By ASA DRAKE (Avon; 1981)

I AM DRACULA, a 1993 paperback original by C. Dean Andersson, has attained a fair amount of popularity over the years, but few readers seem to know that it’s actually a reworking of 1981’s CRIMSON KISSES, co-written by the same author.  As Andersson makes clear in a preface to the later book, CRIMSON KISSES was largely ignored because of its ill-conceived romance novel packaging, which mislead booksellers and readers.  I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting much from the book, and so was quite surprised upon finally reading CRIMSON KISSES and finding that it’s actually damn good.

“Asa Drake” is a pseudonym for Andersson and his wife Nina Romberg. The Drake moniker also graces the 1982 horror novel THE LAIR OF ANCIENT DREAMS and the HEL fantasy trilogy (WARRIOR WITCH OF HEL, DEATH RIDERS OF HEL and WEREBEASTS OF HEL), although those latter books were in fact penned by Andersson on his own (and republished under his name). CRIMSON KISSES bears many HEL book trademarks, namely an action-oriented narrative and crisp, no-nonsense prose.

The narrative was evidently constructed around an inquiry into precisely how the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler might have meshed with the Bram Stoker created Dracula.  The answer, as provided here, is Tzigane, a gypsy chosen by Satan to help Vlad/Dracula, the Devil’s son, attain his dark destiny.  To this end she seduces and makes him her lifelong lover, eventually becoming a vampire and passing on her “gift” to Vlad, who goes on to fulfill Satan’s designs.  His love for Tzigane, however, cannot be denied.

The novel’s 15th Century milieu is thoroughly researched and balanced quite nicely with the supernatural elements, resulting in a story that functions equally well as historical speculation and balls-out horror.  Yet ultimately the book works because for all the action and scares the authors never lose focus of the undead romance at its center.

I AM DRACULA, for its part, is likewise nothing if not focused: it tells the same story as CRIMSON KISSES, but from Dracula’s POV.  I’d have probably enjoyed it more had I not already read the former book, a third person account with two protagonists, which I feel works better in conveying the events of this loopy story.  It helps to hear Tzigane’s thoughts as well as Drac’s, and anyway, the idea of a Dracula memoir had been done before—in Fred Saberhagen’s THE DRACULA TAPE (1975), which is also believed to have inspired another much more famous book involving an interview and a vampire.