THE BOOK OF RENFIELD is, ostensibly, the collected records of Dr. Jack Seward, the head of the Carfax Asylum in Bram Stoker's DRACULA. It recounts Dr. Seward's interviews with Renfield prior to, and during, events described in the famous book.

THE BOOK OF RENFIELD is what you get when someone finishes reading DRACULA and really wishes that he had more to read. The author, Tim Lucas, has set about to provide us with more material, fleshing out two of DRACULA'S characters: Renfield and Dr. Seward. Lucas has accomplished the rather peculiar task of providing an extended appendix to DRACULA, one that is neither critical to the understanding of the original, nor particularly revelatory.

Which is not to say that it isn't an entertaining read. Lucas takes great care to write in a similar style to DRACULA, using the same form of relating his story through diary entries and transcripts. The tone is suitably creepy, and Lucas wisely does not try to one-up his inspiration and out-horror one of horror's seminal works. Nor does he commit the folly of changing the plot of the original in order to make his own book more interesting. He also plays a very delicate game with Renfield's accounts of his youth - - the reader is intensely aware of how untrustworthy Renfield is, but the very lies he may be telling reveal as much about him as the possible truth. This is a trick that could be quite annoying if not well executed, and Lucas brings it off quite well.

There are a few problems with the book. Notably, forewords and afterwords take great pains to explain the existence of the book, as part of the "real" story of DRACULA. Suspension of disbelief is critical to any horror tale, and drawing attention to that disbelief doesn't help. Then ludicrous pretension is added to the mix by making references to September 11th. I won't even go into the bits equating Dracula to a certain terrorist...

Somewhat more distracting on an immediate basis is the method by which the author references text originally found in DRACULA. Quoted text, allegedly edited, is presented bold face, while the whole versions are presented as normally (e.g. "He slipped through my hands, and when I tried to cling to him..."). I can understand the legal reasons for needing such, but when Lucas continually sees fit to modify individual words or phrases in the original texts, it drives me nuts. Instead of just reading the text, I ended up wondering why "my hands" would be edited out, and why Lucas saw fit to put it in.

Ultimately, though THE BOOK OF RENFIELD has a few flaws, its biggest problem is that it isn't really necessary. It can't hope to be better than the original. THE BOOK OF RENFIELD is little more than an appendix to DRACULA -- an interesting side dish, but not nearly as much fun as the main course.