A review by missuskisses
Carpathia by Matt Forbeck
4.0
Recall Seth Grahame-Smith’s literary mashup Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and his follow-up, the historical mashup, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Matt Forbeck one-ups Mr. Grahame-Smith by combining both literature (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) and history (the Titanic disaster) in Carpathia.
The mashup is fitting: the real rescue ship for the Titanic was named Carpathia, and Dracula himself resided in a castle in the Carpathian Mountains. The timeline works, too: the children of the vampire-slaying heroes in Dracula are approaching college age, just old enough to set sail for America by themselves in 1912.
There’s Quincy “Quin” Harker, son of Jonathan and Mina Murray Harker. There’s Abraham “Abe” Holmwood, son of Arthur Holmwood, who by the end of Dracula becomes Lord Godalming. And then there’s Lucy Seward, daughter of asylum-keeper Dr. John Seward, and likely namesake of Lucy Westenra, the woman-turned-vampire Dr. Seward once wooed.
Quin, Abe, and Lucy were all raised by their parents to believe Dracula a work of fiction. They discover otherwise once they survive the sinking Titanic and board the Carpathia.
Carpathia the book is somewhat hampered by its misleading, though catchy back-cover blurb:
This description led me to believe that this would be a horror novel where survivors are picked off one-by-one by vampires in a claustrophobic setting. It is not. Though Carpathia shares one significant plot-point with 30 Days of Night, readers would be better served if they knew this book was less horror and more camp.
There’s simply no real sense of dread: not when the Titanic sinks, not when the protagonists struggle to survive the icy waters, not when they finally discover that vampires are real. Instead, the book embraces the campiness inherent in the premise; it doesn’t get bogged down by faux-seriousness of the Grahame-Smith books (neither of which I could finish).
My main criticism of Carpathia, then, is that it doesn’t go far enough. Given the pacing, I had thought this would be a “secret history” book. That is, the embarking of the Titanic and the disembarking of the Carpathia would largely conform with history, with only what happens in between being fantasy, albeit a fantasy discreet enough to be known only by a few. When this theory is debunked, I wondered why more liberties weren’t taken earlier. If we were going to go “all-out” in the end, why not start the party sooner?
Still, fans enticed by the premise behind Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter but felt let down by Grahame-Smith’s dry execution can take solace in the wickedly gleeful Carpathia.
I won a copy of the book as part of Angry Robot’s 5-year anniversary celebration.
The mashup is fitting: the real rescue ship for the Titanic was named Carpathia, and Dracula himself resided in a castle in the Carpathian Mountains. The timeline works, too: the children of the vampire-slaying heroes in Dracula are approaching college age, just old enough to set sail for America by themselves in 1912.
There’s Quincy “Quin” Harker, son of Jonathan and Mina Murray Harker. There’s Abraham “Abe” Holmwood, son of Arthur Holmwood, who by the end of Dracula becomes Lord Godalming. And then there’s Lucy Seward, daughter of asylum-keeper Dr. John Seward, and likely namesake of Lucy Westenra, the woman-turned-vampire Dr. Seward once wooed.
Quin, Abe, and Lucy were all raised by their parents to believe Dracula a work of fiction. They discover otherwise once they survive the sinking Titanic and board the Carpathia.
Carpathia the book is somewhat hampered by its misleading, though catchy back-cover blurb:
It’s Titanic meets 30 Days of Night in the most original novel for 100 years.
When the lucky survivors of the world’s most infamous maritime disaster were plucked out of the freezing ocean by the passenger steamship Carpathia, they thought their problems were over.
But something was sleeping in the darkest recesses of their rescue ship. Something old. Something hungry.
This description led me to believe that this would be a horror novel where survivors are picked off one-by-one by vampires in a claustrophobic setting. It is not. Though Carpathia shares one significant plot-point with 30 Days of Night, readers would be better served if they knew this book was less horror and more camp.
There’s simply no real sense of dread: not when the Titanic sinks, not when the protagonists struggle to survive the icy waters, not when they finally discover that vampires are real. Instead, the book embraces the campiness inherent in the premise; it doesn’t get bogged down by faux-seriousness of the Grahame-Smith books (neither of which I could finish).
My main criticism of Carpathia, then, is that it doesn’t go far enough. Given the pacing, I had thought this would be a “secret history” book. That is, the embarking of the Titanic and the disembarking of the Carpathia would largely conform with history, with only what happens in between being fantasy, albeit a fantasy discreet enough to be known only by a few. When this theory is debunked, I wondered why more liberties weren’t taken earlier. If we were going to go “all-out” in the end, why not start the party sooner?
Still, fans enticed by the premise behind Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter but felt let down by Grahame-Smith’s dry execution can take solace in the wickedly gleeful Carpathia.
I won a copy of the book as part of Angry Robot’s 5-year anniversary celebration.