Cheap Van Helsing (Book) (Kevin Ryan) Price

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Customer Reviews of Van Helsing

Van Helsling At His Best!
I really enjoyed this novel. The writer has a very vivid grasp on his audience and what they enjoy. Within this novel, Van Helsing makes a life of chasing monsters. Anything from werewolves to vampires. Van Helsing is a mysterious character even to himself. He doesn't remember his beginnings, but he finds out when he meets Count Dracula. The Frankenstein monster is finally given his just place in fiction. Never a dull paragraph, this writer keeps you reading and entertained. You gotta' read it!

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Almost hyperventilated
I got so excited and I felt the blood rushing to my face when I was reading Van Helsing that I almost hypervenilated!!! It's THAT prodigious! I was like thinking that it's even scarier because it's a true story, too or something. One word: intense.

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Once Bitten, Twice Shy
Novelizations of films start with several strikes against them. The first is that they are written from the screenplay, often before the movie is actually filmed. Which occasionally leads to a phenomenon that I call plot jitters, where the script and the writer go one way and the director and the film go another. The other challenge is that most of the readers have already seen the film and look at the book as a piece of memorabilia. Keeping the reader's interest when they already know what is going to happen is a tough assignment. One that depends for the most part on how well the writer does what a 2 hour film cannot - in depth character development.

Occasionally, magic happens, and the book turns out to be an improvement over the film. 'Van Helsing' which is mostly a string of acts of violence or derring do interspersed with just enough dialog to keep the plot moving. Given that Van Helsing himself is much larger than life, and the majority of the remaining cast are creatures like Dracula, Frankenstein, and various werewolves, the film sometimes resembled a grand opera noir rather than a horror film. Kevin Ryan, by filling in the interior space of the characters - human and otherwise - does indeed outdo the film, which I found a bit tedious.

If the book fails to completely capture the atmospherics of the film, it does an excellent job of bringing Van Helsing, Anna, Dr. Frankenstein and several other characters to life. And this makes the story more meaningful than a simple display of acrobatic feats. I would almost suggest that you read the book first and then see the film, since having a clearer understanding of the motivations involved makes some of the dramatic foibles less irritating. Besides, the book is cheaper than a trip to theater and if you don't like the book, you are going to hate the film.