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The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo
1815 - Marseille Edmond Dantes is young, in love with the beautiful Mercedes, and has just been named the captain of the merchant vessel, Pharaon. It seems as if there is nothing but happiness and prosperity in the young man's future. Unfortunately, Edmond's success has brought jealous enemies. Danglars wants his career and Fernand wants his fiancée. The two conspire against Edmond and frame him for treason.
He is brought before Prosecutor deVillefort, who recognizes his innocence. Unfortunately, the Prosecutor is a man with his own secrets and he fears that freeing Edmond could bring them to light. He convicts Edmond and has him imprisoned in a dungeon from which no man has ever escaped.
1830 - The Château d'If After fifteen years in his tiny cell, Edmond nearly loses his sanity. Then he meets a fellow prisoner, the brilliant scholar and mystic Abbé Faria. The two become close and Faria teaches Edmond languages, science, philosophy, and sorcery. Using his occult skills of divination he reveals the conspiracy. Faria hopes the revelation will give Edmond a sense of peace but instead it fires his desire for vengeance.
When Faria falls ill and dies, Edmond breaks his promise to his friend and turns to the darkest form of magic. He makes a pact with an unspeakable entity to help him escape and give him the power to destroy his enemies. Edmond Dantes dies in the Château d'If and is reborn as a vampire, an undead creature who hungers for revenge as much as he thirsts for blood.
1838 - ParisThe wealthy and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo arrives in Paris. He is an eccentric who is never seen eating or drinking and refuses to venture out in the daylight. Rumors abound that the Count is a vampire, but this only adds to the charismatic stranger's mystique. He becomes the center of Parisian society, seducing the entire city with his charm… including all of Edmond Dantes' enemies.
Things have changed in the years since Edmond was framed and his enemies have prospered. Danglers is now a banker and one of the richest men on the continent; deVillefort is the highest legal official in France; worst of all, Fernand--now a general and a war hero--is married to Mercedes.
The Count plays a dangerous game, turning his dark arts to the destruction of these powerful men, and even their innocent children are caught up in his byzantine schemes. Will the innocent perish along with the guilty? And what of Edmond Dantes? Will he find redemption, or will he be swept up and destroyed by the very forces he has invoked?
He is brought before Prosecutor deVillefort, who recognizes his innocence. Unfortunately, the Prosecutor is a man with his own secrets and he fears that freeing Edmond could bring them to light. He convicts Edmond and has him imprisoned in a dungeon from which no man has ever escaped.
1830 - The Château d'If After fifteen years in his tiny cell, Edmond nearly loses his sanity. Then he meets a fellow prisoner, the brilliant scholar and mystic Abbé Faria. The two become close and Faria teaches Edmond languages, science, philosophy, and sorcery. Using his occult skills of divination he reveals the conspiracy. Faria hopes the revelation will give Edmond a sense of peace but instead it fires his desire for vengeance.
When Faria falls ill and dies, Edmond breaks his promise to his friend and turns to the darkest form of magic. He makes a pact with an unspeakable entity to help him escape and give him the power to destroy his enemies. Edmond Dantes dies in the Château d'If and is reborn as a vampire, an undead creature who hungers for revenge as much as he thirsts for blood.
1838 - ParisThe wealthy and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo arrives in Paris. He is an eccentric who is never seen eating or drinking and refuses to venture out in the daylight. Rumors abound that the Count is a vampire, but this only adds to the charismatic stranger's mystique. He becomes the center of Parisian society, seducing the entire city with his charm… including all of Edmond Dantes' enemies.
Things have changed in the years since Edmond was framed and his enemies have prospered. Danglers is now a banker and one of the richest men on the continent; deVillefort is the highest legal official in France; worst of all, Fernand--now a general and a war hero--is married to Mercedes.
The Count plays a dangerous game, turning his dark arts to the destruction of these powerful men, and even their innocent children are caught up in his byzantine schemes. Will the innocent perish along with the guilty? And what of Edmond Dantes? Will he find redemption, or will he be swept up and destroyed by the very forces he has invoked?
- GenresVampires
378 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 28, 2013
101 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 9, 2016
Literary Mash-ups are a genre which was popularized by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's since gone on to become something of a new minor sensation, inspiring many aspiring authors to posthumously collaborate with the great writers of the past. These efforts are hit and miss but a rare few gems have emerged since the original audacious creation.
The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo is one of the latter.
