In what has become an October, Pre-Halloween tradition (anything done once is a tradition), on Tuesday, 4 October 2011, the New York Review of Science Fiction Readings Series again featured a vampire-themed evening of supernatural fiction. (Particularly in view of the Occupy Wall Street protestors Downtown, obvious bloodsucker jokes were made about greedy corporate financiers.) Held at the Series’ current venue, the SoHo Gallery for Digital Art on Sullivan Street, the featured readers were Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith, authors of the Vampire Empire series (published by Pyr Books).
Welcoming the audience, the NYRSF Readings Series’ executive curator, Jim Freund, host of WBAI-FM’s Hour of the Wolf radio program on sf and fantasy (now broadcasting and streaming every Thursday morning from 1:30 to 3:00AM on WBAI, 99.5 FM), briefly related how he got his start at BAI, and introduced his show’s originator (its predawn timeslot was the “Hour of the Wolf”), his predecessor and “role model in life,” and the event’s guest-curator, Margot Adler.
Adler is probably best known for her work as a journalist and correspondent for National Public Radio, as a Wiccan priestess and an authority on American Neo-Paganism, and as the author of Drawing Down the Moon and Heretic’s Heart. A recent fascination with the world and subculture of vampire fiction led her to read—devour, imbibe, suck in?—an astonishing 185 books in that subgenre over the last couple of years. (The list of her first 75 is at this link.) The range of vampire literature is extraordinary, crossing just about every genre; Adler handily rattled off an exhaustive list of categories—Gothic, Southern, historical, literary, detective, teen angst, “Hogwarts for vampires,” alternate history, steampunk, porn, etc.—citing exemplary works and authors from Banks to Yarbro. She noted that she doesn’t like mindless vampires. (Screens around the room depicted, in addition to photos of the authors and covers from their books, a gallery of images from Dracula, Blacula, Buffy, and True Blood.) Introducing the Griffiths, she described their Vampire Empire series as blending adventure, romance, alternate history, and steampunk.
The premise of the series is that, in 1870, vampires—here, a parallel, parasitic species to humanity, rather than humans transformed to undead—rose up (“the Great Killing”) and destroyed most of humanity and civilization. (Because they are parasites, they need humans to feed on, so have not driven humanity to extinction.) Survivors fled to the tropics and subtropics, eventually establishing the American Republic (with its capital in Panama, covering Mexico, Central America, and seasonally the American South) and Equatoria (with its capital in Alexandria, Egypt, encompassing the British Empire in India and Africa), along with pockets of unenslaved humans, while vampire clans have set up in the north (the titular Vampire Empire). Some 150 years later, humanity has rebuilt technology to a steampunk level and wants to retake the world.
Clay Griffith read from the first book, The Greyfriar (the Greyfriar, Susan explained, is a near legendary figure, somewhat like Robin Hood or Zorro), and Susan Griffith from the second novel, The Rift Walker. (The third, as-yet-untitled book in what is currently a trilogy, is in progress, in New Jersey under their cat’s guard. The audiobooks, incidentally, are read by James Marsters, Spike from TV’s Buffy and Angel.) In the selection read by Clay, Equatorian princess and heir to the throne Adele, who was to marry American Senator Clark, is a captive in London of the vampires. Prince Gareth, accompanying her through the British Museum, is uncharacteristically knowledgeable about human history and culture, but cannot comprehend the artistic impulse. The chapter that Susan read was concerned with vampire clan affairs and politics, as Gareth and his cruel brother and rival Cesare host vampire rulers from Scotland and Hungary on a hunt of free humans.
After an intermission, Freund returned to the podium to announce upcoming events in the Series. 1 November will feature the Series’ annual author tribute (another tradition), this year honoring Murray Leinster, with Will Jenkins’ (Leinster’s real name) daughter, Billee Stallings, who has completed a biography of her father, plus Barry N. Malzberg and Michael Swanwick; and 6 December “Family Night” with Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman (tradition strikes again!). Kushner then assumed the podium for a Public Service Announcement about the Center for Fiction’s month-long (3-26 October) celebration of science fiction and fantasy. The events, presented for free (with the exception of a talk by Margaret Atwood), originally honoring Ursula K. Le Guin’s young-adult fantasy novel A Wizard of Earthsea, have been expanded to encompass panel discussions on the genres of fantasy and sf; participants include Holly Black, Samuel R. Delany, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Lev Grossman, Andrea Hairston, Elizabeth Hand, David Hartwell, N.K. Jemisin, Kushner, Kelly Link, Naomi Novik, Michael Swanwick, Delia Sherman, Paul Witcover, et al. (Details are at www.centerforfiction.org.)
Once more at the podium, Adler related that her vampire obsession likely started as a meditation on mortality after her husband died, but that more is going on in the genre. Every society, she attested, gets the vampires it needs: Dracula, 1897, set in London, a port where ships came from around the world, reflected fear of immigration and disease; Polidori’s vampire tale, created on the same weekend and in the same house that Frankenstein was, fear of science playing God; the 1980s’ vampire fiction fear of blood and AIDS; vampires are about power more than sex. There is a tension within moral vampires, she said, between retaining their humanity and seeing humans as just food; they are desperately trying to be moral despite being predators… and that’s what we humans do too—this is her “special insight” on vampire literature. (The first “moral” vampires, in our opinion, were Vampirella and Barnabas Collins.)
A question-and-answer session with the Griffiths followed. Clay observed that in their books, power can’t be used morally. Susan confessed that they hadn’t intended their books to be steampunk—in their alternate timeline new technologies had to be created and they had coal—but they fully embrace it. There were a number of questions on their collaboration, starting with how they hadn’t “killed each other.” (They’re married 16 years.) Their novels are a collaborative effort; they divide them into chapters, each writes a few, then they hand them back and forth. Each has strengths and weaknesses; Susan is better at female characters (she rewrites and redevelops Clay’s scenes) and Clay at villains and politics (there is less romance in the second book). They haven’t written any solo stuff since they began collaborating. They began at Disney Comics; writing comics taught them editing, how to be concise, and writing visually (their scenes are very visual).
The audience of 40 included Richard Bowes, Chris Claremont, Keith DeCandido, Beth Fleisher, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Steven Gould, Kim Kindaya, Barbara Krasnoff, Ellen Kushner, proprietor John Ordover, Wrenn Simms, and Terence Taylor. After the ceremonial folding-up of the chairs, the readers, curators, and a number of audience members headed out into the night to feed… adjourning, as customary, to Milady’s, a nearby pub.
Photo of Clay Griffith, Susan Griffith, and Margot Adler by Mark Blackman.