Subject: SEANCE FOR A VAMPIRE by Fred Saberhagen

From: [email-masked] (Michael C. Berch)
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 1994 21:35:21 GMT

SEANCE FOR A VAMPIRE by Fred Saberhagen
            Tor, ISBN 0-312-85562-1, 1994, 288pp, US$21.95.
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper

     This is the sixth novel in Saberhagen's "Dracula" series, which
starts with THE HOLMES-DRACULA FILE (in which Count Dracula meets
Sherlock Holmes).  Actually, it's the seventh, since Dracula refers back
to Saberhagen's DRACULA TAPES, making that now officially part of the
series.  (I think of it as book zero, sort of like Tolkien's HOBBIT is
book zero of his "Lord of the Rings" trilogy).  The other books in the
series are AN OLD FRIEND OF THE FAMILY, THORN, DOMINION, and MATTER OF
TASTE.

     In SEANCE FOR A VAMPIRE, Holmes is called in by a friend whose wife
may be being deluded by mediums.  Well, the mediums are certainly fake,
but the friend's drowned daughter shows up at one of the seances anyway,
and Holmes calls in Dracula for some expert advice.  Their search for
the truth eventually leads them to St. Petersburg (Russia), and there
the story grinds to a halt while we are given a complete travelogue of
the city, including mention of all the major buildings and details such
as which side of the road people drive on and that water needs to be
boiled because of a cholera epidemic.  I kept waiting for these things
to matter, but they never did.  Did Saberhagen make a trip to
St. Petersburg that he wanted to write off as a business expense?

     It's a pity, really, because until the story goes to
St. Petersburg, it moves along fairly briskly, in spite of switching
between Dracula and Watson as narrator, often in mid-chapter.  But
Saberhagen manages to let the reader know in the first few sentences
after a transition who is speaking.

     And I have a couple of technical quibbles.  Dracula says he has a
problem with running water, yet another vampire apparently has no
problem concealing himself in the same stream Dracula wants to avoid.
And would a vampire really stay in a house which displayed large crosses
on the tables?  I know Saberhagen has changed the mythos a bit, but the
first is an internal inconsistency and the second is also fairly
blatant.

     In spite of these complaints, though, SEANCE FOR A VAMPIRE is still
better than some of the middle books of the series, and a return to the
engaging style of the first couple.  I would recommend this, but wait
for the paperback.

%A      Saberhagen, Fred 
%T      Seance for a Vampire
%I      Tor
%C      New York
%D      June 1994
%G      ISBN 0-312-85562-1
%P      288pp
%O      hardcover, US$21.95
%S      Dracula
%V      7

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
"Am I politically correct today?  Do I do crystals and New Age?
Obviously, women's music's for me--Edith Piaf, Bessie Smith, and Patti Page."
				--Lynn Lavner