This mash-up is different from P&P&Z by being a serious take on the premise. It is a supernatural revenge tale treated serious despite its titular change. This is helped because the Count of Monte Cristo is frequently compared to a vampire in the original text while the connection between blood thirst and vengeance is an easy one to make.
Almost everyone is familiar with the original story: Edmond Dantes is hideously wronged by three jealous associates, he spends a decade imprisoned, he makes the acquaintance of a monk who knows of a hidden treasure, Edmond escapes and uses the money to wreck a horrible vengeance on the wrong-doers. Most adaptions alter the story by removing one or more of the conspirators while setting up Edmond with his lost-love Mercedes rather than the Greek slave Haydee.
The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo veers closer to the novel than most adaptations, including both the Count's romance with Haydee as well as the entirety of the conspirators. Indeed, it is quite entertaining to realize how close to the text the book veers when it could have done a great deal differently.
Fans of the original novel will not be disappointed with the new content. The fidelity of the novel to the original lulls original novel fans into a sense of complacency only to veer in new directions at the most opportune moments. I salute Mathew Baugh for not only fastidiously studying the original manuscript but also incorporating many period-appropriate pieces of supernatural lore into the text.
The altered content begins when Edmond Dantes discovers his fellow prisoner, Abbe Faria, is acquainted with ceremonial magic amongst many other sciences. Using a forbidden spell the man wrote down on his linens, Edmond conjures the Angel of Vengeance (who is possibly the Devil) and makes a pact to gain his revenge. Imbued with the power of a vampire, he proceeds to wreck his vengeance in a much more supernatural fashion than in the original novel.
There are other changes too, including the addition of a ghost, a magical talking head, more vampires, and a homunculus designed to take revenge on Dante's enemies. All of this seamlessly fits into Edmond Dante's adventures and there were times I couldn't tell where a substitution was made since the original Count was a figure of theatrical trickery himself.
Another benefit to The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo is it serves as a fairly decent abridged version of the novel. The original novel clocks in at over a thousand pages while this novel is roughly about a third that much. Despite this, the story doesn't suffer and trods along with a minimum loss of story. Mathew Baugh does his best to make sure his additions fit with Alexandre Dumas' style and, for the most part, he succeeds.
Without a photographic memory of the original content, its difficult to say which parts of the story (which aren't supernatural) are Baugh and which parts belong to the Dumas. The greatest change to the story is towards the end. Fans of the original may also object to the slightly less triumphant tone of the novel but, given Edmond Dantes is now a bloodthirsty creature of the night, I believed this was an appropriate change. I won't spoil the specifics but leave them for readers to discover on their own.
In conclusion, I heartily recommend readers pick up The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo. Vampires and tales of revenge are a natural fit and this is certainly no exception. It deserves a spot amongst other literary mash-ups and I hope it gets the attention it deserves.
10/10
The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo is one of the latter.
This mash-up is different from P&P&Z by being a serious take on the premise. It is a supernatural revenge tale treated serious despite its titular change. This is helped because the Count of Monte Cristo is frequently compared to a vampire in the original text while the connection between blood thirst and vengeance is an easy one to make.
Almost everyone is familiar with the original story: Edmond Dantes is hideously wronged by three jealous associates, he spends a decade imprisoned, he makes the acquaintance of a monk who knows of a hidden treasure, Edmond escapes and uses the money to wreck a horrible vengeance on the wrong-doers. Most adaptions alter the story by removing one or more of the conspirators while setting up Edmond with his lost-love Mercedes rather than the Greek slave Haydee.
The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo veers closer to the novel than most adaptations, including both the Count's romance with Haydee as well as the entirety of the conspirators. Indeed, it is quite entertaining to realize how close to the text the book veers when it could have done a great deal differently.
Fans of the original novel will not be disappointed with the new content. The fidelity of the novel to the original lulls original novel fans into a sense of complacency only to veer in new directions at the most opportune moments. I salute Mathew Baugh for not only fastidiously studying the original manuscript but also incorporating many period-appropriate pieces of supernatural lore into the text.
The altered content begins when Edmond Dantes discovers his fellow prisoner, Abbe Faria, is acquainted with ceremonial magic amongst many other sciences. Using a forbidden spell the man wrote down on his linens, Edmond conjures the Angel of Vengeance (who is possibly the Devil) and makes a pact to gain his revenge. Imbued with the power of a vampire, he proceeds to wreck his vengeance in a much more supernatural fashion than in the original novel.
