Over the decades, hundreds of authors have imagined the post-Dracula adventures of Van Helsing, Mina Harker, and the vampiric Count. But the Bram Stoker estate is about to release the official sequel to Dracula, based on Stoker's own notes.
Dacre Stoker, the author's great-grandnephew, along with Ian Holt, a Dracula historian, has put together Dracula: The Un-Dead, which Stoker's estate is calling the official sequel to Stoker's original. The younger Stoker claims the book is based on excised portions of Bram Stoker's original book, as well as his additional notes. The book takes place a quarter century after the events of Dracula, when disaster befalls the first novel's survivors:
Dracula The Un-Dead begins in 1912, twenty-five years after Dracula "crumbled into dust." Van Helsing's protégé, Dr. Jack Seward, is now a disgraced morphine addict obsessed with stamping out evil across Europe. Meanwhile, an unknowing Quincey Harker, the grown son of Jonathan and Mina, leaves law school for the London stage, only to stumble upon the troubled production of "Dracula," directed and produced by Bram Stoker himself.
The play plunges Quincey into the world of his parents' terrible secrets, but before he can confront them he experiences evil in a way he had never imagined. One by one, the band of heroes that defeated Dracula a quarter-century ago is being hunted down. Could it be that Dracula somehow survived their attack and is seeking revenge? Or is their another force at work whose relentless purpose is to destroy anything and anyone associated with Dracula?
Dracula: The Un-Dead arrives October 13, and two studios are reportedly already in negotiations for the movie rights. But it would be nice to see the authors release an annotated edition as well, so we could see to what extent the book comes from Bram Stoker's own ideas, and to what extent we're simply seeing another pair of hands tackling the classic characters.