Anno Dracula: Dracula Cha Cha Cha

DRACULA CHA CHA CHA is the third volume of the Anno Dracula series and moves our story up to the late 1950s. It is an homage to the European romance movies of the period like Roman Holiday as well as Italian giallo (proto slasher films). It is certainly a far cry from the original steampunk Anno Dracula novel but it is still an impressive mixture of historical as well as fictional characters from the time period. It also has Commander Hamish Bond, barely disguised from his Sean Connery incarnation.

The premise is that Dracula is getting married. The old war criminal managed to avoid prosecution for his terrorist activities during the Victorian Era and World War 1 by being against Hitler during World War 2. Now living in a palace in Italy, he is going to marry Princess Asa Vajda (Black Sunday’s villain) and every major vampire in the world is invited. This includes Genevieve, Kate Reid, and Charles Beauregard despite their lifelong opposition to the Impaler as well as everything he stands for.

Unfortunately, for vampires at least, there’s a masked wrestler murdering ancient vampires coming to visit the wedding. Kate Reid watches some fellow undead tourists horribly killed and investigates what is generally regarded as a set of murders no one actually cares to solve. Because while Genevieve and Kate are wonderful people, almost all older vampires are some variety of scum or another. Also, there’s just not enough time to investigate vampire murders when there’s weddings to plan and romance to experience!

The primary focus of the book isn’t on the murders but the final days of Charles Beauregard and how his decision to remain human has impacted the vampire women who love him. Kate is learning to deal with immortality and also use/abuse her boyfriends to distract her from the pangs of time. Genevieve is dealing with how this is something she should be used to but isn’t. Penelope is wondering why they just don’t turn Charles and apologize later. There’s also lengthy subplots involving a vampire James Bond and a very human Talented Mr. Ripley.

Part of the book’s quirk is the fact that it has the view that Dracula has been outlived by time. Despite being a terrifying monster and supervillain, the Earth’s peoples can get used to anything. As such, Dracula is just considered a quirky celebrity and has been that ultimately no longer matters in the larger world stage. His fade to irrelevance in the plot is something that all of the characters are affected by even as they struggle to deal with a post-Dracula world (despite Dracula being still in it).

As an end to the Anno Dracula series, which it’s not, I think it’s pretty good but I feel the series has suffered the more it goes from the Victorian Era into the future. Making a bunch of 1950s and European vampire cinema references will never be as entertaining as the joys of all the various ones in the 19th century. Also, as much as I love how blatant James Bond’s inclusion is, having him chase after a vampire cat mastermind is just plain silly.

One plotline I did like was the fact that Genevieve and Kate insist on trying to deny vampires are supernatural (opening up all manner of questions regarding God, sin, death, and damnation). They want to believe vampires are just people, no more or less. This book completely blows that to hell and makes it clear the supernatural is real. Neither woman really is capable of fully embracing that, though, and I was rather disappointed with that as it would have been an excellent change to their characters.

The pace of Dracula Cha Cha Cha is kind of languid and flowing with nothing really of consequence happening until the very end. In the original book, the murder of a half-dozen vampire women shook the world to the core. Here, killing a bunch of elders is treated as boring and distracting from our heroes’ vacation. I liked the book but am kind of sad that it ends with not a bang but a “and life went on because that’s what life does.”