An Authorized Fanfic Re-Visioning of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

Last week Cory Doctorow posted a review of JULIA, by Sandra Newman, which coincidentally I've just finished reading.

Novel-Writing Machines

Newman's novel is an authorized retelling of Orwell's dystopian classic from the viewpoint of Julia, the protagonist Winston Smith's lover. As Doctorow mentions, Winston thinks of the Party as omniscient and omnipotent -- "Big Brother is watching you." Viewing this society through Julia's experience, we realize it's as corrupt and inefficient as the bureaucracy of any other dictatorship. She knows how to take advantage of cracks in the system, for instance with bribery and tricks such as getting a break from her job by signing out under the category "Sickness: Menstrual." (After all, nobody checks up on that excuse.) As a mechanic who maintains novel-writing machines in the Fiction department of the Ministry of Truth, she has the skills to fix other things as well, e.g., the perpetually clogging lavatories in her dormitory. She's valued for her abilities and enjoys her work. She also enjoys frequent sexual flings despite her membership in the Anti-Sex League. I wondered how women who take those risks, aside from the danger of getting arrested for sexcrime, avoid pregnancy given that contraception is illegal. Well, there's a dodge for that, too. Many single women who suspect they're in the early stages of pregnancy seek artsem (artificial insemination). If they've actually conceived already, they're covered; if not, the procedure didn't "take." And it seems to be common knowledge that some women volunteering to bear children for the Party are already pregnant. Newman's perspective flip opens up Orwell's fictional world from these and many other angles. Everybody knows the proper behavior, language, and facial expressions necessary to stay out of trouble, and for most of them it seems to be mainly an act. In one of the few relaxed scenes, workers joke about the intricacies of Newspeak. Julia excuses her linguistic mistakes with the claim that she isn't a bit intellectual, which is true. Winston's fascination with forbidden political, philosophical, and literary topics bores her, although she maintains a facade of enthralled interest.

JULIA answers questions many readers of NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR may puzzle over. Why does she initiate a love affair with Winston, a rather stuffy man twenty years her senior? Does Big Brother, as an individual, literally exist? (Yes.) Is there really an anti-Party underground, and was its demonized alleged leader, Goldstein, a real person? (Yes.) Is Oceania really at war? Yes, we witness the bombed sections of London, though we never find out if the enemy is Eurasia, Eastasia, or neither. We also learn about the lives of the proles, including the thriving black market with which Julia regularly deals. Newman's work delves into potential features of Orwell's fictional world that he either didn't consider or deliberately left outside the frame of his narrative.

Cory Doctorow reasonably classifies this type of novel as fanfic, or as he defines it, "writing stories about other stories that you hate or love or just can't get out of your head." Whether an amateur or professional publication, fanfic expresses the drive to explore shadowed or underdeveloped areas of canonical works, or speculate on how the world of the original looks from the perspective of a different character. ROSENKRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, which he also mentions, is a prime example of the latter.

Similarly, WIDE SARGASSO SEA, by Jean Rhys, a prequel to JANE EYRE, creates a personality and a backstory for Bertha, Rochester's deranged first wife. In Rhys's re-imagining, Bertha isn't even the name she goes by; Rochester calls her that for the sake of respectability. They arrive in Britain near the end of WIDE SARGASSO SEA. Rhys explores the question of whether she was ever in fact "mad" before being taken from her Caribbean home to England and relegated to nearly solitary confinement in a suite of upstairs rooms (not, contrary to popular impression, the attic).

Doctorow also refers to THE WIND DONE GONE, which a court decreed to be a "parody" of GONE WITH THE WIND. It really isn't, but that classification served as a defense against a charge of plagiarism. When I read THE WIND DONE GONE, I was mildly surprised that Mitchell's estate claimed copyright infringement at all. Alice Randall's book doesn't literally retell the classic novel. It tells the story of the enslaved narrator, Cynara, mixed-race daughter of Mammy and half-sister of Scarlett, with transformative references to the events of GONE WITH THE WIND. None of the white people from the latter are named in THE WIND DONE GONE. Cynara gives Mitchell's characters satirical nicknames, e.g. "Planter" and "Lady" for Scarlett's parents, "Mealy Mouth" for Melanie, "Dreamy Gentleman" for Ashley (I love that one). Scarlett is simply "the Other" or "Her."

