Carpathia

Pretension leaps from the very first page of this trivial, tepid reworking of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Forbeck tries to make up for the unoriginal love triangle of Quin Harker, Abe Holmwood, and Lucy Seward with audacity that he then buries under excruciating exposition. It takes 19 chapters to revisit the sinking of the Titanic and get the protagonists together on the Carpathia. By the time blood-drinking horror is finally loosed upon the traumatized survivors of the Titanic’s destruction, it’s difficult to care; the spectacle of Quin and Abe conversing in eloquent full sentences for over an hour as they float, unharmed, in the freezing Atlantic has already un-suspended any disbelief a reader could muster. Stoker’s rich work is mined only for names and fun facts about vampires. The assimilation of superficial facts is competent enough, but the lack of pacing, original world-building, or accuracy in real-world details (standardized size labels on British gentlemen’s clothes? In 1912?) deprives the story of any emotional impact. (Mar.)