Picked up this book as I'm a long time fan of F. Paul Wilson. This book was brilliant - a bit of a different take on vampires, and I enjoyed every single page. Wish it was longer, since it was such an enjoyable storie. ( )

OK, you can think of this as a feeling guilty review. Originally I meant to write something up but I've been swamped lately. As such, I simply rated the book 4 stars in my usual spots and moved on. But then I got a bunch of likes on my "review". It was a rating, not a review. Anyway, then I got a like on my rating by F. Paul Wilson! Gah, one of the authors is liking my simplistic 4 stars rating and I can't even write a couple hundred words on his book!? Guilt, guilt, guilt.

Then as the words were noodling in my head but before I could make the time to write up a proper review, J.A. Konrath likes my rating! Double gah! Now I truly have to get something written and posted soon! Otherwise I might end up with Strand and/or Crouch liking my rating too!

There turned to be a really nice blending of all the authors into a single book. I was expecting something along the lines of each chapter being written by a different author and a slightly disconnected feeling. Instead this is a true co-author book in that it's one story which happens to be written by four people. There were scenes where I guessed "lots of humor, I think Strand wrote this" or "medical jargon that sounds accurate, probably Wilson" but in reality, I had no idea if I was right or not. Doesn't matter because it was very enjoyable.

The story focuses on a eccentric billionaire who's dying and is able to retrieve a skull hypothesized as Dracula's skull. The billionaire infects himself and during his metamorphosis, he infects many others. Death and mayhem ensues.

As I mentioned, I was really enjoying the story when suddenly it ended. Right at the mid-point of the book. The story itself truly did end; it wasn't an abrupt ending. It was more a wtf moment of I'm literally at 50% of the book completed. What useless fluff was left to read. It turned out to be a lot, and actually not fluff at all. First there were a few short stories, enjoyable reads but thinking back I remember the main story and not these short stories. The really cool part though was the ton of behind the scenes material on how DRACULAS came into being. The emails that went back and forth with all of them on how to start and write the book. There were some deleted scenes. A lot of explanation as to why choices were made. In the end, I enjoyed the second half of the book just as much as the story in the first half.

If it is not apparent by now, I do recommend the book as a fun, enjoyable read. All four authors did a great job. The behind-the-scenes notes do tell which author wrote which characters and certain scenes but in the end, it doesn't matter who wrote what. The book made me smile, laugh, cringe, thrilled and care. Then it involved me to a small degree in the lives of four authors that I respect. With all that, I consider myself well entertained. ( )

Finally! These vampires do not glitter in the sunlight or mope around looking depressed.This is not an everyone lives happily ever after story. These are vampires as they were mneant to be. Bloodthirsty, vicious, with one thing on their minds, BLOOD and where to get more.

Includes bonus material and short stories. One of which(Cub Scout Gore Feast) was hilarious... in a sick kind of way. ( )

Bloodsucker soaker!

A small backstory:

Mortimer Moorecock collects artifacts and when he finds an artifact of Dracula's skull he must have it so he buys it. When the package arrives Mortimer decides on the spur of the moment to sink the fangs of the skull artifact into his neck.

When Moorecock does that to himself his assistant Shanna calls an ambulance as Moorecock starts going into convulsions. When the EMT's arrive at the hospital, things go from bad to worse when Moorecock ends up attacking people by biting them and the whole hospital is turned upside down as the horror of vampirism takes over the entire building!

Thoughts:

Normally a gore infested blood romp would glean five stars from me, but I dropped this book down to three stars for a reason. I felt that there was a lot of repetition with the vampire breakout and it went on for a long time with people becoming vampires then turning other people into vampires.

The story continued like that for near 300 pages and I felt this story could have been a lot shorter. Maybe a 200 page romp of vampire attacks, but 300 pages was a long haul for the same type of thing happening from one person to another.

One interesting thing about the book though was the authors have a section at the end of biographies and emails. The emails were fascinating to me as they show how all of the authors came together to write this story. Giving this one three "Vampire Blood Sucker" stars.

For more thoughts on this review, please see my blog:
https://booknookretreat.blogspot.com/2021/10/draculas-by-blake-crouch-ja-konrath... ( )

This one has been sitting in my TBR file for quite some time, so last week, I thought it was time to wake up "Draculas". The premise of having four well-known horror writers collaborate on a novel was pretty appealing to me. I can't say that I was let down by the experience, but I wasn't exactly overwhelmed by it either. The story is a churning, non-stop-action, gore-fest that takes place in a small town hospital. There are plenty of characters, and I must say authors Kilborn, Strand, Wilson, and Crouch do a more than effective job at sewing their 4 individual takes on the story together into one unified story with a number of different characters' POV.
I took off a star because it did tend to have more than a couple slow and repetitive spots plus an ending that did not sit well with me because it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the story. ( )