a conversation.
So here's how Quince turned into a vampire. Quincey and Arthur were at a ball and Quincey slept with this chick and she bit him. Some of his euphemisms are kind of amusing:
"...I'd known more than one woman in my travels and came to know that each had her own path to pleasure and it was my privilege to assist her there."
Must have been some roll in the hay. Quincey has to rest the WHOLE NEXT DAY to be ready for her again.
So has Quincey then been a vampire THIS WHOLE TIME but he just never noticed? Or did he not ACTUALLY become a vampire until he died? This confuses me.
Oh, never mind, you can only become a vampire after your death. Apparently. Also, cutting Lucy's head off did nothing. And she would have been okay (granted, she would have been a vampire too) if everyone had left her alone. Man, after reading this, Dracula the book becomes really depressing.
Here's something else depressing: Drac can shapeshift and go out into the sun and control the weather and control animals and stuff. Quincey basically can't. So Dracula gets all the good vampire stuff, and Quincey gets all the bad. That's a crappy deal.
I'm also really confused as to why Dracula is helping Quincey with all this. Quincey just stabbed him. You'd think that would be the kind of thing to sour a relationship.
Quincey then muses on how he loved Lucy, which makes me think of his proposal in the book, which is my favourite fictional proposal of ALL TIME. I'm too lazy to get the book right now, but it's something like, "Why don't we hitch up to a double harness and go down the road together?"
Maybe one prediction is coming true?
[Dracula to Quincey] "But perhaps," he finally whispered, his voice so soft I barely heard, "perhaps you will tarry awhile?"
Awww, Dracula's lonely.
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