Vampire Retro-Review: The Ruby Tear

THE RUBY TEAR (1997), by “Rebecca Brand,” was actually written under a pen name by Suzy McKee Charnas, author of THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY, one of the best vampire novels of the late twentieth century. Readers familiar with it as well as her other works under her own name, most prominently the post-apocalyptic, feminist Motherlines series, will find THE RUBY TEAR surprisingly different. Here she creates a unique variation on the vampire romance subgenre, already well established by then. THE RUBY TEAR stars a much more traditional vampire than Weyland, the top-of-the-food-chain, naturally evolved predator in her more famous novel.

A cursed jewel and a family feud rooted in medieval Eastern Europe complicate an unusual vampire-human love triangle. In a flashback, Baron Ivo von Cragga, on the verge of death in battle, prays for the restoration of the Ruby Tear, his family’s chief treasure, as well as punishment for the enemy who stole it. Transformed into a vampire by the vengeful goddess of his war-torn homeland, Ivo devotes his centuries-long existence to the quest for the Tear, now possessed by Nicolas Griffin, journalist and playwright. Jess, an actress, Nic's former lover, baffled by his avoidance of her since the near-lethal accident in which they were both injured, agrees to star in a play written by him in which she will wear the ill-fated jewel. The relic draws Ivo to her so that she becomes the vampire's target as he pursues his revenge against Nic, last surviving descendant of his enemy.

Aside from his origin (cursed rather than bitten), Ivo has most of the traits of the familiar supernatural vampire. Ivo is generally a “good guy vampire,” although prepared to behave ruthlessly in devotion to his quest. The few love scenes between him and Jess are sensual yet spiced with a tinge of self-aware irony. Charnas's familiarity with New York and the world of the theater lends realistic detail to the story. She injects notes of humor amid the suspense and manages to make both the lonely, magnetic vampire and his human rival complex, sympathetic characters. The climax of their conflict and the resolution of Jess's attraction to both men are surprising as well as satisfying. It’s unusual to read a romance in which we can’t tell from the beginning which hero the heroine will choose. The denouement includes an unexpected twist that underscores the futility of devoting a lifetime (mortal or immortal) to ancient enmities.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Blood Hunt

Before the TV shows FOREVER KNIGHT, ANGEL, BLOOD TIES, and MOONLIGHT, before Tanya Huff's detective series on which BLOOD TIES was based, even a bit before P. N. Elrod's "Vampire Files" depression-era mystery novels, there was BLOOD HUNT (1987), by Lee Killough. It presents a fictional vampire who is a truly nice person, a type of characterization rare at the time. (There were already plenty of "good guy vampires," but few you'd consider exactly "nice.") Killough postulates that vampirism is an infectious disease caused by a virus, although in BLOOD HUNT that hypothesis is merely assumed by the vampires without being elaborated in any way. At least two factors don't seem to harmonize with the disease theory: The hero requires soil (not necessarily "native earth") to sleep on and can't enter a dwelling uninvited. In fact, he can't even fire his gun into a space where he hasn't been invited. As in most recent vampire fiction, conversion happens when the victim tastes the vampire's blood. Killough presents the gradual process of transformation from the vampire's point of view, another now familiar fictional device that was relatively uncommon at the time of this novel's publication. Garreth Mikaelian, a San Francisco police officer, investigates murders committed by a vampire, Lane Barber, who drains him to death. When he accidentally drinks some of her blood, she refrains from destroying him, because she longs for a companion. He rises as one of the undead and (like Elrod's protagonist in the later novel BLOODLIST) proceeds to investigate his own murder.

The core of BLOOD HUNT focuses on Garreth's gradual realization of and adjustment to the fact of his vampirism. He casts a reflection, in keeping with his supposedly non-supernatural nature. Sunlight causes him discomfort but does not kill him. He lives on animal blood, though it proves less than satisfying; highly ethical, he refuses to prey on people. Determined to bring Lane to justice, he traces her to her home town, where he makes a place for himself in the community -- working the night shift on the local police force (like Nick on FOREVER KNIGHT) -- while waiting for her to return. Vampire or not, Garreth remains a good cop, who adamantly resists the temptation to play vigilante. Even someone like Lane deserves due process of law. Circumstances finally free Garreth from the dilemma this philosophy imposes on him, and at the novel's end we see him as a small-town policeman who has come to terms with his new existence.

The strongest appeal of this novel, for me, is that Garreth's personality remains intact through his transformation. Again, that was still a refreshingly unusual approach in 1987. Instead of becoming a bloodthirsty demon, he stands in the far more interesting position of an ordinary man required to adjust to a new set of limits and temptations. In the sequel, BLOODLINKS (1988), Garreth is accustomed to his undead life but far from happy with it. Drawn back to San Francisco by a new string of mysterious murders, he meets the female vampire responsible for Lane's transformation and learns his friends and family can accept him even after they discover what he is. After a long hiatus, Killough published a third novel, BLOOD GAMES (2001), in which Garreth, fifteen years later, begins to face the aging of his mortal loved ones.

In the 1997 preface to BLOODWALK, an omnibus reprint of the first two books, Killough states that BLOOD HUNT was originally rejected over and over because, as a vampire novel that wasn't horror, it was therefore considered impossible to market. (Those editors must not have read Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA.) How the field of vampire fiction has changed in recent decades, for the better!

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the vampires at Carter's Crypt.