Damn you Mr. O’Neill!
For those of you who are in the rather unfortunate position of having yet to partake in the dark, brooding landscape of author Shane KP O’Neill’s Dracula Chronicles; the totality of which I wholeheartedly believe is an unrecognized magnum opus, don’t expect for me to beguile you with details like one would read them in those God-awful pamphlet’s known as SparkNotes or CliffsNotes. Piss poor summaries covertly intended to dumb down the masses and to steer us away from the hypnotic allure of unmovable print.
These words I write are not meant to be insulting. In fact, like that of a sledgehammer to your cranium, they’re meant to shake the shit off your psyche and drag you kicking and screaming from a world where you’ve been successfully conditioned into believing that books and reading are wholly second to the moving story. I often tell people that books are inanimate objects and only animate when a reader lightly peels back that first page and allows the story to unfold—lighting a robust fire under the ass of a reader’s dormant imagination. As authors, we were once gods of villages at a time children and elders, nightly, sat at our feet anxious to lend an ear to our words. That modern day entertainment, in and of itself, wouldn’t amount to shit without the ink we authors use to paint the picture.
It is in the syntax of Shane KP O’Neill’s work that means to journey us all back to a time when the imagination was our collective muse. Regaling us with a tapestry of historical works in horror, romance, and dark fantasy all drawn from a childhood fascination with the likes of Dracula. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the very vampire that awaits in the dark, often overlooked corners of our subconscious where mind games start to occur; where fear and reality are tantamount to a house of mirrors.
That lonely place where the room is always dark and fear pumps haphazardly as you imagine the horrible things that lurk in that corner unseen. Where that dreadful creature sits on the edge of attack from the very place we continually struggle to hold onto our sanity. The very being that has been with us since the moment we first heard its name in front of a blazing camp fire or from behind the pillows we fancied protective shields at a sleepover or slumber party. The goose bumps that, to this day, trace every inch of our bodies within the darkness of any given night—the ominous shadow following our every step revealing the immortal legend with the slightest illumination.
Given the authors body of work, I’m convinced that he fully understands that as adults, our fears become more sophisticated, more grounded in worldly events. That horror, by nature, is a personal touch—an intrusion into our comfort levels. That it speaks of the human condition and forcibly reminds us of how little we actually know and understand. The horrors I’ve been led to believe concerning Dracula became more prevalent for me when my studies drew me to the truth. That what I believed to be a grand fictional character was in fact based on a menacing mortal figure—Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia. A member of the House of Drăculeşti, a branch of the House of Basarab.
I’ve been reading vampire literature for longer than I can remember. From the time when the vampire broke through in the form of poetry, before becoming one of the stock figures of Gothic fiction. Fans of this genre may remember John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, the Penny Dreadful Varney the Vampire, Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu’s lesbian vampire Carmilla, Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, and of course the masterpiece of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Today, however, it is Shane KP O’Neill who has carved out a fresh and new take on the posthumously dubbed Vlad the Impaler that I, for the life of me, cannot ignore. The substance of his historical tale clings to me like that of ink on white silk. The author drew me in by strategically plucking from history the widely scattered pieces of an enigmatic puzzle I never noticed nor even cared about until I peeled back that first page to reveal what I refer to as a plausible theory as it relates to Dracula, the war of the angels i.e. the Divine Drama, and the breathtaking connections the author makes concerning the Catholic Church.
Marvellous!
The author, as was the case with me during my adolescence, was enthralled by Christopher Lee’s portrayal of Dracula on the big screen. Writing in an archaic style far from the norm of today, the author gives us a flawless feel for the period, as opposed to an urban fantasy feel I believe the historian deep within desperately seeks to avoid. He has his thumb firmly on the pulse of history as he tugs at the Biblical strings for answers to our ills.
I was drawn to the authors work because his story carefully walks a line between fact and fiction. I subscribe, however, to the Biblical elements riddled throughout his tale that speaks of a war we humans are merely at the mercy of. The world in which we live is an unusual cartography shaping and molding our existence. It acts as a caveat, and this phenomenon walks with us like a silent entity inhabiting the cerebral, influencing one’s every thought.
