I, VAMPIRE

This book is by Jody Scott, copyright 1984, Ace Science Fiction Books, New York, NY.

WELL, THIS ONE IS CERTAINLY DIFFERENT. This is a tale of INTERSPECIES ROMANCE between an intelligent alien being described as a "bloated porpoise," disguised as a human, and a vampire who has been alive since medieval times, who is currently working as a dance instructor in a large city.

The book is very light on the science, although it ecompasses issues like time travel and infiltrating another planet by placing one’s consciousness into a locally-friendly body. It covers a lot of human social issues, too – wait, now that I think about it, the difficulties of physical immortality and misconceptions about vampirism AREN’T human social issues, are they?

BUT INTERSPECIES ROMANCE SURE IS – THEY JUST DON’T KNOW IT YET. I don’t count a few half-insiders like the Great Scribe Lovecraft, and you can easily see from what he wrote that he was really struggling with some identity issues. Seriously, though, WHAT’S SO HORRIFYING ABOUT TURNING INTO A FISH? ...But I stray from my point.

Interestingly, the vampire main character in this story isn’t struggling AT ALL, at least not with the issues that plague most humans. And she has a lot of them, like being bisexual, having a secret life she needs to conceal at all costs, and having had many losses and disappointments in her long, long life – "I’ve been shattered so many times I feel like an experimental windshield," she says at one point.

And she struggles HARDLY AT ALL with the fact that her current romance is with A FISH. She soon gets used to the idea and NEVER LOOKS BACK. There is an object lesson in here for all of us, I think.

THIS IS GREAT READING FOR OPERATIVES AND RECRUITS ALIKE. It certainly validates the concerns of those who are still hesitating to commit, who are grieving their hairy monkey lives, AND those who have already TAKEN THE PLUNGE. But it does so in a lighthearted, upbeat way LOVECRAFT NEVER DREAMED OF.

This is one of the rare books SO GOOD that I am going to have it printed up in a waterproof edition, so that everyone who can still read can enjoy it.