Then there's GRENDEL, by John Gardner, wherein the monster reveals his side of the events in BEOWULF. Of course, creating variations on works in the public domain doesn't risk legal problems.

My own all-time favorite professionally published fanfic, the book I'd always wanted to write, is Fred Saberhagen's THE DRACULA TAPE (1975), a retelling of DRACULA in which the Count himself sets the record straight.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Karen S. Wiesner Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Mina and Blood to Blood: The Dracula Story Continues by Marie Kiraly

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Mina and Blood to Blood:

The Dracula Story Continues by Marie Kiraly

by Karen S. Wiesner

Marie Kiraly, the author's grandmother's name, is the pseudonym of Elaine Bergstrom. However, the sequel published in 2000, Blood to Blood, was written under her real name, which is probably why I never knew there was a sequel until I went to write this review. You'll find Mina available under either author name.

Mina was published in 1994. I was fairly shocked with the new cover of the book as opposed to the original, which featured the haunting image of a woman with her face turned away, dressed in blood red, staring out at the dark night and seeing a bat piercing the twilight haze. I can feel her longing. I think I prefer the old, though the reproduction below is much more washed out than the first edition hardcover I have, procured from a conference I attended ages ago and actually met the fellow author there.

  

Mina Harker, as everyone who's read Dracula knows, was the fiancée and eventually the wife of Jonathan Harker. She became the obsession of a creature of darkness. Under Dracula's control, Mina was nearly consumed. When Dracula ended, the monster was defeated, his power at an end. Or was it?

Mina: The Dracula Story Continues actually starts during the journey toward Dracula at the end of the original, with Mina, Jonathan, Van Helsing, and Quincey. Following the end-stage events of Dracula, the count's dominion was supposed to be over. Mina could return to her husband, her life, the restraints of the Victorian age. But how to return to a role that no longer fits?

Mina isn't just an erotic romance without depth. The characters were finely drawn, compelling, and even devastating. I was ensnared in the web of complications, driven by the incentive of having come to love and root for Jonathan in the original tale. He was worthy of Mina's undying loyalty. As they were both ensorcelled by an ancient creature of the dark in different ways, they shared more than simply a proper Victorian engagement prior to their misfortune. However, she and Jonathan were shackled by the society they were prominent in and couldn't easily shake such confinement. That said, being the source of Dracula's obsession for however long, Mina couldn't forget the fever awoken in her blood by her irresistible captor.

I first read Mina when I was in my late 20s or early 30s (can't remember exactly). I re-read it earlier this year. I do confess that I now believe the character of Mina, as she's portrayed in this continuation, became depraved and selfish in her quest for freedom for her lust, and I couldn't actually blame Jonathan for his inevitable actions, though his repressed and selfish behavior with Mina wasn't fully justified either. Honestly, an uninhibited conversation between these two might have solved all the problems they made for themselves by remaining silent and unwilling to admit their true feelings. I do understand that's a hallmark of the Victorian age, but it was still frustrating as a reader to recognize how simple the solution to their problems was.

As for whether I believe the character of Mina in Dracula could be extrapolated into this dark version of her, I'm not entirely convinced. While the original character of Mina did seem to desire self-sufficiency beyond what a woman of her time was allowed, I wasn't entirely convinced that her former giving and even self-sacrificing nature in the original story would have allowed the depraved transformation she undergoes in Mina: The Dracula Story Continues, even if she's not fully free of Dracula's shackles in his defeat. Mourning for what Mina and Jonathan tragically lost before their lives were played with like a monster's toy was the true horror of this story.

As soon as I found out about the sequel, I ordered Blood to Blood: The Dracula Story Continues. I found it to be as well written and compelling as the first. Blood to Blood continues the plot lines started in Mina involving the title character, her husband Jonathan, and Arthur--for those who didn't real Dracula (pretty unimaginable), he was engaged to Lucy, Mina's best friend and a victim of Dracula. In Blood to Blood, there's an added twist and tension of Dracula's sister Joanna Tepes coming to London and meeting up with Jack the Ripper himself.

