Shattered Glass

Elaine Bergstrom's richly detailed "vampire as alien" series begins with SHATTERED GLASS (1989), first published although not first in its internal chronology. In this novel and its prequels and sequels, she creates vampires of extraterrestrial origin but with such long-term residence on Earth that they consider this planet their home. Though clearly superior to Homo sapiens, most of them respect humanity. Like other more or less benign fictional vampires, Bergstrom's vampire clan, the Austras, balance their predation with service to the host species. The Austras contribute to humanity's long-term welfare through the products of their genius under the cover of their corporation, AustraGlass, whose creations in stained glass have adorned human architecture since the Middle Ages. Just as their empathic connection to their donors compensates for the blood they drink, their contributions to human culture balance (if not atone for) the killings some of them have committed over the centuries. Their weaknesses -- particularly their reproductive difficulties -- offset their superhuman powers. Not only do they take blood from human prey (as well as lower animals), they also need the human race to revitalize their gene pool. Austra females usually die in childbirth, typically producing twins or triplets. After her vampire nature is awakened by blood-sharing with Stephen Austra, Helen, the human-alien hybrid of SHATTERED GLASS, offers the promise of birth without inevitable sacrifice of the mother.

Stephen's twin, Charles, unlike his brother, feeds on pain and terror instead of the positive emotions that constitute the Austras' more usual nourishment. Charles yearns for death. Because these vampires' instinct for self-preservation makes them practically incapable of taking their own lives, Charles goes on a murderous rampage in the city where Stephen has settled, hoping to get his brother to kill him in the vampiric equivalent of "suicide by cop." Not surprisingly, to attract Stephen's attention he threatens Helen and her family.

Bergstrom's very sensual vampires exert an irresistible magnetism over human beings, especially when the vampires crave blood. Also, because they possess telepathy, they can shape their behavior to satisfy the human partner's inmost desires. Beyond sexual union, the Austras use telepathy to satisfy the human yearning to know the Other. For the reader, they fulfill in fantasy the otherwise unattainable wish to plumb the depths of another's mind. While drinking a human donor's blood (and sometimes even without blood-sharing), the vampire can share his or her memories with the donor in a reenactment so vivid it seems actually to be happening. Other novels in the series move backward in history or forward to Stephen and Helen's married life and the birth of their children, concluding with a book set in the near future, BEYOND SUNDOWN. Some short stories about the Austras have also been published, such as "The Ghost of St. Mark's" in THE TIME OF THE VAMPIRES, an anthology of historical vampire fiction, and "Ebb Tide" in the anthology VAMPIRES: DRACULA AND THE UNDEAD LEGIONS. I'm honored to mention that the latter, an outtake from SHATTERED GLASS, was originally published in the first issue of my fanzine, THE VAMPIRE'S CRYPT, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. You can find links to information about the zine (all issues are available free on DropBox) on my website:

Carter's Crypt

Margaret L. Carter

Sinister Barrier

The category of psychic vampires -- creatures that live on energy rather than blood -- includes a fascinating variety of novels and stories, including the now almost forgotten (except by SF scholars) pulp-era novel SINISTER BARRIER (1939), by Eric Frank Russell. Although it seems to be out of print, Amazon.com has lots of inexpensive used copies for sale. The novel begins with an outbreak of mysterious deaths and suicides among scientists, who leave cryptic messages suggestive of madness. Gradually the truth comes to light: Throughout the existence of Homo sapiens, humanity has been ruled and preyed upon by "luminescent spheres, about three feet in diameter, their surfaces alive, glowing, blue, but totally devoid of observable features.” These entities, "neither animal, mineral nor vegetable" but pure energy, given the name "Vitons," feed on violent emotions as well as certain kinds of electromagnetic energy. They use extrasensory perception and telepathy in lieu of material senses and modes of communication. Investigation reveals a combination of drugs that allows ordinary people, not only those with paranormal perception, to see the Vitons. Exposed to the world, the Vitons strike back by provoking global disasters and warfare. Finally an electromagnetic wavelength capable of destroying them is discovered, and humanity annihilates its former masters.

The Vitons have no individual personalities, at least none that human beings can perceive. One character in SINISTER BARRIER describes these predators as "so utterly and completely alien that I cannot see how it will ever be possible for us to find a common basis that will permit some sort of understanding.” The emergence of humanity from its ignorant status as prey into clear-sighted knowledge constitutes the theme of the story. Here understanding is not the key to interspecies cooperation, but rather the key to conquest and annihilation. Graham, Russell's protagonist, declares, "Ignorance may be bliss -- but knowledge is a weapon,” and later he proclaims the need to "counterbalance the Vitons' enormous advantage in having an ages-old understanding of human beings, and gain an equally good comprehension of them. Know thine enemy!"

The imagery of the novel dehumanizes both humanity and the superhuman predators. Graham and his fellow investigators discover that the Vitons, whether invaders from another planet, creatures co-evolved with Homo sapiens, or possibly "true Terrestrials, while we are the descendants of animals which they've imported from other worlds in cosmic cattle-boats,” deliberately breed human beings for the emotional energy upon which the predators feed. The book begins with a pair of metaphorical warnings: "Swift death awaits the first cow that leads a revolt against milking," and "there's a swat waiting for the first bee that blats about pilfered honey.”

