Blood Sisters_ Vampire Stories by Women - Paula Guran Page 0,3

(1980) is a short but powerful—and often overlooked—science fiction vampire novel. The titular character is a “vampire” who lives on a future colonized planet. Sabella is unknowingly taken over by a member of an extinct alien race of bloodsuckers as a child. In Lee’s signature poetic and sensual style, Sabella gains knowledge of herself while the author metaphorically explores a number of issues including post-colonialism, religion, and ecology.

Since Suzy Charnas McKee’s Nebula award-winning novella, “The Unicorn Tapestry” (1981), is re-published in this anthology, I’ll only note that it became part of an episodic novel, The Vampire Tapestry, featuring the unique vampire Dr. Edward Lewis Weyland, a vampire of biologic rather than supernatural genesis. This, coupled with Weyland’s social behavior, has led some critics to consider The Vampire Tapestry as a major work of feminist science fiction.

Also in a science fictional vein: the alien vampire species explored in Jacqueline Lichtenberg’s Those of My Blood (1988) and Elaine Bergstrom’s vampires of alien origin in her six-book saga of the Austra family that began with Shattered Glass (1988). Bergstrom’s story, however, is modern Gothic and the Austras have been part of human history for thousands of years.

Lee Killough’s Blood Hunt (1987) played a part in the establishment of the vampire detection novel. In it, Gareth Mikaelian, an honorable police detective, is transformed into a vampire—and retains his human personality. P. N. Elrod introduced Jack Fleming, a hard-boiled 1930 private investigator, who—transformed into a vampire with his “murder”—seeks his own killer in Bloodlist (1990), the first of twelve novels.

Married Victorian-era investigators James and Lydia Asher are involved—at the instigation of the vampire aristocrat Don Simon Ysidro—in solving a vampiric crime in Those Who Hunt the Night (1988) by Barbara Hambly. In its sequel, Traveling With the Dead (1995), Ysidro joins forces with James Asher.

Victoria “Vicki” Nelson (also known as “Victory Nelson,” for her success in solving crimes), a Toronto police officer forced to turn PI due to a degenerative eye disease, teamed up with Henry Fitzroy—a vampire born as the illegitimate son of Henry VIII—in Blood Price (1991), the first of Tanya Huff’s five Blood Books. (A 2007 Canadian TV series, Blood Ties, was based on the books.)

Nancy A. Collins’s debut novel, the award-winning Sunglasses After Dark (1989), introduced punk vampire/vampire slayer Sonja Blue. The character begins as Denise Thorne, a human raped and left for dead by the vampire Morgan. Denise awakes in a mental hospital. As Collins has explained: “… her identity had fragmented during the trauma, wiping out her memories and creating the persona of Sonja. Although Denise died in the operating room, she had been revived via modern medicine—but not before the vampire ‘seed’ planted in her took hold. Sonja is technically a living vampire, meaning she has their powers/attributes, but still possesses a soul. Unfortunately, the vampire side of her personality—called The Other—is constantly fighting for control of their shared body, and has a tendency to go on horrific rampages, killing foe and friend alike …. The world Sonja Blue inhabits can best be described as Vampire Noir. She lives on the fringes of society, hunting the supernatural creatures that pose as humans while preying on them—such as vampires, werewolves, ogres, and demons—known collectively as Pretenders. She uses her own unique Pretender abilities to identify them and hunt them down, as they are ‘invisible’ to average humans. Sonja views herself as a one-woman hit squad, determined to rid the world of those who prey on humanity—especially vampires.” There is also a element of detection involved in the plotlines as Sonja seeks the truth about herself and the world and the vampire who unintentionally made her. Graphic and violent, Collins’s vampire fiction is action oriented. Although the now-influential character may return someday, the last Sonja Blue novel, Darkest Heart, was published in 2002.

Lost Souls (1992), a debut novel by Poppy Z. Brite, may deserve a better description than its author has given it: “…lush and passionate and energetic as hell … Basically, it’s about a bunch of kids: fifteen-year-old babygoth Nothing, who runs away from his suburban home to seek his … favorite band; the band members themselves, Steve and Ghost, a redneck and a psychic from Missing Mile, North Carolina; and Molochai, Twig, and Zillah, a roving band of freaks [vampires] who end up being Nothing’s real family. There’s a plot in there somewhere, involving trips to New Orleans during which the noxious green liqueur Chartreuse is consumed, love and betrayal, babies who eat their way out of the