1980 fantasy with SF elements. On the colony world of Nova Mars, the
blood-drinking Sabella lives on her own… but her aunt has just died,
and seems in her will to be set on outing her as a vampire.
One has to admit there's not a lot of SF here. Most of the story
would have worked in the American South, with minor tweaks; the real
plot-affecting science-fictional components only come in right at the
end, where to my mind things take a sharp turn for the better. At
least there's now a reason why Sabella hasn't met any other
vampires.
But before then we have a fair old chunk of mopey vampire, woe is me,
I don't want to kill them, it's not my fault they get addicted to me,
religion is the enemy, all men are rapists – with a sideline
suggesting that in spite of that last the right man is the one who
doesn't pay any attention to Sabella's wishes but treats her like dirt
and runs her life as he sees fit. Which seems a bit of a
contradiction.
It's not badly written – indeed, the style is more blank-verse than
conventional prose – but it does rather drag, perhaps rather more for
me than it would have for a contemporary reader. (But I enjoyed
Shambleau.) The atmosphere is good, but the good ideas are spread
thinly through it and mining for them is sometimes hard work.
This might have worked better for a different reader. After all, once
upon a time I read and enjoyed Anne Rice, and this is a lot better
than that.
Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.