There are other changes too, including the addition of a ghost, a magical talking head, more vampires, and a homunculus designed to take revenge on Dante's enemies. All of this seamlessly fits into Edmond Dante's adventures and there were times I couldn't tell where a substitution was made since the original Count was a figure of theatrical trickery himself.
Another benefit to The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo is it serves as a fairly decent abridged version of the novel. The original novel clocks in at over a thousand pages while this novel is roughly about a third that much. Despite this, the story doesn't suffer and trods along with a minimum loss of story. Mathew Baugh does his best to make sure his additions fit with Alexandre Dumas' style and, for the most part, he succeeds.
Without a photographic memory of the original content, its difficult to say which parts of the story (which aren't supernatural) are Baugh and which parts belong to the Dumas. The greatest change to the story is towards the end. Fans of the original may also object to the slightly less triumphant tone of the novel but, given Edmond Dantes is now a bloodthirsty creature of the night, I believed this was an appropriate change. I won't spoil the specifics but leave them for readers to discover on their own.
In conclusion, I heartily recommend readers pick up The Vampire Count of Monte Cristo. Vampires and tales of revenge are a natural fit and this is certainly no exception. It deserves a spot amongst other literary mash-ups and I hope it gets the attention it deserves.
10/10
August 4, 2014
DNF at around 20%
15 of which were more or less a abridged version of the original novel with some added magic. In the original novel Abbé Faria knows that Villefort is the son of Noirtier and therefore had a reason to get rid of Edmond. He also takes some educated guesses about how the others are involved in the conspiracy (that turn out to be right of course).
Here Faria calls upon the ghost of Edmond's father who explains everything. Additionally Faria's knowledge is achieved with some help from the angel of wisdom and not just by...well learning hundreds of book by heart. Now that actually isn't that much off a stretch and might have worked but the book lost me when Dantes fled from the prison and went on a killing-spree: first the prison guards. Now that can certainly be argued to be self-defence but he then explains why he doesn't feel guilty at all about killing them: he admits that they were just following orders (keeping him in prison) but unjust and wrong orders. I assume they should have just used their magic powers of premonition to discover the truth...
It's very similar with the pirates that save Edmond first but then want to kill him when they learn he's a vampire. Yes, they do want to kill him...after they overheard him saying how he has to fight the urge to kill them and drink their blood. I sort of understand their worry.
But hey! Afterwards he only kills evil bandits. He makes sure that they are really evil and despicable and their life has no value...so...yay?
And then I gave up. The thing about the original CoMC is that he just targeted those who wronged him and admittedly their children as well thanks to his old-testamentarical view of guilt and revenge but in most cases he eventually changes his opinion (and even if he hadn't it would still have been different from 'our hero is a guy who is slaughtering random extras'...there is moral ambiguity in the original novel but serial-killers aren't really moral ambiguous to me).
15 of which were more or less a abridged version of the original novel with some added magic. In the original novel Abbé Faria knows that Villefort is the son of Noirtier and therefore had a reason to get rid of Edmond. He also takes some educated guesses about how the others are involved in the conspiracy (that turn out to be right of course).
Here Faria calls upon the ghost of Edmond's father who explains everything. Additionally Faria's knowledge is achieved with some help from the angel of wisdom and not just by...well learning hundreds of book by heart. Now that actually isn't that much off a stretch and might have worked but the book lost me when Dantes fled from the prison and went on a killing-spree: first the prison guards. Now that can certainly be argued to be self-defence but he then explains why he doesn't feel guilty at all about killing them: he admits that they were just following orders (keeping him in prison) but unjust and wrong orders. I assume they should have just used their magic powers of premonition to discover the truth...
It's very similar with the pirates that save Edmond first but then want to kill him when they learn he's a vampire. Yes, they do want to kill him...after they overheard him saying how he has to fight the urge to kill them and drink their blood. I sort of understand their worry.
But hey! Afterwards he only kills evil bandits. He makes sure that they are really evil and despicable and their life has no value...so...yay?
And then I gave up. The thing about the original CoMC is that he just targeted those who wronged him and admittedly their children as well thanks to his old-testamentarical view of guilt and revenge but in most cases he eventually changes his opinion (and even if he hadn't it would still have been different from 'our hero is a guy who is slaughtering random extras'...there is moral ambiguity in the original novel but serial-killers aren't really moral ambiguous to me).
April 22, 2016
***Review Copy***
Not a bad spin on the original. Not bad at all
Not a bad spin on the original. Not bad at all
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews