James Nicoll Reviews

Suzy McKee Charnas’ 1980 The Vampire Tapestry is a stand-alone hard-SF vampire novel, consisting of five short episodes in the life of her protagonist.

Dr. Edward Weyland is a respected academic who specializes in dream research. Aloof and good-looking, he is catnip to most of the women and some of the men on Cayslin College campus. This is less luck than adaptation, for Weyland is a vampire. Colleagues and students are prospective food. 

His research provides him with all the sustenance he could want. Alas, this comfortable life is about to hit a snag in the form of a South African widow.

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Sorry about the cover image. For some reason none of the nice images of the original Gene Szafran would let me save a copy. 

Rather like yesterday’s Canticle, Walk to the End of the World examines the Earth transformed by nuclear war – the Wasting – but where the mob in Canticle turned on the intelligentsia deemed responsible for nuclear weapons, the handful of high officials who survived the final war in their hidden Refuge decide that the true villains were not the men who finally pushed The Button, because that would mean accepting responsibility. Instead they decide to blame all who opposed them and so made that war inevitable: 

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