DRACULAS - A Novel of Terror

I always get nervous when I see authors getting together to co-write a book, especially four! I always wonder if the styles and ideas of the authors are going to clash and turn it into a pure mess. But my fears were unfounded as soon as I got into this book.It starts with a bang and goes on at breakneck speed in an orgy of violence and gore, with some pretty funny bits as well. Each author-Jack Kilborn, Blake Crouch, Jeff Strand and F Paul Wilson, create characters who are inside the secluded hospital when a vampire outbreak begins. There are no fluffy bunny moments or a break in the action, no waffle or endless descriptions, no classic literature or critically acclaimed writing...this is just vampire action on speed. And I loved it!Mortimor is a rich man who is dying of cancer and has an extreme idea to cure it. He purchases a vampire skull with horrific fangs and stabs himself in the neck with it, infecting himself. His collapse is immediate and his nurse Jenny and assistant Shanna have to get him to the hospital where he swiftly dies. But Mortimor is going to come back very quickly and is very hungry and eager to infect as many people as he can. Chaos and death are about to reign in the hospital as the uninfected try to escape or hide and the vampire hordes hunt them down.We follow Jenny and her ex husband Randall who is in hospital after an unfortunate chainsaw accident, the obnoxious Dr Lanz who had Jenny fired from the hospital, Shanna and her redneck cop boyfriend Clay, Adam in the labour ward with wife Stacie, Benny the Clown at the ER after being bitten by a child at a birthday party who is stuck to him by the braces on her teeth and Carla the nurse on the labour ward. There are also a lot of people at the hospital for various reasons who are about to become a walking and screaming buffet!It is Lanz who manages to get a call in to the police to alert them while all hell is breaking out around him. Victims are growing fangs as their own fall out, the sign of infection, and a full scale bitefest is under way. Hospital staff are trying to close wards and protect the vulnerable patients as monsters stalk the dark corridors. Shanna comes back from a coffee to find Mortimor had died, reanimated and is chewing on people. Benny the Clown discovers that being chomped by a child is going to be the start of a really bad day. Jenny begins to see the now sober Randall in a new light as the injured man uses his chainsaw to protect her and a ward full of kids. Oasis is discovering that being a child vampire makes it kinda tough to get a decent meal. Adam's wife needs blood after the delivery but does he really want to venture down to the basement to get it?As well as the gore, then is some seriously inappropriate humour which I really enjoyed. Without a doubt, my favourite character was Benny the Clown with his squeaky shoes. As he arrives on the children's ward where others are hiding..."Benny the Clown had torn open the man's abdominal cavity, his claws cradling several loops of glistening intestines. But rather than gorging on them, the clown was stretching and pulling the bloody loops, twisting the organ into knots. Familiar knots.'Is that...a flamingo?' asked the old woman."LOL! I was laughing when I read that! Comedy and horror are great when put together well, like in Evil Dead 2, and that was one of the highlights in this book. It was so refreshing to read a book where the death toll gives 24 a run for it's money, where the plot is just a crazy bloodbath and where you are totally entertained from start to finish.If you like gory horror with a few chuckles in it which is not to be taken seriously, then Draculas is for you!

Twilight this certainly isn't!A Romanian finds an old skull buried in his field. Rumour has it that it could be the skull of a vampire from centuries ago.Mortimer Moorcook is a multi billionaire. Trouble is he is terminally ill so his money isn't really of much use........or is it. For an undisclosed sum of money he buys the skull from the farmer. He has an anthropologist on his staff studying these skulls for some reason that isn't entirely clear. When he takes delivery of the skull and they examine it, He clamps it's jaws together biting his own neck.The anthropologist Shanna and Mortimer's nurse Jenny fear the worst when he starts to convulse and they rush him to hospital, where........to put it mildly.........all hell breaks loose.As you can probably guess old Mortimer turns into a "dracula". When he bites you......you turn......immediately and he doesn't care who he bites!As i said earlier this is not Twilight. There are a couple of parts of the book where old flames are reignited but definitely no romance. There is gore.....a lot of gore.....with some extra gore thrown in. The story is set entirely within the hospital building. People chasing draculas and draculas chasing people. The characters are great and you definitely get a sense of fear for them as they battle to survive. You cringe when something happens that you might think would infect them. But don't get too attached, the authors are not afraid to kill anyone off.At times I found this to be a bit repetative, (I mean there are only so many ways you can describe draculas attacking people) but still it is a page turner with no let up in the action from start to finish.This story was written by 4 different authors who each were tasked to write the portions for individual characters or scenes. Taking that into account this is a fantastic collaboration between 4 very like minded and talented authors.The extras that also come with this Kindle version are fantastic. You get 3 short stories (I will review these separately). The best content for me of the entire book though was the email thread sent between the 4 authors over a period of about 5 months. In these emails you get to see the creative juices flowing between all 4 as they fire ideas at each other and chop and change the scenes to make the book what it is.Enjoyable page turner in the story but for me the bonus content was the selling point in this giving a unique insight into how a story is put together.