Book Report: The Historian

Since the success of The DaVinci Code, there have been hundreds of authors trying to catch that lightning again, and its obvious that is what author Elizabeth Kostova intended here.

Now, while I'll freely admit that DaVinci wasn't the best-written book, it was entertaining. And I think that's what people caught on to. The Historian? Not so much.

I started reading it because it involved the Dracula legend, and we all I know I loves me some vampires. And while it's got some good points -- I liked the intertwining stories, and the descriptions of places like Budapest were very evocative. The idea of history influencing the present is always a good one, and really -- any book gets ten bonus points for having Dracula in it.

And then there's the other stuff.

1. This book needed an editor willing to cut at least 200 pages. It took me *forever* to read -- not because of its length, but because every time the author went into a rapturous six-page description of some medieval monastery I'd get bored and find something better to do.

2. It really needed to make sense. For a good mystery, there is a point where all must be revealed and the clues that have been dropped along the way all add up. The Historian does not have this.

3. Dracula's been playing this game for hundreds of years, at great expense, effort and detail to ... find someone to catalog his library? WTF? Couldn't he put an ad on Craigslist?

Why do I think this has all been an elaborate fanfic written by an under appreciated librarian?

4. Rossi (and others) keep repeating that vampires are completely unlike their depictions in movies and books and then the vampires act EXACTLY like their depictions in movies and books. This is where the author should have broken out and put a new spin on things -- all we found out here are that vampires are bookworms. Is that supposed to be odd?

5. Dracula is too much like a half-assed Santa Claus. He knows when someone is researching him halfway around the world, but not when someone's standing behind him with a gun loaded with silver bullets? He has to stay in his tomb, but he keeps popping up in England, France and Holland? He claims to be the author of modern life, but he can't keep track of his own damn books?

Sigh. Maybe my standards are too high for novels these days. Beach reading at best, but only if you turn your brain off and skip over the many plot inconsistencies and holes.