This was the first book I'd read by Newman, although at my book club meeting I was reminded that I *had* read a long short-story by him, "Coppola's Dracula" - which I distinctly disliked. I had mixed feelings about this book. It's an alternate history of what might have happened when the vampire Dracula arrived in England. Here, Dracula takes over, vampires infiltrate all levels of society, and regular people just have to deal with the consequences in their daily lives. The book didn't annoy me in the way that many alternate history stories which feature known characters do - probably because, is this case, most of the 'known characters' that appear in this version of the story of Dracula, are fictional. However, I felt that Newman failed to actually concentrate on his story because he was so busy trying to jam in appearances by and references to all kinds of fictional vampires from a host of sources. He expects his readers to be vampire fans, and therefore, lets characterization fall by the wayside - after all, people already *know* these characters. (And indeed, the two people in my book club who are Victorianists DID feel that they already knew the characters.) But for me, the only character who really stood out was that of Genevieve - a Newman original, but apparently, a character that he'd invented for another novel altogether. Odd. Still, I thought that the mergings of the stories of Dracula, Jack the Ripper and Jekyll & Hyde was rather well-done... and there were a lot of quite funny observations of what would happen if vampires took over...
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