Cynthia Ward: The Adventure of the Incognita Contessa

[bibliogramma]

Cynthia Ward’s delightful novella, The Adventure of the Incognita Contessa, is an adventure in exploring the realms of speculative fiction from the late Victorian era, a spy story set in an alternate universe where the British government is working to understand Martian technology following the failed invasion of the British Isles by inhabitants of that planet, and Lucy, the daughter of Mina Harker, works for the head of the British secret service, known as M - short for Mycroft.

Lucy’s mission is to provide unseen protection for Major Butt, an American military officer travelling home, carrying secret engineering specifications concerning the submarine Nautilus, recently recovered by German scientists. Among the other passengers on the newly commissioned oceanliner The Titanic are the vampire Millarca, also known as Carmilla, here cslled Clarimal, a mysterious English Viscount, Lord Greyborough, and his American wife (one must remember that the works of Edgar Rice Bourroughs remain under copyright, unlike many other works of a similar era which have entered the public domain), and assorted wealthy persons with names like Astor and Guggenheim.

Lucy, as we quickly learn, is not herself human, but a dhampir, the child of a vampire - in her case, Dracula himself - and a human. As a British spy, she is obliged to protect the British Empire. As the child of vampire hunters, she has an additional mission, to kill monster. Unless, of course, they are in the service of the Crown themselves. Lucy has justified her killings with the secure knowledge that vampires are soulless creatures who can only mime the emotions and conscience of humans, to lull them into a sense if security so they can feed. But as she becomes close to Clarimal, she begins to wonder if everything she has been taught is true.

Constant Reader has likely noticed that I enjoy speculative ventures of this nature, works that take a canonical source and stretch it, expand it, play with its conceits and give its characters new and interesting things to do. This is a splendid example of the genre.