Draculas: A Novel of Terror

Loved the humour. Very funny in places, a great read thoroughly recommend.

Jesusssssss this writing is pretty damn terrible. In one scene, a character, while being attacked actually says, "Oh no! I'm being bitten... again!" And right after that, a mother yells at the creature who was about to eat her small daughter and said, "Please.... it's her birthday!" I mean... WUT. Haha!
A Sheriff responds to being told that there were dead and wounded (and someone with a bitten off arm) with, "oh I'm sure it's not that bad." *sigh*
This was a cool premise but damn, I can't believe this many contributing writers had such shit writing!
It's almost like it was written by an alien trying to guess how humans might interact.

Gory. Murderous hungers. The narrator was brilliant as he narrated as a horror actor could.

Oh man this could have been phenomenal! The setting is great, the Dracula skull is fascinating and the creatures are straight out of a nightmare! That being said, almost all the characters fall flat on thier faces, they are ridiculous and aside from one or two you don't really care what happens to them which is not a good thing for a book that likes to put it's characters in extremely dangerous situations, I was expecting more from these authors!...the biggest issue this book has is its tone, it can't decide if it wants to take itself seriously or not. When it is being serious, it is great but sadly that is only about 25% of the time. It's short and fun but sadly an overall missed opportunity for something that could have been great...oh well...

Really enjoyed this book. Started a bit slow and then hooked me.

Not bad for a comedy. Reader did a good job. In fact he did better than the book.

Decent (3.5 stars). Well read, entertaining and fun. Not amazing

Horror fans would appreciate this exciting, witty, well deployed audiobook. The narrator kept up the highly fuled pace and the characters rolling with vim and vigor. There is a spoofy feel to it but nothing distracting. You felt everything you were supposed to and the 4 author's did a great job with giving us a complete work of horror. If your not into blood and guts then dont read this. I hate it when you are warned and still go for it, then complain about it in a review. DON'T START THIS IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE BLOOD AND GUTS! This story is brutal and descriptive with nothing held back ...GREAT JOB.

Very immature writing, it could be the narrator, eh, entertaining but would not read again

This book started out interesting, but after about 1.5 hours it never progressed so I gave up. The story was tiresome and repetitive. Disappointing, as I’ve enjoyed other Blake Crouch novels.

Evidently, the writing of books by committee is not actually a good idea, even when the committee has popular and distinguished names in it. Here’s the whole story: A rural hospital is overrun by a contagion that turns people into ravening vampires. Tonal discordance abounds. The humor—the only thing that makes the books oppressive mediocrity tolerable—mixes poorly with the body horror and scenes of ultaviolence. If you want first-rate genre-busting humor, you can find much better in, say, the books of Christopher Moore. Superior horror is not at all hard to find. So unless your tastes for genre entertainment are extremely low—the literary equivalent of Pauley Shore, for example, look elsewhere

Incredibly intelligent and scary as hell. A must read for everyone older than 13.

Liked it. Took a while to get into the story. Very over the top monster mash, but after a while that approach started to work for me. Recommend to all George Romero fans.

It’s the book version of a made for tv horror movie. It’s campy as hell. It’s fun and entertaining but still pretty bad.

Great book very well done about time a gun enthusiast is present in a positive light

This is my second read. First was from a book and gave it a 4. Second time was on audiobook, and I gave it a 3

