Review: Stoker's Wilde West

Once again authors Prusi and Hopstaken put Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde into precarious situations as vampire hunters. Outrageous you say! Of course. That's what makes it so fun. The novel is cram-packed with Old West figures such as Bass Reeves and Calamity Jane, all adding their heroics to the quest of killing vampires and closing the gate to the Realm...or is it really the gate to Hell?

There are plenty of heroic women, not wallflowers waiting for their men to come home. Mrs. Stoker is a force to be reckoned with, there are female spies and guard with the White Worm Society, an organization researching and stamping out any supernatural evil. And Calamity Jane...what more can be said?

Authors have to be brave to take on one of the most famous wits in history. Prusi and Hopstaken do a pretty good job with Oscar Wilde.   Some of their history is a little off and people who don't know won't know. Theodore Roosevelt hated being called Teddy and his friends and relatives called him TR. The book also says the brothel madam Ah Toy was kind. She was actually brutal, letting ill prostitutes die in unheated shacks with no food when they'd outlived their usefulness. She liked to sue people , too. Sued them a lot.

But, that doesn't take away from the adventure. I'm a history nerd and picky. A small gripe is that there is a lot of passive verbs in the novel. They can be tightened up.

My small gripes are not enough to keep you from reading Stoker's Wilde West. Read the first book, Stoker's Wilde to know what's going on with Bram Stoker's blood and other background story.