Draculas

A Novel of Terror

By: F. Paul Wilson, Blake Crouch, Jack Kilborn, Jeff Strand

Narrated by: Eric Dawe

Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's Summary

Mortimer Moorecook, retired Wall Street raider, avid collector, is losing his fight against cancer. With weeks to live, a package arrives at the door of his hillside mansion—an artifact he paid millions for…a hominoid skull with elongated teeth, discovered in a farmer's field in the Romanian countryside. With Shanna, his beautiful research assistant looking on, he sinks the skull's razor sharp fangs into his neck, and immediately goes into convulsions.

A rural hospital. A slow night in the ER. Until Moorecook arrives strapped to a gurney, where he promptly codes and dies.

Four well-known horror authors pool their penchants for scares and thrills, and tackle one of the greatest of all legends, with each writer creating a unique character and following them through a vampire outbreak in a secluded hospital.

The goal was simple: write the most intense novel they possibly could. Which they did. A Word of Warning: Within this story, you will find no black capes, no satin-lined coffins, no brooding heartthrobs who want to talk about your feelings. Forget sunlight and stakes. Throw out your garlic and your crosses. This is the Anti-Twilight.

©2010 Jeff Strand, F. Paul Wilson, Jack Kilborn, Blake Crouch, J.A. Konrath (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Hugely disappointing

I'm often on the look-out for a good horror novel to read, and when I saw this, with a couple of author names I recognized, I thought this would be a good read and satisfy my hunger for something dark.

But I was wrong.

The horror genre can come in different forms and my least favorite is one that relies on a lot of blood and sinew and human body parts being torn or ripped off and described in explicit detail.  It's horrific but the effect is numbing after a little bit.  How many times can you describe blood or the sound of a limb being torn off, or the appearance of everything under a person's skin, now exposed, and still make it interesting?  This is nothing more than splatterpunk at its extreme and I would agree with Robert Bloch who said of the genre, "there is a distinction to be made between that which inspires terror and that which inspires nausea".

To make matters even worse, from a story-telling perspective, the entire book takes place in one setting (a hospital) over the course of a few hours.  How do you build tension and terror when it's essentially the same moment, repeated over and over?  You don't.

Briefly, a collector of odd antiquities is in a rural hospital, losing his battle with cancer.  A package arrives ... a skull he's been looking forward to owning.  The skull has an unusual appearance ... it is a human skull but has sharp fangs. When it slips and the fangs sink into his skin, a transformation begins.  He has become infected with something that now changes him. His cancer seems to abate, but he now has a powerful hunger for blood.  His teeth fall out and new teeth, fangs like those on the skull quickly grow in.  He uses them to bite into the nearest person. They lose their teeth and new ones grow in, and the hospital becomes a warzone of those who hunger for human blood, and those who are trying to keep theirs inside their bodies.

I don't mind changing up the 'rules' that have been previously established for certain supernatural creatures - and the authors here warn us that these vampires aren't going to be like any we've read about before - but if you're going to change the rules, <em>change</em> them!  Don't just swap them!  These 'draculas' (the term given them by other characters in the book) are nothing more than common 'zombies' except instead of hungering for brains, they hunger for blood.  They have the same 'keep on coming' traits that most zombies in modern literature posses. Slash them, disembowel them, rend them limb from limb and the part with their fangs will keep coming.  I was really disappointed that this wasn't really something new and instead the authors just changed one creature for another.

This was a huge disappointment all around.

Exciting!! Non-Stop Fun!!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Draculas?

When the nurse was cornered in the closet with the children trying to keep the draculas from getting in and turning anymore of the children...

Which character – as performed by Eric Dawe – was your favorite?

Nurse Jenny was my favorite.

If you could take any character from Draculas out to dinner, who would it be and why?

I would have to say nurse Jenny because even though Dr. Lance was an ass she still maintained a gentle and lovable character.

Any additional comments?

The book was outstanding! I was not bored at any point! LOVED IT!!

Exactly what I expected

This one included every cliche known to horror/apocalytic novels and lots of gore but it was kind of a guilty pleasure for me. The narrator was excellent..some of his 'woman voices' made me want to grit my teeth for just a moment but he captured the over the top cowboy cop and the lumberjack characters really well and showed great talent in keeping the story moving. I just wish he'd done a few less 'squeeeak, squeeeak, squeeeeaks' in some places..kind of painful when you're wearing earbuds!

Could have been so much better.

Let me start by saying that this book was NOT a waste of my time. It entertained me and kept my attention on a long drive, and sometimes that's as much as you can ask from a book. It's action-packed from the start, with some fun new twists on the vampire legend.
However, the book could have been so much better. The writing is uneven at times, and the protagonists are two-dimensional, largely-unlikable characters.
Still, for fans of vampire (not Twilight or Anne Rice vampire) or zombie fiction, this book is a diverting romp.

THIS HAD A GUN SHOW BEAT TO SHIT

HE WAS GOING TO NEED A BIGGER GUN
A CLOWN ZOMBIE MAKING BALLOON ANIMALS OUT OF INTESTINES
PERHAPS HE COULDN'T SPELL ARTILLERY SPRAY, BUT HE COULD AS SURE AS SHIT MAKE IT HAPPEN.
WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
I AM GOING TO GET ERNIE'S HEAD, I AIN'T LEAVING HIS GOD DAMN HEAD OUT THERE.
METALLICA ELEVATOR MUSIC
Throw the plot out the window, this is all about the action. It is non stop. If you just want to hear about gross, gory stuff and not complicate it with a plot, than this is your book.

Horror personified

if you like humor mixed in with Gore and Non-Stop horror and action, this book is definitely for you. the narration was okay. his character voices got kind of goofy at times. very entertaining

Funniest Dracula story I've ever read.

What a joke. I laughed through the first 3 hours then went to the last 15 minutes. What a mish mash of stupid. There were so many Draculas running around that it was impossible to follow. What a waste of time and money.

Unexpected

The story was better than I expected. While Kilborn and Crouch have collaborated incredibly well in many other books I wasn't sure how well it would work with four authors working together. The overall story was unexpectedly better than I'd expected it to be but unfortunately the overall flow wasn't quite as pensive with the "stuck on the edge of your seat", can't put the book down for even a moment feelings that I have come to expect from, and associate with from a Kilborn or Crouch (or the two combined) novel. While a decent read, not what I expected...

Freakin' Awesome!

So much fun! I didn't think it was overly gorey. Just the right amount of gore. I typically use audio books to get to sleep, but not this one. I wanted to stay awake to see what happened next! Some of the characters were a bit shallow, but the others and the action were able to keep them afloat. I hope there's another book on the way!

Great, gory Vampire story.

I usually read a horror novel a week and listen to 3 or 4, depending on the length and what I'm doing. I very rarely right reviews, normally just rate the 3 categories. However, this book was so much fun I'm taking the time. Was it scary? Not so much...but incredibly entertaining to say the least and an absolute gore fest. It's one I'll go back and listen to just for the fun of it. Definitely not for the squeamish and not all that dark but great concept and well told with an engaging cast of likable characters. I'm a fan of Strand so this was suggested and i wasn't disappointed. I will admit as much as i love super scary my fav is horror/comedy.

Brilliant

An exciting book that gets into the action straight away and keeps your interest throughout.

Too much Blood and Guts

Instead of a strong sorry and good deep characters, this book relies on loads and loads of blood and guts. Still, keeps you going till the very end but you are left wanting more information on the characters and story.