The Dracula Caper by Simon Hawke

The Dracula Caper by Simon Hawke

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I've been reading this series, Time Wars, since either the late 1980s, or the early 1990s. I know some of the books I was able to buy new when they first appeared, but most were before my start reading the series. It's an important point because the books became very difficult to find very quickly. They seemed to go out of print almost instantly, and second hand copies were hard to come by. So, while this isn't exactly a long series - I think there are just a total of 12 or 13 books in the series, I've never completed it.

When I spotted that the author had started putting the books up on Kindle, I was excited at the opportunity. Both because I could read the books I hadn't before read and, and this goes back to how hard the books were to find the first time - I could read the books in order. Which I hadn't been able to do - reading them as I found them (I had a really messed up idea about what was going on with this series the first time I read it, since I read it quite out of order).

With that said . . . I've now done two things: 1) finally reached and read a book in the series I hadn't read before (there's at least one more I've already read 'way back when'); and 2) read a book out of order. Now that I've gone to put 'series-next', or move the next book in the series onto that series next bookshelf, I see that I've both accidentally skipped a book, and skipped a book I had not previously read before. At least now I have a greater understanding why certain things were confusing to me when I read this book. The people in the book kept referencing things that I didn't recall having occurred. Well . . . obviously I now know that they were referencing things that had happened in the previous book. Both makes it tougher to read that previous book and/or to move on to book 9.

This specific book involved time travelers from, um, something like the 27th century who have been settling their own conflicts by inserting themselves into the past (if there were two sides to a conflict, which isn't always the case but . . if there were two sides to a conflict, 'judges' would have the two sides insert humans into certain events in the past, like the battle at Gettysburg, and then give 'points' to the results; another group of people guarded against the actions that the 'time wars' (and yes, originally time wars, the series name, referred to this specific issue) from disrupting the time line (as in, if someone accidentally shot General Lee and killed him at the battle of Gettysburg, the time adjustors people would have to instantly insert one of their own people to take on the role of General Lee and live out his life as he had originally (two things of note - this type of example was given in this book here, though the reference was to WWII and Eisenhower; none of the books (at least none of the first 8) take place during the American Civil War)).

Most of the books up to a certain point, not sure when, involved those against the concept of 'polluting' the time line with these time wars. They thought it would destabilize things. So they did some of the things eco-terrorists do - actually create destabilizing events to show how dangerous playing in time actually can be. The adjustors did what I noted in the prior paragraph, but, for the most part, readers watched them 'battling' the time-terrorists. Then things morphed - mostly in an 'all the time terrorists, except for a few, have been 'eliminated' so now we need a new villain' kind of thing. Which is when the Time Wars became more of a Timeline wars - turns out that what the Time War people were doing was causing a very large amount of damage in a parallel universe. Naturally they then, in turn, 'struck back' when they could. Leading to both time lines sending troops to the others time lines to try to destabilize them.

Which leads to this book here. It involves one of the last of the ‘Time Terrorists’ fighting the time war people (though no longer for the prior reasons that had been given; I don’t think there’s even a mention that he had previously been a time terrorists in this book), plus one of the parallel time line people. Plus a ton of ….crap, um, I don’t actually remember what they call themselves any longer. Well, the ‘good guys’ doesn’t work for reasons I’ll mention, I hope, long after this. Well, the time fighters from ‘this book’s time line’ are also included, plus people from the actual time that the ‘battle’ is taking place.

When and where does the battle take place? Early 20th century London (with some side trips to elsewhere). The book opens with . . . well, not really sure how the book opens, it’s been almost a year since I started reading this book. Heh. Well, this book includes both a murder mystery, and a time line battle.

The police, with the consulting help of Arthur Conan Doyle, are investigating some deaths that some newspapers and locals are calling the return of Jack the Ripper. And no, it isn’t something as mundane as that. No, since the reader can see what’s actually happening, it isn’t a spoiler to note that what’s happening is that people that look like werewolves and vampires are running around killing people. One of the vampires happens to go by the name of Count Dracula.

Other ‘famous people of note’ that pop up in this book include: H.G. Wells (who I have a vague recollection popped up in at least one prior book), Bram Stroker, and Oscar Wilde (including his male lover who would later get him in trouble, though that specific fella is more famous connected to Wilde in this manner, than in any other way).

Oh, and the guy who works for the other time line is a Dr. Moreau – readers might recall a book by H.G. Wells with that name in the title.

Right, that’s basically the book. People are trying to destabilize the time line by introducing werewolves and vampires into London. Others are trying to stop them. Which is where I get to that ‘good guy’s part. The ‘good guys’ really seem to be more Doyle, Wells, a Chinese Tong master, and Dr. Moreau than the time fighters. Who are largely shown to be kinda . . . on the evil side. Both the time terrorist and the time fighters/adjustors. I mean, the author literally had one of the time fighters say something like, while talking to Wells about how the soldier would have to kill Dr. Moreau on sight, ‘I’m just following orders’. Then later noting that he can’t alter the orders until consulting with his superiors. And these are the good guys? Heh. The series has constantly had me, as a reader, being kinda disgusted by the ‘good guy’ time adjustors. This is the first time I realized that the author might actually intended for me to find them disgusting. Especially with the amount of time is given to having Wells berate the man and his ideas.

The book was interesting and good. The writing had a tendency to go down odd pathways – there were way too many times that the book would shift to a character and suddenly pages after pages would be given over to meaningless crap about them and what they think. The book became much more enjoyable after I realized what was going on, how to spot when those moments were upon me, and how to safely skip over and/or skim past most of the crap parts.

Rating: 3.50

August 11 2017




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