The Bloody Red Baron

Anno Dracula Book 2

By: Kim Newman

Narrated by: William Gaminara

A brand-new edition with an additional novella, this critically-acclaimed, best-selling sequel to Anno Dracula will keep you mesmerised from beginning to end.

It is 1918 and Dracula is commander-in-chief of the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The war of the great powers in Europe is also a war between the living and the dead. As ever, the Diogenes Club is at the heart of British Intelligence and Charles Beauregard and his protégé Edwin Winthrop go head-to-head with the lethal vampire flying machine that is The Bloody Red Baron...

Written by popular novelist and movie critic Kim Newman, The Bloody Red Baron takes the story forward into the 20th century.

©2012 Kim Newman (P)2012 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

"Stephen King assumes we hate vampires; Anne Rice makes it safe to love them, because they hate themselves. Kim Newman suspects that most of us live with them… Anno Dracula is the definitive account of that post-modern species, the self-obsessed undead.” -( New York Times)

“Powerful...compelling entertainment...a fiendishly clever banquet of dark treats.” ( San Francisco Chronicle)

"Politics, horror, and romance are woven together in this brilliantly imagined and realized novel. Newman's prose is a delight, his attention to detail is spellbinding." ( Time Out)

Good but...

As much as I thoroughly enjoyed Anno Dracula, and was prepared for this sequel, something was lacking. I think overall it's hard to keep up the standards in series due in part to the fact that whatever newness made the original stand out, isn't new anymore. I still like the historical allusions and all the blending of real and imaginary/fictional characters, but I think the first one had it, and don't know if I'll go on if more show up in this set. I am looking forward to the Sherlock blend Newman has in Hound of D'Urbervilles and will try it.

Incomplete version

This audiobook is missing the new, additional novella that is supposedly to come with the latest edition of the book. This is also described in the description of the audiobook!

Great fun and smart

this book is fun, dark, and in as much as a vampire accepted world can be... honest.

A worthy sequel

The Bloody Red Baron is a worthy sequel to the brilliant Anno Dracula, though not as brilliant, quite naturally.
Newman's weaving together of fact and fiction, history and literature are as masterful as always, building a beautiful, colorful, believable and, perhaps, most importantly original world, purely his own.
Gaminara remains pure perfection both in acting abilities and voice qualities.

A Worthy Sequel

Would you consider the audio edition of The Bloody Red Baron to be better than the print version?

Better? No. But it is a great companion to the print version. The depth of the presented world forces me to constantly look things up if I'm using the print copy, but the audio version allows me to just enjoy the story for what it is.

What other book might you compare The Bloody Red Baron to and why?

The only thing I could compare this too is the rest of Anno Dracula line and other works that toe the Wold Newton line such as Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Have you listened to any of William Gaminara’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This performance is easily as good as the one he offered for Anno Dracula. I was happy to have him back for this one. It makes the experience that much better when you have a quality narrator across an entire series.

Any additional comments?

Like Anno Dracula before it, this book is a lot of fun. The more you know about classic literature and World War I history, the better it gets as there's a lot of geekery to be had. If you don't know any of it, don't let that scare you away. This book is so much fun, it'll make you want to learn more to see how it fits together. When you get in that mood for "something different," this series fits the bill perfectly.

Newman’s Best World-building

I love Kim Newman’s writing. Every time he releases something new I buy it on opening day because he’s a consistently great and interesting writer. He’s a master at integrating iconic,beloved, and familiar characters and doing something new and interesting with them. Sometimes it’s scary, sometimes funny, it’s always compelling and fun to read and listen to. What really shines in The Bloody Red Baron (my personal favorite of the AD series. So far.) is Newman’s world-building. He’s established a fascinating and surprisingly easy to imagine world history following the ending of the first book. He’s created his own history for a world where vampirism is a fact and our favorite heroes and villains in fiction live beside the greatest heroes and villains of WWI and 20th century European history. It’s fascinating reading. What’s really interesting is that the horrors of vampires and monsters is sometimes much less scary than the horror of trench warfare, early dogfights, and life in the trench he describes. What real soldiers and civilians experienced is articulated in truly ghastly detail and you remember this was the experience of so many men, women, and children. It really might be Newman’s best work and it’s what I consider his Empire Strikes Back. Like Empire, the story is darker, more dangerous, and by the end the characters are likely changed forever. It’s a great continuation of the series and I can’t recommend it enough.

*smh*

Kim Newman, you ridiculously moustachioed dandy, you killed Snoopy, and don't think we didn't notice.

This book is AWFUL

I listened through I think chapter 5 realizing I had no idea what was going on, and I did try, this was my second run with this book. There is too much going on ... it wants to be WW1 historical fiction blended with supernatural, romance, thriller, and action tendencies … and it just does not work for me. This is just a radically pretentious book written by a history buff with a blood fetish, but I mean, at least his vampires did not sparkle.