While I wait for research material to be accumulated, I thought it would be a good opportunity to explore some of the more philosophical aspects of this project as it will allow me to hone in on what my overall goal with this project is. And that leads to a general meditation on what the hell a science fiction vampire even is, and why study them in the first place? As is always the case in my research, I am left with arguing semantical denotations of things in order to properly create my scope of work. I suppose it is a natural part of my process now.

I have already gone at length on the definition of vampires in my other posts, so I do not feel the need to look into that aspect here. No, instead I believe that it is far more important to focus on the adjective of “science fiction” to really justify this upcoming project. Through my initial scan of academia’s understanding of science fiction, it’s clear that science fiction is easier seen than described. We can see the space ships and time travel but those are just the extreme syntactic aspects of the genre. Rather, I want to focus on what science fiction hopes to explore as a genre and how science fiction vampires fit into that idea.

A working definition is better than none, so I will posit that the scientific vampire is a type of Jungian Shadow that maintains a wary attitude towards discovery and innovation, specifically in the vain attempt by scientists to cheat the natural order. This definition comes from a fusion of my understanding of vampires and science fiction as well as looking at the vampire fiction that I have seen. And I believe that hematology -the study of blood- is one of the key components of the science fiction aspect. Typically science fiction deviates from the real in it’s technology to some degree; and even the hard science fiction is working on some level of speculation on theories and technologies that exist in the real world. So for a vampire story to be science fiction, it has to deal with some advancement in hematology that either creates the vampire or justifies it’s existence. There is also the more fantastical science fiction in vampires which exists in the extraterrestrial. This subset focus less on the hematology and more so on the tropes of exploration and discovery, but with the vampiric twist. And we can not fail to mention the ever present disease motif that comes inherently with vampirism. Pestilence is the origin of vampires, and as we have secularised and dealt with pathogens, this in effect makes the vampire something that does not cower from the cross and holy water, but the needle and the centrifuge. We do get rational explanations for vampire weaknesses of the past, such as garlic being a natural anti-toxicant and thus becomes a sort of medicine against the vampire which is fun as a unique spin on the classic tropes; but we also see a doing away or even mockery of the occultic solutions as silly superstition in more cynical terms.

This is all under the guideline of the western vampire tradition, and should not be applied to indigenous or eastern vampires until proven as a contrete and universal model (my prediction will be that there will obviously be exceptions). But as a philosophical investigation into science fiction vampires, it is a good enough start to provide a framework for my readings, and I look forward to seeing if this stays true as a model or if it changes into something new.