Little do we know that from the highest peak, all resemble carrion…and as bright as the sun and as luminous as the moon, angels cascade with blood-tipped swords in their hands. They boast white cashmere wings, body armor of gold, silver, and bronze, and the engraved pictorial of Jesus Christ displayed prominently on their chests. From the earth’s floor, black-armored, pitchfork-bearing, black-winged Warriors of Legion await the battle. Neither side’s soldiers hold fear in their eyes.
This confrontation is called the War of the Angels and relates directly to all the ups and downs of the human race … all the pain, heartache, and senseless death.
Bound By Blood is a distinctive and entertaining manuscript with a tightly-managed supernatural thread. So well controlled is this thread that I often contemplate if it is Dracula himself guiding the author; moving him to regale us with truths lost in history concerning his life and death. Maybe, just maybe, the Prince became fed up with the folklore and mythology that clings intently and broadly to his legacy like that of residue throughout history, and within our current era. Telling us that the world of tomorrow is the myth.
You know, I love stories that place you firmly in a bygone era and lulls you into a kind of mood that tightens your grip on the manuscript before you and keeps you turning page after page from the menacing calm of a moonless twilight to the frightful relief of a breaking dawn; only to piss you off when you realize that you’ve reached the end. The words fuck you now lay heavy on your mind, targeted at the very author who just stepped in front of you; blocking you from viewing another word, letter, sentence, paragraph, and/or page of a story so intense that it has you embarrassingly salivating—the seeping spittle upon your lip unnoticed for what seems like an eternity.
In Bound By Blood, Dracula is mortally wounded in the battle at Snagov in 1476 and desires to die on holy ground, but it is Lucifer who comes to claim him as a tool for his sinister agenda. Dracula is to destroy the institution of that which he has championed for so long. By bringing down the Catholic Church he can undo the Crucifixion and turn man against God once more. If he succeeds, then Lucifer will ascend again to Heaven and signal the end for all mankind.
Darker, much darker than Bram Stoker’s Dracula; in this 6th installment of author Shane KP O’Neill’s The Dracula Chronicles and the first in the vampire arc, he presents an unforgettable tale that highlights yet another layer of a war that was sparked at the time mankind was barely an infant. Showing us that the ensuing battle between the forces of good and evil exists and will persist in the battle for souls.
A.K. Kuykendall, Author
Writer’s Block trilogy & Conspirator’s Odyssey series
[email protected] | www.thewriterofbooks.com
Shane KP O’Neill is the writer of The Dracula Chronicles, a new and exciting series adding a fresh dimension to the Dracula legend, which combines the real historical Vlad Dracula with a new and different version of Dracula the vampire. He has released the series in two arcs, one that follows Dracula the man and the other following Dracula the vampire.
The author developed a fascination with Dracula from an early age. Like many others
he was enthralled by Christopher Lee’s portrayal of him on the big screen. It was in his late teens that he discovered Dracula the man and the love affair began from there. An avid lover of history, he studied the period in which the real historical Vlad Dracula lived, 15th Century Balkan, for many years. It followed from there then that with his love of writing he would always choose Dracula as his subject. He built a concept and premise where he could accommodate both Dracula the vampire and Dracula the man.
Away from writing, the author has a wide range of interests. He reads a lot of books from a wide variety of authors, though his main interest lies in the horror genre. His love of books is matched only by his love of the countryside and of course, his family. As an added note, he has lived and travelled all over the world. He has a love for all things historical, with a particular fascination for medieval Europe. Anywhere he travels, he likes to search out locations with an historical interest and will always hunt for the ruins of an old castle before heading to the beach.
VISIT THE AUTHOR AT:
www.draculachronicles.co.uk
www.draculachronicles.co.uk/blog
www.facebook.com/ShaneONeillsDraculaChronicles
www.twitter.com/ShaneKPONeill
www.goodreads.com/user/show/12341417-shane-o-neill
https://plus.google.com/u/0/110798763860180545041
Email the author at:
[email protected]
Cover design, interior book design,
all interior graphics, and eBook design
by Blue Harvest Creative
www.blueharvestcreative.com
Shane’s website designed by:
Jammy Custard Studios
Table of Contents
Description
Title Page
Copyright Information
Acknowledgement
Also By Shane KP O’Neill
Foreword by A.K. Kuykendall
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twnety-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Thank You
About The Author
Visit The Author
Meet The Design Team
The Dracula Chronicles: Bound By Blood Page 36
