Thursday 14 June 2018

Proto-Vampires

Poul Anderson's Procyonites (see Interloper II) and SM Stirling's Shadowspawn are alternative sources of the vampire legend. Procyonites are ET's appearing in a single short story whereas Shadowspawn are homo nocturnis featuring in a trilogy of novels.

My advice: read both.

Fortunately, however, both Anderson and Stirling have written about a lot more than proto-vampires.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

While I agree in not caring that much for horror as a genre, I did like some horror classics. Which were: THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GREY, by Oscar Wilde; DRACULA, by Bram Stoker; 'SALEM'S LOT, by Stephen King; and now Stirling's three volumes of urban fantasy about the Shadowspawn. If a writer has real talent and ability he can put MORE into his books than might have been expected. Even works written in a genre as hackneyed as horror.

Horror was a genre Poul Anderson did not seem to have much liked. Which is why so few of his own stories even touch on horror. Besides "Interloper," only "The Tale of Hauk" and "Welcome" came to mind as having elements of horror. And perhaps I should include the fourth volume of THE KING OF YS: THE DOG AND THE WOLF, because the story of Dahut the Siren in it comes close to horror.

The sub-theme of DYSTOPIAN science fiction seems to have interested far more than horror. Examples being, besides the previously mentioned "Welcome," short stories like "Murphy's Hall," "Eutopia," and novels like GENESIS.

Sean