DRACULA'S BATTLE

In Spielbauer’s novel, Vlad Dracula embarks on a monstrous path in a desperate bid to save his country and the woman he loves.

The year is 1450, and the Ottoman Empire, led by Sultan Mehmed, is expanding. Vlad III, the son of the murdered Voivode of Wallachia, Vladimir Dracula, languishes in a Hungarian prison. The night before he is to be executed, Vlad is rescued by Aeneas Piccolomini under the direction of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick William III, whose strategy for the inevitable war with the Ottomans requires Wallachia to be a strong geographical buffer between the two empires. Aeneas takes Vlad to Heidelberg, Germany, to study at the city’s university, where he teaches theology. Some years later, Vlad and his good friend Froederick Heffelfinger attend a guest lecture delivered by a traveling professor named Wlodek Serafin, who invites the attendees to consider that living forever may be possible. After the lecture, Vlad, Froederick, and Aeneas are accosted by members of a group that’s targeting Vlad for political and religious reasons. During a subsequent attack, Froederick’s wife, Millicent, and their scullery maid, Katharina—with whom Vlad is in love—are abducted by an undead, bloodsucking spirit called a Strigoi. Vlad, determined to save Katharina and defend Wallachia from the impending invasion by the Ottomans, seeks out Serafin to learn how to cheat death, and his ambition yields monstrous, bloody consequences. Spielbauer uses the true story of the historical Vlad the Impaler as the framework for his historical fantasy novel, seamlessly weaving together recorded history with folkloric figures like the vampiric, undead Strigoi and the wolfish lycans. The author’s passion for the subject and genre is palpable on every page, as is his meticulous research on the legendary Vlad Dracula. The prose tends to read as a bit stiff and detached at times (“Vlad drank deeply from the collected blood, and he did not wait for the soldiers to depart. Many of them gasped at the gruesome scene”), but the pacing is steady and the plot contains plenty of action and is compelling throughout.

A classic edge-of-your-seat monster mashup.