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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
In Brian Spielbauer’s Dracula's Battle, after escaping imprisonment in Hungary, Vlad Dracula studies in Heidelberg under Professor Aeneas Piccolomini while planning one day to reclaim Wallachia from foreign control. His future changes after he falls in love with Katharina, a young servant in the household of his closest companion, Froederick Hefflefinger. Katharina disappears during an attack tied to the scholar Wlodek Serafin, whose search for immortality draws Vlad into a hidden war spreading across Europe. As Vlad pursues Katharina through territories threatened by the Ottoman expansion, Serafin attempts to reshape Vlad into a servant capable of leading supernatural armies against the Christian world. Vlad continues toward Wallachia while the conflict surrounding Serafin steadily pulls him further from the man Professor Piccolomini hoped he would become.
Brian Spielbauer’s Dracula's Battle: The Cross and the Crescent Moon is a spectacular novel of warfare against death itself. It moves across fifteenth-century Europe, while Pope Pius II prepares Rome for supernatural war. Vlad is an anti-hero here and it is refreshing to read a story with an alternative point of view. His devotion to Katharina even after a shocking twist amplifies his likeability. And he takes bat form! I really like Igor, who became a favorite supporting figure, driving a wagon of siler-plated weapons directly into battle as monsters tear through the valley near Rome. The settings are visual, from a ruined Geneva castle during a lightning storm, to a battlefield cemetery outside Rome with Pope Pius II. Readers looking for a new style of origin story with plenty of classic and recognizable reimagined characters, and those who adore gothic medieval horror, religious warfare, cursed armies, and vampire fiction will love this novel. Very highly recommended.
