Vlad Dracula: The Dragon Prince

By: Michael Augustyn

Narrated by: Matt Guardabascio

Most of the vast audience attracted to the subject of Dracula know him only in his fictional, one-dimensional form: vampire. Yet the truth behind the historical character - voevode, warlord - of 15th C. Romania is at least as equally fascinating as any contrived account of his supernatural persona.

Vlad Dracula faithfully follows his life story as hostage, fugitive, prince, and prisoner, as well as his legend. His principality of Wallachia was caught between two voracious predators: the kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. They tried to break Dracula with overwhelming force and terror. But Dracula turned their own tactics against them, and against criminals and factions in his own land, earning the name Tepes - The Impaler - in the process.

He was a strange mix of husband, father, soldier, statesman, and berserker. He annihilated 50,000 people - one-tenth of his own population. Cursed by his native Orthodox Christian church, he indeed evolved into a legend. But even today he is Romania's Robin Hood.

©2014 Michael Augustyn (P)2015 Michael Augustyn

History details

Loved it! Great work! Was very impressed with the way the story flows and easy to understand

Fiction but excellent!

Very nice to find one more historical novel on the life of Prince Vlad III Dracula. I get very tired of the vampire fiction and propaganda that is usually associated with this true warrior and hero.

I thought it was a historical book

I thought I bought a history on Vlad Dracula but it was actually a novel

Great Story

I love how it wrapped the actual history into the legendary stories of vampires in the end. The book was very true to the history until after Vlads death, where it took on the form of the legend of Dracula the vampire.

Not what I thought, but still good

I have to admit that this book was not what I thought it would be. I thought it would be a historical fiction based on the life of Vlad Dracul, without the aspect of vampirism. The book did include vampirism, though. That being said, I think the book was really written well, though be warned, it can be pretty graphic as far as tortures are concerned. I thought that the details were really interesting, and the book ended well. The majority of the book focuses on the part of Vlad's life before he becomes a vampire, and that is the part that I was most interested in. I listened to the Audible version, and I would actually be interested in reading the Kindle version because there are a lot of culture-related words that I'm not used hearing, and I tend to absorb the unfamiliar better with the written word. Overall, an interesting book.