I just read Dacre Stoker (Bram's great grand nephew) book "Dracula: The Undead," which bills itself as a 'sequal' to the original Dracula. I think Stoker had less to do with it than his co-writer, Ian Holt, a man whose only credit was one direct to DVD slasher film. Holt basically says in the afterword "I waited for some Stoker naive enough to attach his name to my crummy novel."
Dacre writes that he wants to redeem Dracula, since his family lost all influence over the books and films in the 1930s. To do so he and Holt wrote the biggest mockery of that novel ever made.
(Warming, spoilers abound)
He frames the entire "Dracula" story as having actually happened, but Bram Stoker's book was a fictionalized account, which lets him toss out everything in the original novel that doesn't suit his story. Dracula feeds a baby to his wives? Didn't happen. Dracula goes out in the sun? Didn't happen. Dracula lays out his plan of evil pretty clearly? Didn't happen.
What DID happen though was a romance and consensual sexual relationship with Mina. The book never bothers to elucidate how this happened, but I got the feeling the author was trying to say, "y'know, like in the Coppola movie."
The fact the book ends with details of exactly how the characters are doing well after the Dracula adventure, and lays out that Mina's child was born a year to the day after Dracula died is another case of "Didn't happen."
Instead Seward is a morphine addict (stolen from Coppola), Holmwood is a recluse, and Harker spends his time drunk and banging hookers because he can't deal with the fact his half-vampire wife had sex with Dracula before they were married (and if anyone doesn't see the 'twist' ending coming in regards to their son, I will be seriously surprised).
Speaking of twists, when Dracula finally reveals himself, I was shocked. Not by the revealtion, but by the fact the book acted like it had made a revelation. The plot point was so painfully obvious it hadn't occured to me that anything was supposed to be a surprise.
And having vampire 'venom' (a term used in "Twilight" but not "Dracula") isn't a bad thing. In fact the 'dark gift' (a term from Anne Rice, not Stoker) basically makes you a superhero. In a plot point straining credulity, Mina Harker manages to get her hands on a Japanese katana to battle the evil lady-vampire, and later for no obviously explaiend reason Dracula (the righteous soldier of God who only feeds on animals, rapists, and murderers, a fact only told to the reader in the final chapter and totally out of character from he original novel) battles the evil lesbian-vampiress in another swordfight straight out of an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
Dracula is clearly the good guy, and the heroes are morons for having tried to stop him. He only ever came to London to stop Jack the Ripper, and Lucy only died becasue of a bad blood transfusion. He's the perfect hero in every regard, and anything in the original novel that suggests otherwise 'didn't happen.'
And again like Coppola, this book HATES the Victorian era. I'm not saying the Victorian era was an ideal time, but the idea that a character in a book set in that time couldn't possibly be admirable unless they battled the ideals of their age is laughable. Mina is now a female journalist who writes under a man's name, and Jonathon was a crusader against child labor. In a 180 from the book, Mina always hated being a ideal Victorian woman, and consequently in the climactic scene randomly puts on a slutty dress to show the audience that she's a real liberated woman and worthy of their admiration.
There's also lots and lots of elicit sex, mostly lesbianism. While Stoker's novel assuredly tocuhes on lots of sexual imagery, this novel borders on soft-core porn.
It's also filled with lots of refrences to real historical events, some of which strain suspension of disbeleif (Seward was along for the ride on the first ever Paris-London plane flight).
Basically, nothing as Dracula as a good guy hasn't been done (Fred Saberhagen did in 35 years ago in "The Dracule Tape"). Nothing in tying in historical figures is new (Kim Newman's "Anno Dracula" series and Phillip Farmer's various "Wold Newton" works do it and do it better). And the basic feeling of the entire work derives more from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" than it does from a real Stoker.
If people read this as the 'real' sequal to Dracula, Dacre Stoker has done more to harm the reputaion of that amazing work of literature than all of the bad Dracula movies ever made combined.