OK, you can think of this as a feeling guilty review. Originally I meant to write something up but I've been swamped lately. As such, I simply rated the book 4 stars in my usual spots and moved on. But then I got a bunch of likes on my "review". It was a rating, not a review. Anyway, then I got a like on my rating by F. Paul Wilson! Gah, one of the authors is liking my simplistic 4 stars rating and I can't even write a couple hundred words on his book!? Guilt, guilt, guilt.Then as the words were noodling in my head but before I could make the time to write up a proper review, J.A. Konrath likes my rating! Double gah! Now I truly have to get something written and posted soon! Otherwise I might end up with Strand and/or Crouch liking my rating too!There turned to be a really nice blending of all the authors into a single book. I was expecting something along the lines of each chapter being written by a different author and a slightly disconnected feeling. Instead this is a true co-author book in that it's one story which happens to be written by four people. There were scenes where I guessed "lots of humor, I think Strand wrote this" or "medical jargon that sounds accurate, probably Wilson" but in reality, I had no idea if I was right or not. Doesn't matter because it was very enjoyable.The story focuses on a eccentric billionaire who's dying and is able to retrieve a skull hypothesized as Dracula's skull. The billionaire infects himself and during his metamorphosis, he infects many others. Death and mayhem ensues.As I mentioned, I was really enjoying the story when suddenly it ended. Right at the mid-point of the book. The story itself truly did end; it wasn't an abrupt ending. It was more a wtf moment of I'm literally at 50% of the book completed. What useless fluff was left to read. It turned out to be a lot, and actually not fluff at all. First there were a few short stories, enjoyable reads but thinking back I remember the main story and not these short stories. The really cool part though was the ton of behind the scenes material on how DRACULAS came into being. The emails that went back and forth with all of them on how to start and write the book. There were some deleted scenes. A lot of explanation as to why choices were made. In the end, I enjoyed the second half of the book just as much as the story in the first half.If it is not apparent by now, I do recommend the book as a fun, enjoyable read. All four authors did a great job. The behind-the-scenes notes do tell which author wrote which characters and certain scenes but in the end, it doesn't matter who wrote what. The book made me smile, laugh, cringe, thrilled and care. Then it involved me to a small degree in the lives of four authors that I respect. With all that, I consider myself well entertained.

Finally! These vampires do not glitter in the sunlight or mope around looking depressed.This is not an everyone lives happily ever after story. These are vampires as they were mneant to be. Bloodthirsty, vicious, with one thing on their minds, BLOOD and where to get more.

Includes bonus material and short stories. One of which(Cub Scout Gore Feast) was hilarious... in a sick kind of way.

This one has been sitting in my TBR file for quite some time, so last week, I thought it was time to wake up "Draculas". The premise of having four well-known horror writers collaborate on a novel was pretty appealing to me. I can't say that I was let down by the experience, but I wasn't exactly overwhelmed by it either. The story is a churning, non-stop-action, gore-fest that takes place in a small town hospital. There are plenty of characters, and I must say authors Kilborn, Strand, Wilson, and Crouch do a more than effective job at sewing their 4 individual takes on the story together into one unified story with a number of different characters' POV.I took off a star because it did tend to have more than a couple slow and repetitive spots plus an ending that did not sit well with me because it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the story.

This was a rip roaring, funny gore fest!
Draculas was written by four authors: Jeff Strand, Jack Kilborn, F. Paul Wilson and Blake Crouch.
These are anti-sparkle vampires. All they want is blood and they will even suck their own if nothing else is available.
I don't even know what to say about the clown, other than it makes Pennywise look as nice as Bozo. I won't even mention the balloon animals.
This story ends at approximately 50% off the download. There are also 2 short stories and an interview with the authors. Finally, there is a set of emails between the authors at the end, discussing how they put the story together. For whatever reason I found the emails to be fascinating.
I could not tell while reading which author wrote what parts. Everything blended together seamlessly. All in all this was a gory horror story with some extremely funny scenes and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

My digital copy has 520 pages and I must agree with the other reviewers that this isn't a book for the squeamish and it certainly isn't for the person that holds romantic ideas about vampires. This book does not have an edward or a regal Count who woos his preys, rather it has bloodthirsty fiends who consume anyone without so much as a thought.

I finished the book and it's terrific! I'd have to say one of the best vampire stories I've read in a long time. I sincerely hope that they publish a sequel.

Ok, I don't know where to begin describing this plot. It is a wild ride, full of mayhem and GORE. This is NOT your TWILIGHT VAMPIRES. They are LAND SHARKS! The story begins when an excentric billionaire buys what is supposed to be DRACULA's Skull, filled with shark like teeth. {Think 30 Day's of Night} He is old and dying and has a plan...to live forever. He grabs the skull and bites himself in the neck. And then is taken to the local hospital where he dies and transforms into a creature who is hell bent on drinking blood. He soon transforms other people in the hospital and it goes on and on. These are blood thirsty vampires who are more like Zombie vamps. they even turn on each other. All of the action takes place in the hospital, where certain characters fight for their survival amdist the bloodbath going on around them. I can't say the book is Scary, although there were certain scenes that were very, very creepy. There is a Clown that truly scared the hell out of me! And the book if filled with humor blending in with the gore.{a wheelchair vampire?} A very interesting combination. Alot of the plot is very over the top and seems written for the screen. This was written by 4 Authors who shared in creating this gorefest. It was alot of fun reading and gagging thru the gory scenes, but very worthwhile. I loved the ending. Would love to see a sequel.

I had just started reading the book and really didn’t have high expectations for it. As I got more into it, I realized that this was a really good horror novel and I needed to talk about it.The book is Draculas and its a collaboration between 4 authors: F. Paul Wilson who wrote The Keep and the Repairman Jack series; Jeff Strand author of Dweller and Graverobbers Wanted(No Experience Necessary); Blake Crouch, writer of Desert Places and Locked Doors and the guy who came up with the concept was Jack Kilborn (Also writes under the name J.A. Knonrath), the author of Afraid and Shaken.Jack got the idea when he was looking at the Kindle best seller list and he noticed how many books were classic novels in the public domain. Among them we’re several different versions of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Vampires are always popular and he came up with the idea of vampires in a hospital and humans trying to survive. He didn’t have time to write the book himself so he enlisted the help of other authors to write part of the book. Each author wrote 15,000 words from the point of view of one human and one vampire.Jack also noticed that most vampires in todays literature we’re teen heartthrobs or romantic leads and he decided he wanted to make vampires scary again. Edward (from Twilight) would run in fear if he saw the vampires in Draculas. These vampires have no feelings and are not sex symbols. They wan’t one thing from humans and that’s blood. Also the vampires in this story don’t have just 2 fangs. They have a mouthful of 6 inch long fangs. They can also see in total darkness and are stronger and faster then humans.The story for Draculas is about a retired millionaire, Mortimer Moorecock, who is dying of cancer. In order to survive his disease, Mortimer has bought a skull found in Romania that is believed to have belonged to Count Dracula. When Mortimer gets the skull, he clamps its jaws on his neck and goes into convulsions. He is rushed to the hospital where he dies and rises again as a vampire.From that point on its complete chaos with Mort killing six people in the ER. They all come back as vampires and the patients and faculty of the hospital have to escape or be turned into the living dead. The story for Draculas is simple, what makes it a good book is the characters. In addition to the doctors and nurses, you have a gun crazy sheriff, a lumberjack with a chainsaw, a married couple about to have their first child, and a vampire clown named Benny.Benny the clown is one nasty vampire and despite the fact that he was evil, he was my favorite character in the book. Every scene he was in I found myself thinking of the theme to Killer Klowns From Outer Space. If you are afraid of clowns you may want to avoid this book because Benny is one sadistic clown. There are some scenes in the book where all he does is stand and stare at his victims which is scary in itself, but when he performs some obscene acts for a captive audience, the book gets really interesting.Though Draculas is loaded with violence and action, what really makes it good is that the authors make you care about the protagonists. A part that had me on the edge of my seat was when a young husband has to go to the blood bank in the hospital to get blood for a transfusion to save his wife who had a hemmorage after child birth. There is also a couple of touching scenes where a divorced couple reconciles and a young couple tells each other how they feel in the face of what looks like certain death. The only part of the book that I didn’t like was that sometimes the vampires seem too much like zombies and I didn’t like that they constantly called the vampires Draculas, but they do give an explanation for that in the story.The ending in Draculas was a perfect end to a wild ride and was a total surprise to me. Draculas is everything a horror novel should be, it has humor, plenty of gore, good characters, suspense, and a decent love story. If thats not enough to get you to want to get it, the E-book version is loaded with extras. You get three short stories, deleted scenes, and it includes all the emails that the authors sent to each other as they we’re working on the book. If you are an aspiring writer and you we’re thinking of collaborating with another author, this book gives you a good look at the creative process of co-authoring a book. The extras in the e-book are like getting the director’s cut of a movie along with commentary. This is something I would love to see more authors do for their novels.

