“There is a little-known place which is undoubtedly the strangest in the world. The people who inhabit the barbarous lands around Belgrade sometimes call it Selene, sometimes Vampire City, but the vampires refer to it among themselves by the names of the Sepulcher and the College.”
Paul Féval’s Vampire City is one of those terrible books that unfolds like a train wreck, but you can’t put it down because it’s extremely entertaining and more than a little bit insane. When Féval pulls the lid off his id he concocts some of the most wild and vividly imagined pieces of “weird” pulp fiction you’re likely to encounter.
The plot has Ann Radcliffe (yes, that one) trying to save her friend Cornelia from the attentions of the vampire Otto Goetzi. Assisted by her manservant Grey Jack, her friend Ned (Cornelia’s fiance), his manservant Merry Bones (an Irish “nailhead”), and a captured transgender vampire named Polly (who is chained to an iron coffin she carries on her shoulder), Ann sets off for Selene, the Vampire City, like a proto-Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
In the late summer of 1835, the fledgling New York newspaper The Sun published the remarkable and “true” account of recent discoveries made upon the moon. Using a newly developed telescope, Sir John Herschel (Royal Astronomer) was able to observe unicorns, bison, birds, and a civilization of winged humanoids. He dubbed these humanoids Vespertilio-homo, the man-bat, and over six installments The Sun described their world.
It’s no secret that I love Victorian detective novels, especially of the psychic or supernatural kind. So recently when I heard about John Harwood’s novel The Séance, I figured it was only a matter of time before I got around to reading it. Well, thanks to a June cold that time occurred sooner than I expected.
“For if you think of it, there is a London cognita and a London incognita.”
