Saturday, December 20, 2003
The Dracula Caper
The setting is London, 1894. Scotland Yard is puzzled by a series of mysterious murders, committed by a murderer or murderers of great strength and brutality. Unfortunately, in this world, Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character, unable to help them crack the case. His creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, however, has similar powers of observation and deduction and attempts to help unravel the mystery. No, this isn't an untold tale from our history. It's book eight of the Time Wars series. In this volume we see more fantastic genetically engineered creatures, of similar origin to the ones that appeared in The Argonaut Affair. This time the time commandos are out in force--10 soldiers in all--to try to stop the mastermind of this scheme, and if that wasn't enough, they wind up getting an assist from Dr. Doyle, Bram Stoker and H. G. Wells. Ironically enough, though I claim to appreciate Mr. Hawke's willingness to change the status quo, I found myself wishing he would have given more time to the returning characters. Maybe that's why I consider this book to be merely waiting room material. Maybe he just tried to pack too much into a 212 page story: his ongoing time wars story line, a Holmsian mystery, an homage to Dracula, an homage to H.G. Wells and general comments on Victorian London all mixed together. Or maybe Mr. Hawke's attempt to mix Victorian characters into a new story pales in comparison to Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. (the comic book, not the movie) Whatever it's problems, this time I think Mr. Hawke missed the mark. He shouldn't have raised my expectations so high.
Labels: SimonHawke, TimeWars, WaitingRoomMaterial
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