Despite the obvious talent in the execution of this complex story--and really all of the author's work--I nevertheless felt a bit repulsed with this one. When a life becomes about absolutely nothing else but glutting sexual compulsions, a train wreck is inevitable. Both Mina and Arthur are similar in that way, and they de-evolved as characters while their stories moved from Dracula into Mina and finally into this sequel. The only true bright light for me was in the ending given here. (I recognize that fans of erotica might feel differently about that than I do.) Having started in the original, the plot threads carried through all three books were satisfactorily tied up on all fronts by the conclusion of Blood to Blood. For that reason, I recommend reading all three to gain that coveted closure.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Karen S. Wiesner: Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Diaries of the Family Dracul Series by Jeanne Kalogridis

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Diaries of the Family Dracul Series

by Jeanne Kalogridis

by Karen S. Wiesner

The author also writes under the pseudonym J.M. Dillard, and many will be very familiar with those works, as they include novelizations of popular movies (The Fugitive, Star Trek), and many episodes of Star Trek (including the original, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Enterprise). However, it was this series with a ton of advantages that made me snatch them up when I first saw them. The first book in the trilogy, Covenant with the Vampire, takes place fifty years after the events of Dracula, and focuses on Dracula's great-nephew, tasked with the inheritance of managing the family estate (and, consequently, his great-uncle's appetite)--and there's a threat that if he doesn't bring the count victims, those he himself loves will be in danger. Each book in the trilogy is written in diary form, which I adored in the original and that manner of conveyance really worked here.

These books can only be read compulsively. They grabbed hold of me immediately and were very hard to put down. I segued from one to the next almost without pause. Written even more sensuously than Anne Rice's vampire tales, with myriad taboos shattered, there are some very disturbing scenes included that aren't for the faint of heart. But don't let that put you off. The author's passion for her topic is blatant and lush, exploring every aspect of this haunting, horrifying, unforgettable legacy.

If you love Dracula, you'll want to visit the same world in the compelling further adventures of Prince Vlad Tsepesh, as told from the point of view of a descendant touched by good instead of evil.

Next week, I'll review another Oldie But Goodie you might find worth another read, too.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

The Purpose of Horror

What is horror fiction (whether in print or on film) good for? My parents certainly took a dim view of my fervent interest in the genre, beginning at the age of twelve with my first reading of DRACULA. A familiar physiological or biochemical hypothesis proposes that reading or viewing horror serves the same purpose as riding a roller coaster. We enjoy the adrenaline rush of danger without having to expose ourselves to any real risk. Personally, I would never get on a roller coaster except at gunpoint, to save someone else's life, or to earn a lavish amount of money. I'm terrified of anything that feels like falling and don't like any kind of physical "thrill" experience. Yet I do enjoy the vicarious fears of the horror genre. Maybe real-life thrill rides or extreme sports feel too much like actual danger for my tolerance level, whereas artistic terror feels controllable.

H. P. Lovecraft famously asserts, "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest fear is fear of the unknown." Therefore, horror is a legitimate subject for art, even though he believes its appeal is restricted to a niche audience. We might link Lovecraft's thesis to the physiological model, in that the feared unknown becomes manageable when confined within the boundaries of a story.

In DANSE MACABRE, Stephen King suggests that all horror fiction has roots in our fear of death. Embodying the threat of death in the form of a monster entails the hope that it can be defeated. I think it's in 'SALEM'S LOT that a child character says, "Death is when the monsters get you."

In an interview in the October 2022 LOCUS, author Sarah Gailey maintains that "horror is designed to put the reader in touch with an experience of the body, where that experience is one that they typically would not wish to have." Our culture separates body and mind from each other, while, Gailey says, "Horror serves to remind us that those things aren’t separate. The ‘I’ who I am is absolutely connected to the physical experience of my body and the danger that body could face in the world, and horror does an incredible job of reminding readers that we live in bodies, we live in the world, and we are creatures."

This comment reminds me of C. S. Lewis's remark that the truth of our nature as a union of both the spiritual and the physical could be deduced from the existence of dirty jokes and ghost stories. Bawdy humor implies that our having fleshly bodies is somehow funny, shameful, or incongruous. No other species of animal seems to find it funny just to be the kind of creature it is. Supernatural horror highlights the sense that separation of body and soul, which should form a single, unified entity, is deeply unnatural. Hence we get the extremes of zombies (soulless yet animated bodies) and ghosts (disembodied spirits).

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt