Stoker's Wilde West

by Steven Hopstaken, Melissa Prusi

Overview

"Suggest to fans of paranormal alternative history featuring well-drawn characters and strong world building, such as Molly Tanzer’s Creatures series, Robert McCammon’s I Travel by Night series, or The Hunger by Alma Katsu." — Booklist

Longlisted for The Guardian's Not the Booker Prize 2020.

Thinking they have put their monster-hunting days behind them, Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker return to their normal lives. But when their old ally Robert Roosevelt and his nephew Teddy find a new nest of vampires, they are once again pulled into the world of the supernatural, this time in the American West. A train robbery by a band of vampire gunslingers sets off a series of events that puts Bram on the run, Oscar leading a rescue party and our heroes being pursued by an unstoppable vampire bounty hunter who rides a dead, reanimated horse.

FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781787581968
Publisher:	Flame Tree Publishing
Publication date:	08/11/2020
Series:	Stoker's Wilde
Edition description:	New
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Steven Hopstaken was both born and raised in Michigan and currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Together with his wife and writing partner Melissa Prusi, he is the co-author of the Stoker’s Wilde series, featuring Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde as vampire hunters.

Melissa Prusi was born and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She’s been a video editor, a semi-professional film reviewer, a three-time champion on the quiz show Jeopardy!, and a Guinness world record holder (1990 edition, for directing the longest live television show).

Interviews

What is the book about?

It’s a story set in American West where Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, teams up with Oscar Wilde to stop a mysterious Prophet and a powerful mining tycoon from trying to open the gates of Hell.

What are the underlying themes?

The first novel explores the corruption of unrealistic Victorian morals as it entered the modern age, and the personal price one pays for coming into contact with evil. This one examines cultures destroying one another. The West as they knew it was coming to end, civilization is transforming the wilderness, but at the horrible cost of genocide and the destruction of indigenous cultures. Everyone was moving ever westward hoping to find the promised land, but they have reached the end and have not found it.

Did you base your characters on anyone you knew?

Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde did know each other in real life. They were both originally from Dublin, and Oscar’s brother went to school with Bram. Bram actually wooed away Oscar’s fiancée and eloped with her to London. The two men were forced to move in the same circles when Wilde became a playwright and Stoker became the manager of the most famous theatre in London. And, they both did tour America around the same time.

Who influenced you most in the writing of the book?

The original novel of Dracula was our biggest influence. As an homage, we wrote it in the same style: Like Dracula, Stoker’s Wilde West is an epistolary novel told in journal entries, letters and news clippings. The last one was a Victorian penny dreadful and this one is a Western dime store novel. The Western is truly an original American art form and we thought it would be fun to play cowboys and vampires.

We’ve always liked the mix of horror and humor in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There are little Easter eggs throughout the first novel pointing to the Buffy-verse that eagle-eyed readers may spot, and they’ll find more in Stoker’s Wilde West.

What is it like writing together?

We’d worked on screenplays together before – that’s a much more common medium to find writing teams. We didn’t find it all that different to co-write a novel. If you put egos aside for the good of the story it often can be easier to split the work. Having another person depending on you can also help keep you motivated and on track. We would usually outline together then go off and each write the chapters we were interested in writing, then the other person would rewrite that chapter. Eventually, through numerous rewrites, it starts to feel seamless. By the end of that process, it’s hard to remember who originally wrote what.

What’s different about writing the sequel vs. the original book?

A deadline! But oddly, that’s actually making it easier rather than harder. Knowing that someone is waiting for it is incredibly motivating. Also, for the last couple years before Stoker’s Wilde came out, we were doing more editing and tweaking than actual writing, so getting back into the swing of drafting brand-new content is energizing. And we know the characters so well by this point that it feels like reconnecting with old friends.

How did you tackle trying to capture Stoker and Wilde’s quite distinctive voices?

We found a book of Oscar Wilde’s letters and used that to capture how he sounded conversing with friends, which was different than his writing persona, though we drew on his published works as well, since that’s the voice most people know.

Less is known about Bram personally, but he had written non-fiction books about his life in the theatre where he wrote as himself and that helped us get his voice right.


What was it like to be edited by someone else?

Enlightening! Fresh eyes see the flaws you can’t. We’ve rarely had a rewrite make a story worse.

What are you writing now?

We are plotting out the third in the series, Stoker’s Wilde World where Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde finally enter the Realm on an expedition. This one will pay homage to Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Lost World.”

Is there any advice you can give someone starting to write?

Create a detailed outline, so you don’t get lost. If dealing with historical characters, do your research first. You’ll be surprised at what you uncover and how it can help propel your story. Keep your mind open to new ideas and how they can deepen your story.

Editorial Reviews

"Fast, furious, funny, action-packed, gory, fast-talking with a hint of fantasy and science fiction thrown into the mix. What’s not to like in another winner from Flame Tree Press, an imprint to look out for, and If the little teaser at the end is anything to go by we might have more adventures to come? Let’s hope so."

Concatenation

"Hopstaken and Prusi have done their homework and produced a pleasing period penny dreadful."

"Historical details and supernatural monsters abound, but it is the odd couple of Wilde and Stoker, with their diametrically opposed personalities and interesting quirks, that drives this story. Pass this volume on to readers who are hungry for more historical stories with a supernatural frame."

“A fun throwback to classic horror, playing off of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, this tale stars fictionalized versions of both Stoker and Wilde, brought together through circumstance to hunt the undead throughout England [...] This husband-and-wife writing team offer a solid choice for fans of vampire lore and atmospheric, historical horror.”

“A piece of work that is more original and creative than any novel I have read in years.”

"Stoker's Wilde is immensely entertaining and engrossing...this novel was an utter delight." -

“I absolutely loved it, it's thrilling, exciting and funny as hell-it's a rollercoaster ride through Victorian values, secret societies and deep, dark secrets...there is nothing that I did not love about it! Roll on book 2!”

“This novel is a sweet mix of supernatural horror and Victorian social commentary [...] Very enjoyable read! A dash of the truth mixed with a bit of the fantastical smothered in a nice dose of classic monster horror — very entertaining book!

"This is a must-read for Horror lovers.” -

“This story provides horror, adventure and humour throughout, the need to protect the human race against the evil plans that threaten them.

From the Publisher

"Suggest to fans of paranormal alternative history featuring well-drawn characters and strong world building, such as Molly Tanzer’s Creatures series, Robert McCammon’s I Travel by Night series, or The Hunger by Alma Katsu."

Booklist

"In Stoker’s Wilde, we got our first taste of a fantastical alternate history and its peculiar characters. With Stoker’s Wilde West, Hopstaken & Prusi have taken this and developed it into a world that is vivid, encapsulating, and thoroughly enjoyable."

The Unseen Library

"Stoker's Wilde West is an almost impossible novel to stop reading once you start it, full of surprises along the way, unexpected twists, and a cast as fearless as it is diverse. If this becomes a saga, I think we are going to enjoy it a lot."

Tinta Nocturna