Dracula the Un-dead

Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt

HarperCollins (2009)

ISBN: 978-0-00-732395-1

Reviewed by Tehani Wessely

To be brutally honest, the best part of this book was the essay at the end, where the authors explain the genesis of the novel and outline their writing and plot decision-making processes. It’s not a bad book, but neither is it the kind of compelling read I was hoping for.

The original Dracula, by Dacre Stoker’s great-granduncle Bram Stoker, is now seen as the blueprint for vampire literature and film. It holds the seeds that spawned Twilight, Vampire Academy, Evernight and all the current crop of teen-fangfests that abound on our shelves, albeit in an almost unrecognisable form at times. Over the decades since its publication, Hollywood has drawn on Stoker’s story and embellished it, writers have used his vampire “lore” and moulded it to suit themselves.