Other subhuman imagery includes a reference to a mental patient as "mutilated trash tossed aside by super-vivisectionists"; a contrast between the Vitons as "Lords of Terra" and "we, the sheep of their fields," kept under "their mastery as cold-bloodedly as we maintain ours over the animal world -- by shooting the opposition"; the suggestion that the Vitons perform "super-surgery on their cosmic cattle" for the same motives that lead some people to "teach seals to juggle with balls, teach parrots to curse, monkeys to smoke cigarettes and ride bicycles" and medical students to "make stray cats disappear" and snatch "frogs that are later dissected"; and the characterization of a victim about to be drained as "a homoburger waiting the bite.” All terrestrial conflicts throughout history have been "grist for the Viton mill...unwitting feeders of other, unimaginable guts.” The human gene pool has been manipulated just as we shape crops such as potatoes; human beings are "emotional tubers...grown, stimulated, bred according to the ideas of those who do the surreptitious cultivating.”

This novel thus places the blame for the horrors of human history on an outside force. One character warns his hearers, "Humanity will never know peace, never build a heaven upon earth while its collective soul bears this hideous burden, its collective mind is corrupted from birth.” Oddly, this theme ultimately leads to optimism instead of despair. Once freed from the tyranny of the psychic vampires, Homo sapiens is restored to the condition of freedom and self-determination that our species should have enjoyed all along. The text implies that in the absence of the Vitons, most human conflicts will cease, and our species will indeed "build a heaven upon earth.” Only the elimination of the corrupting outside force is required to initiate a terrestrial golden age.

This tale of rampant paranoia and chilling cosmic horror is well worth a look for all fans of Golden Age SF.

Margaret L. Carter

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

Ponies and Changelings

The latest episode of MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC offers an interesting example of applying fantasy to real-world geopolitics—a "ripped from the headlines" story—with no explicit mention of actual events or peoples. In "The Times They Are a Changeling," Princess Twilight Sparkle travels to the Crystal Empire to visit her brother and sister-in-law (the prince and princess of that kingdom) and their baby filly. Twilight's assistant, young dragon Spike, accompanies her. The capital of the Crystal Empire is in the grip of paranoid fear because a changeling has been glimpsed in the area. Spike, who became a hero among the Crystal ponies on a previous visit, joins a squad of guards searching for the creature. Getting separated from the group, Spike stumbles upon the changeling and discovers that the terrifying monster, named Thorax, isn't a threat at all. In fact, the "monster" saves his life. Parasites who feed on love, changelings infiltrated Canterlot (capital of Equestria) in a former episode, their queen disguising herself as the Empire's princess—hence the Crystal ponies' state of high alert. But Thorax left the changeling country because he yearns to experience friendship without devouring love-energy in a destructive mode. If he can make friends, generating enough love in such relationships that he won't "starve," maybe he can rise above his nature and cease to pose a threat to others. Spike welcomes him as a potential friend, introducing him to Twilight and some of the Crystal ponies in the guise of an ordinary pony. When Thorax accidentally gets exposed, Spike fails to stand up for him. Realizing how he has betrayed his would-be friend, Spike goes after Thorax, persuades him to give friendship another chance, and changes the other ponies' minds about their belief that "there's no such thing as a nice changeling."

In the MY LITTLE PONY universe, a changeling is a creature that can disguise itself in the form of any other person (pony, dragon, etc.), what the D&D game calls a doppelganger. In folklore, changelings are fairies left in place of stolen babies. In some cases, adults could be suspected of being changelings, too. An Irish woman, Bridget Cleary, was burned to death in the modern, civilized year of 1895 because her husband claimed to believe—apparently sincerely—that she was a fairy changeling; by killing the substitute, he expected to get his "true" wife back. The MY LITTLE PONY concept and the folklore concept have one factor in common, that changelings can infiltrate normal society by posing as "one of us." Because they look like "normal" people, only constant vigilance can guard against the danger they present.

Just below the surface, "The Times They Are a Changeling" fits into the "good guy vampire" subgenre. Thorax fights against his predatory nature to find happiness through friendship. At the next layer down, though, it's a story about what terrorist threats do to individuals and societies. Because the changelings attacked in an earlier episode and almost destroyed the Crystal Empire, the Crystal ponies have become so paranoid that at first they suspect Twilight and her companions of being changelings in disguise. The citizens of the empire are determined to keep all changelings out, making no distinction between the evil ones and those who might be harmless. This climate of suspicion and fear leads Spike to turn against Thorax instead of supporting him at a critical moment. When the majority demonizes all members of a different nation or culture, it's hard to speak in defense of them.

The message of this episode isn't totally unproblematic. While Thorax wants to be "good," it's clear that all the rest of the changelings (all whom we see, anyway) really are dangerous, amoral predators. He's presented as more of an exception than an example. However, the ending offers hope that other changelings can learn about friendship and alter their world-view and behavior, just as Thorax has done. Evil isn't necessarily an essential part of their nature. On the level of the show's target preteen audience, this episode conveys yet another message about friendship overcoming differences. Adult viewers can perceive (or not, as they choose) deeper layers of applicability.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt