Thanks to barnesandnoble.com for the image.

DARK WARS: THE TALE OF MEIJI DRACULA

DEL REY/BALLANTINE BOOKS
AUTHOR: Hideyuki Kikuchi
TRANSLATION: Mini Eda
COVER/ILLUSTRATIONS: Katsuya Terada
ISBN: 978-0-345-49881-6; paperback
261 pp., B&W, $9.95

Japanese novelist Hideyuki Kikuchi is considered a master of horror, particularly because of his Vampire Hunter D novel series, which launched a media franchise including the popular animated films.  Del Rey Books has published Kikuchi’s 2004 novel Meiji Dorakyura Den in an English edition, Dark Wars: The Tale of Meiji Dracula.

Set in Tokyo, Japan in the 1880’s, Dark Wars stars Daigo Minazuki, a 17-year-old sword master.  Possessing a wicked talent, he is determined to keep the art of swordsmanship alive in this new Meiji era, which has no use for samurai or their swords.

However, Daigo’s life is about to change because a stranger has arrived in his quite village.  This mysterious European is none other than the legendary Count Dracula, and he has an astonishing tale to tell Daigo and his mother, one that may very well explain the disappearance of Daigo’s warrior father.  Meanwhile, a strange ailment has beset the area around which Daigo lives; a demon hunts at night, but is the Count the culprit… or the only culprit?  Daigo is determined to save his community, but he has never faced a more formidable opponent – one with speed, strength, and the seductive power of a vampire.

THE LOWDOWN:  Over the course of his writing career, readers have noticed that Hideyuki Kikuchi has been refining his storytelling into a terse writing style.  However, the lack of extravagant prose has not robbed him of his power to send chills up and down his readers’ spines.  Hideyuki’s prose is swift and brutal, punctuated by scenes of monstrosity that suddenly appear, as if from around a corner, and grab the reader by the throat.

This remix, retelling, re-imagining of Bram Stoker’s character is true to the original despite the change of setting and culture.  With a dash of Christopher Lee’s Dracula, Kikuchi plunges the reader into the hell of vampires as demons, not as stylish dilettantes and disaffected goth youth.  When a vampire from Dark Wars lays its hands on a character’s neck, you feel it on yours.  What more can you ask of a truly bone-chilling blood sucker tale?

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  With an absence of sex and an emphasis on violence that is more frightening than explicit, Dark Wars is appropriate for teen readers, but adult readers will also find bite in this horror story.

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