Alternate history novels are a well-stocked category in the science fiction genre, but not so much in horror. Dan Simmons had evil arctic spirits haunt Captain John Franklin’s ill-fated 1845 sea expedition in his novel, The Terror. Robert McCammon introduced the world to Nazi werewolves in Wolf’s Hour. Stephen King’s 11/22/63 travels time to create an alternate history of the Kennedy assassination…but not much horror.
Author Brian James Gage looks to fill an alternate mystery/thriller/horror/history niche with THE NOSFERATU CONSPIRACY: The Sleepwalker, a rollicking action/horror mashup that uses the real-life 1917 Russian Revolution and Bolshevik uprising as a backdrop for a vampire apocalypse. The story is pretty compelling even before the introduction of brutally savage vampires. (Gage’s vamps aren’t polite neck-sippers—they literally tear victims to pieces.) Tsar Nicholas II is pressured to give up the Russian autocracy and move to a socialist form of government. His son, Alexai, suffers from hemophilia (common among European royals) and isn’t seen as a worthy heir. Further tarnishing Nicholas II’s public image is his association with peasant “holy man”, Rasputin. A charming but psychopathic drunk and womanizer, Rasputin earned the trust of the royal family by nursing Alexai back to health. But Rasputin “The Mad Monk” rattled the Russian aristocracy and may have been the final straw that led to Tsar Nicholas’s ouster.
Author Brian James Gage takes this already intriguing story and ups the ante by making Rasputin a rogue vampire looking to fulfill an apocalypse outlined in the diary of Vlad Draculea several centuries earlier. All he need do is get half-vampire Alexai to feast on his father, Tsar Nicholas, and an army of Nosfertau—human-sized bat-like creatures—will rise up and conquer St. Petersburg, Europe and, ultimately, the world. The only foils are hapless hero Prince Felix Yusupov and twin vampire hunters Rurik and Denis, who play the Van Helsing role to Felix’s Jonathan Harker.
The joy of vampire fiction is seeing how the tropes are handled. Gages eschews some—crosses are lame, mirrors are merely scary, and sunshine is a slow kill—while expounding on others in creative ways. Garlic water will melt Nosferatu away, as will hogweed gas. (This is a new one, perhaps a historic nod to the devastating gas weapons used during WWI and WWII). THE NOSFERATU CONSPIRACY hustles along with solid pacing and dialogue, combined with plenty of pulse-pounding narrow escapes for our heroes. Rasputin’s a dynamic villain, but his seemingly limitless superpowers make some situations frustrating. Rasputin can teleport anywhere, anytime, and his physical and regenerative powers appear boundless. Twice he gets staked in the chest and keeps going. You can only bend the rules of vampire fiction so far…you have have to know what the characters have at stake. (Awful pun intended.)
Rasputin makes a fun villain and author Brian James Gage finds intriguing and original ground in the well-traveled landscape of vampire fiction in THE NOSFERATU CONSPIRACY, a fun and interesting twist on vampire tropes and the Russian Revolution rolled into an action/adventure tale.
~Rob Errera for IndieReader