Dracula Unbound

British sf master Aldiss now roots in the well-plowed literary field of Bram Stoker's Dracula. In 1999, scientist/entrepreneur Joe Bodeland has discovered a way to "sink" objects into time as a method of toxic-waste disposal. He is seeking development funds when his friend Bernard Clift discovers a human grave 65 million years old. With his wife, Mina, and his newly married son and daughter-in-law, Larry and Kylie, Bodeland goes to the grave site in Utah, where they witness a mysterious ghost train. Using his time-sink technology, Bodeland and Clift board the train and find that it's operated by the Undead and Dracula to insure a future where the human race is enslaved. Clift is killed when he and Bodeland take over the time train, and Bodeland is forced to seek help from Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula From Victorian England to Cretaceous Canada to Libya in A.D. 2399, Stoker and Bodeland fight to thwart Dracula's long-term plan and to save their loved ones from immediate peril. Aldiss uses the brooding gothic style of the original Dracula to great effect when he shows us Victorian England, the far past, and, especially, the Undead-ruled far future. But when used to depict the Bodeland family and 1999 America, this style provides paper-thin characterization and motives. The time-loop paradoxical ending is cliched. (Kirkus Reviews)