I was so excited to be sent this book for review FROM THE AUTHORS! Four of my favorite authors actually allowed me to read an ARC of their book. What happens if I don't like the book? NOTHING because I LOVED the book!I love vampires. Real, nasty, blood sucking, no conscience vampires. Not the pretty boys but the fiends. Draculas is filled to the brim with fiends. No one is off limits to these vampires, not your grandmother, your mother or even your unborn baby. Yeah, call me a sicko but that's the kind of vampires I want to read about.These authors do not disappoint. Not one page lacks excitement and yes, I am almost ashamed to say a few laughs. It's in no way a comedy but there is dark, very dark humor in there and you can't help but smirk. Well I guess to be honest it would offend some people but then I don't recommend this to those people.The setting being a hospital was very good. Just think about all the amazing "goodies" to be found in a hospital to try to ward off these evil guys. And, no crucifix or holy water for these vampires, they are stronger than that so our characters must come up with more creative ideas to stop them.The characters, as always are very real, very people next door type. We all know these people and they could be us. I am going out of a limb but I am admitting that my favorite character was Benny the Clown. Yes, you heard me correctly, Benny the Clown. Poor Benny got hurt at a birthday party and was coming to the ER for help. (Not telling you anymore, read the book) Poor Benny got much more then he bargained for when he agreed to be a clown that day! You like balloon animals and scarf tricks? Read the book, Benny's got them!Draculas has a bit of everything, even some romance. I have to warn you and the authors do too, if you want Twilight walk by this book. If you want blood, guts, evil, action that will make you cringe, cry and yes, giggle pick up Draculas. I hope that there is a second book coming.Let's not forget the bonus material. I loved the email exchange between the authors. Make me feel like a fly on the wall listening to them brainstorm to create this book. And that's not all, there are short stories included, author interviews and more. All for the price of one ebook. Can't beat that.I can not thank the authors enough for allowing me to read and review Draculas. And when I saw my name in the acknowledgments I almost fell over! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now please get to work on Draculas the Sequel?

It's true, four authors seamlessly collaborate on a horror story. I could guess who wrote what, but it wasn't obvious. At first glance, this book should have everything I love and that's why I bought it. However, it really wasn't my taste at all. It's so disappointing when that happens. BUT, it might be up someone else's alley. The book starts out with a disclaimer, which I thought clever. I'm a fan of horror and not easily scared. I say bring it on, I dare you to frighten me! Sadly, Draculas was more gore than horror. The first half of the story is page after page of blood, brains and slaughter. I felt like I was stuck in a bad B horror movie. Perhaps, because this reads like a screenplay rather than a book. It begins with a cast of characters, most of which are disposable and are only introduced (cameo) to add to the carnage later. Of course, I really don't care if they get ripped to shreds. In fact, I know they are going to die. The amount of gore has the similar effect as Tarantino's "Natural Born Killers." It's desensitizing and becomes almost funny instead of scary. More brains, blood and well, blood. The character development is cardboard. Insert: Bruce Willis from Die hard (one-liners included), David Arquette from Eight-Legged Freaks, John Goodman, any stereotypical dumb hick cop (I choose the Dukes of Hazard cast) and Mr. Burns from The Simpsons and you have the players in Draculas. In between the flying blood and guts there is a weak attempt at plot. Regret, attraction, love and redemption? Not really. Emotionally, I could have cared less because the 'thinking' was scribed, predictable and stereotypical. I realize these writers have a cult following who enjoy the stories. Their style just didn't appeal to me. If you like slaughter house horror flicks, then you'll be a fan. Comic relief is strung between the body parts and one-liner references are abundant. It even comes with a scary clown. Yes, I think Hollywood would buy this in a minute.

For a girl who claims to dislike vampire novels, I sure seem to be reading a lot lately. Five since the start of the year. From this, we can infer that either Susan is lying about her literary predilections, or that roughly eight percent of all books published today feature vampires. I think the truth lies somewhere in between. The refreshing thing about the current glut of vamp-lit is that no two writers take the same approach to the legendary beasts. Some are traditionalists, some are epidemiologists, some are humorists, and some just like gore. And in Draculas by Blake Crouch, Jack Kilborn, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson, there's a bit of all of the above. Back to that in a moment. First, I'm going to comment on the collaborative nature of this novel. I've read books by a pair of authors, but never a quartet before. You could be forgiven for thinking that it's choppy or doesn't fit together properly. However, the truth is that Draculas is seamless. It was not the least bit obvious to me that different sections had been written by different men. For readers or writers interested in how the book was written, you're actually in luck. After the text of the novel, there's a section of "extras" (like DVD extras) including interviews, extra content, and extensive material (including correspondence between the four authors) detailing how the book was written. This won't be of interest to all readers, but it's a bonanza for those who want to go behind the scenes. The book is value added, if you will. Okay, back to the story... The novel opens with a few tabloid accounts of a "vampire skull" with "thirty-two elongated, razor-sharp teeth" being unearthed by a Romanian farmer and being purchased by a wealthy Coloradan. He is Mortimer Moorecook, elderly and dying. At this point he's got more money than time, and it seems he's looking for a way to cheat death. When the skull finally arrives, he opens it in the company of his hospice nurse and a "biological anthropologist" he's hired to research the vampire legends. After a quick toast to celebrate his acquisition, he plunges the skull's horrific teeth into his neck and immediately goes into convulsions. The nurse and anthropologist get him to the hospital where, to their amazement, elderly Mortimer transforms into a kind of monster. A "dracula." And it's contagious. Soon, remote Blessed Crucifixion Hospital (ha!) is lousy with draculas and survivors are fighting for their lives and their humanity. In the introduction, Joe Konrath (eschewing his Jack Kilborn pseudonym) explains that back in his day vampires were scary. They weren't sparkly heartthrobs. "This novel is an attempt to make them scary again." And it succeeds to a point, but it's also kind of funny. Not as overt as Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends, but on par with a film like Zombieland. (A funny film that completely freaked me out. I'm SUCH a lightweight.) Draculas is definitely taking the premise seriously, but there's a lot of humor in vampire tropes. Plus, several of the characters are downright amusing, such as the gun-toting sheriff's deputy who likes to quote Clint Eastwood dialogue to calm his nerves. And the fact that one of the characters is a clown. The little girl vampire that wanted to drink the "red candy" was just a touch precious in my opinion, but mostly the authors get the balance just right. It's creepy. It's fast-paced. And it may be just what you need to get in the Halloween spirit. Enjoy!

