On the evening (or “eve-n-ing,” as Lugosi’s Dracula would say) of Tuesday, 1 October 2013, in an early nod to Hallowe’en and all things scary that go bump in the night, in what has become an annual event, the New York Review of Science Fiction Readings Series again presented a vampire-themed program or, as executive curator Jim Freund described it, “a reading with teeth!” Featuring authors Terence Taylor and Kate Locke, and guest-hosted, as traditional, by Margot Adler, the event was held at the Series’ current venue, the SoHo Gallery for Digital Art on Sullivan Street. Photos of the readers, as well as of Adler, and covers of their books, were displayed on the screens around the SGDA’s hall that give the Gallery its name. (That an evening of readings about bloodsuckers was scheduled while a New York City primary election run-off was going on was pure coincidence.)
Freund, also host of WBAI-FM’s Hour of the Wolf radio program on sf and fantasy (now broadcasting and streaming every Thursday morning (or, for those who haven’t yet gone to bed, Wednesday night) from 1:30 to 3:00 am on WBAI, 99.5 FM, welcomed the audience and, to the extent possible, announced upcoming readings. These include a possible special second October reading sometime later this month, the next regular reading date of 5 November (which is both Election Day and Guy Fawkes Day). December’s event, as traditional, Family Night and featuring Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman, promises to be very special. Jim concluded by introducing the originator of and his predecessor as host of Hour of the Wolf, and the evening’s guest-curator, Margot Adler.
“Do you believe in vampires[?]”
–promotional button and website (doyoubelieveinvampires.com) for Terence Taylor’s “The Vampire Testaments”
Adler is perhaps best known as a correspondent for National Public Radio, and an authority on Wicca and Goddess worship. Sparked by both a need for escapism and musings on mortality related to her husband’s death, a fascination with the world and subculture of vampire fiction and lore led her obsessively to read, over the course of three and a half years, a mind-boggling (and blood-curdling) 270 or so books in that subgenre. (She was less obsessive about vampire films and tv series.) The result of her immersion is the recently released Kindle Single Out For Blood, an expanded edition of which is due out from Weiser Books early next year under the title Vampires Are Us. (For further details, Margot’s new website is located at MargotAdler.com.) She noted that, as it happens, both of the evening’s readers’ vampire novels were alternate history, a favorite combination of hers.
The opening reader, Kate Locke, in flowing hot pink hair (Xandra Vardan, her heroine, though, is a redhead) and what she described as a “granny quilt” outfit, was unable to read due to illness, so, after brief remarks in a cracking voice, turned the actual reading over to a member of her posse. The premise of her The Immortal Empire series is that the Victorian Era never ended, and Her Sanguine Majesty, a vampire, is still on the throne in the present day. The English aristocracy is similarly undead, possessing the plague-borne Prometheus protein gene, a mutation of the Black Death, which manifests as well to produce werewolves and goblins (not to mention movie stars). (Locke’s past stint as a Gothic romance writer was useful in filling in the world’s background.) In the selection chosen, from God Save the Queen (the first volume in the series; the second is The Queen Is Dead, and the third, Long Live the Queen, will be published in November), the protagonist, Xandra, the daughter of a vampiric duke and a breeding courtesan, searching for her missing sister, has descended into the ruins of the London Underground, braving the netherworld of the goblins to seek information. The audience was rapt.
(A variation of Locke’s premise appears, incidentally, in Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula, in which the titular Count, who has survived the events of Bram Stoker’s novel, has married the widowed Queen Victoria and rules autocratically as Prince Consort, even as he spreads the curse of the undead.)
After the intermission, and following a raffle for copies of Locke’s and Taylor’s books, Adler returned to the podium (such as it was) to treat the gathering to a reading from Out For Blood, considering why, as she put it, vampires have such traction and popularity in our society, and their connection to issues of power, identity, morality and the fate of the planet. The fascination is not just about mortality, and is more than about sex. Vampires are about power (yes, sex, but also political power), its use and abuse. Now that one is a vampire, does being a predator at the top of the food chain mean that one can do what he or she wants, or is one horrified at the idea of treating humans as cattle? Anne Rice, she said, fleshed out the morally conflicted vampire, a common thread running from Barnabas Collins to Nick Knight, Angel, Stefan Salvatore and Edward Cullen, et al. This approach is especially appealing to teenagers, she continued, who feel powerless against parents and cultural pressures. (50 Shades of Grey, she noted, began as Twilight fan-fiction.) Every age, she conveyed, embraces the vampire it needs – Dracula reflected the fear of foreign disease coming into English ports (what we’d call “globalization”); in the ’80s, with AIDS’ advent, vampirism was depicted as an infection. Today’s vampires are guilt-ridden and conflicted, suggested Adler, perhaps tied to our environmental awareness – we are vampires about oil, natural resources, etc. (Her revised title, of course, relates not to Toys R Us, but is akin to Pogo’s “We have met the enemy and he is us.”)
“Children of the night, shut up!”
–-Love at First Bite
Terence Taylor, a familiar face at NYRSF readings, and the final speaker of the evening, is an award-winning children’s television writer who, he has joked, “after a career of comforting young kids, [is] now equally dedicated to scaring their parents.” His offering came from the draft of Chapter 1 of Past Life, the conclusion of his opening trilogy “The Vampire Testaments.” The first, Bite Marks, set in 1987, focused on an infant vampire (how young could one make a vampire? he had wondered), and the second, Blood Pressure, centering around a power struggle, takes place two decades later. Accordingly, Past Life will be set in 2027-28, where, not unlike what we’re going through now, he said, powerful forces are at work behind the scenes. (Terence has filled “holes in history” with vampires – Jack the Ripper, the Hindenburg.) Echoing Adler, his vampires must decide how to use their astonishing power, or even if. The mad vampire Tom O’Bedlam has essentially, covertly taken over the world, enthralling key world leaders in a scheme to really mess up things. In the excerpt presented, one of Tom’s agents stages a terrorist germ attack in LA, intended to provide the President with an excuse to declare martial law and cancel the Election. Ultimately, Taylor will bring together characters from this and the previous volumes for a final confrontation with Tom.
Refreshments (non-sanguinary) were provided and the traditional Jenna Felice Freebie Table of books and magazines returned. The audience of about 35 included Richard Bowes, Harold Garber, Kim Kindya, Barbara Krasnoff, John Kwok, Lissanne Lake, Gordon Linzner, Robert Rodriquez and Alex Whitaker. The ritual folding-up of the chairs got a new wrinkle, as they now had to be trooped down to the crypt, er, basement. Afterward, the guests and audience members were invited to adjourn, as customary, to Milady’s, a nearby pub, to feed.