Draculas is the much hyped novel by Blake Crouch, Jack Kilborn, Jeff Strand and F. Paul Wilson. The four of them collaborated on the novel and incorporated all of their input so it truly does flow fluidly. It actually flows about as smoothly as a nice stream of blood from a cut artery, which there is ample amount of. Blood that is, as well as severed arteries I guess. There is more blood flowing in this novel than all of the Quentin Tarantino movies combined. I think more people might have died in this book than all the other books I have ever read combined.This is not your every day vampire book. These creatures have one goal in mind, to kill as many people as possible, suck them dry and then head off to the next guy and do the same. They will kill off their own, rip children’s heads off and drink them like a soda pop, and never bat an eye. If that isn’t enough, and they lose track of time, finding themselves more hungry than they can stand, they will chew off their own innards and suck the blood from themselves. It is just a non-stop bloodbath. Trust me when I say you have not read a book this bloody in a long time, if ever.Mortimer is an old guy, very old, and he is very very rich. He has been diagnosed with cancer, is a few weeks away from the end and he gets a special package in the mail. The package happens to be the skull of an ancient beast, recently excavated, that might have a human quality to it, save the hundreds of jagged hollow teeth that fill the monstrosity of a mouth. After taking a few glances at it, the old guy implants the teeth from the thing into his throat and then starts convulsing.The nurse and his geologist aid rush him to the local hospital where all hell breaks loose, and I do mean all hell. Within minutes the old dude begins to change and all of a sudden his mouth transforms and his teeth eat right through his own jaws. His hands turn to alien appendages and he suddenly has a craving for blood that cannot be quenched. I do mean it cannot be quenched. He jumps on everyone he sees and commences to tear at their skin while sucking as much blood as he can. Those that do not die turn into the same form of monster that he has became, and they do the same.And so on and so on and so on. You get the picture right. It doesn’t take long before there are more Draculas roaming the halls than there are people. They are everywhere, and all they care about is sucking blood, any blood, even their own if they have to. One of my favorites is the five year old girl who refers to the blood as red candy and can’t figure out why all the mean adults won’t give it up to her nicely. Damn, she is used to getting what she wants. Why all of a sudden is everyone being so stingy?I don’t know if I am giving too much away, since the book reminds me of so many recent horror movies. I don’t think there is a huge plot to hide. There isn’t much depth here. It is all about killing, blood, gore and death. Every page, every paragraph and every sentence is about somebody dying or being killed. So if you like horror books, with a lot of descriptive gore, then you will have died and gone to heaven or hell so to speak. The book is very well done, filled with action to overflowing and keeps you extremely entertained.I would give it a very solid four stars out of five. I can’t go much higher because I do tend to like something more in my reading than just blood, but then again, I can go this high because the book was pretty damn awesome. If you can’t handle violence and I do mean over the top violence, then stay away from this read. If you love a gory blood soaked evening then tear at this one and enjoy. You will be a little stressed out, but you should be satiated upon completion, at least for the time being, until the hunger kicks in again.