sf/f TV development news - 2013

[Jeff O'Connor]

SGA had the Wraith, lawl.

[Christopher]

Vampires in space would be tough to pull off, because everywhere in interplanetary space is sunlit except for the umbrae of planets and moons. Maybe vamps could travel through space so long as they stayed in windowless compartments or in their coffins, but they'd have to spend most of their time on the dark sides of planets or moons. And even that's problematical. Any habitat on Luna would spend two whole weeks in daylight, followed by two weeks of darkness. (Though that tradeoff might be worth it. Isn't there a vampire story called 30 Days of Night that does something similar with the Arctic Circle?)

And what about werewolves? What would happen if, say, a werewolf were in orbit of the Moon and perceived it full once every 30 minutes or so? What if a werewolf were on the Lunar dayside? And would, say, the moons of Jupiter have the same effect, or is it uniquely Earth's Moon?

[Greg Cox]

Vampires in space is an old idea. There's "Shambleau" by C.L. Moore, the movie Lifeforce, Bava's Planet of the Vampires, Queen of Blood, etc. Heck, even Vampirella is from the planet Drakulon!

Adding a sexy, angsty vampire (or vampire-type alien) to a space opera is not a bad idea . . ..

[Christopher]

True... and, granted, the idea about vampires being unable to survive sunlight is not an intrinsic part of vampire lore, but an invention of the silent film Nosferatu.

But I'm just generally sick of vampires and don't want to see them taking over my beloved space opera.

[Sindatur]

And then of course there was The Tom Baker Doctor Who Story State of Decay with the Vampires, which was followed up on in the Anniversary Special Audio Play Zagreus and also in the Gallifrey Adventures Audio Plays S4

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

And there was the salt vampire in Star Trek's "The Man Trap".

[Greg Cox]

Heck, my Voyager novel, The Black Shore, is basically a vampire novel with the serial numbers filed off. The scene where B'Elanna drives a stake through an alien's heart is kind of a giveaway!

[stj]

Borg aren't zombies, because the sexy moments are when the tubules go in. Direct visual analogue to biting. The zombie imagery with the Borg is pretty close to the real Haitian zombi mythology, shuffling resurrected slaves. Very little of the modern zombies iconology has to do with that. The coincidence in names merely occasionally confuses, as in thinking the Borg are zombies. The Borg started as "technology" run amok, manifesting a very old Trek theme of technology as metaphor for the repression imposed by society.

Modern zombies in another time would have been called "ghouls." Not so long ago, either. Stephen King in his book on horror stories cited the Big Five in horror as the Vampire, the Werewolf, the Witch, the Ghost and the Ghoul, if I remember correctly. The ghoul/zombie is more or less the embodiment of fear of the lower orders, the mindless masses who want to take everything we have (eat us.)

Mnd control horror stories and dystopias are the real equivalent of the Haitian zombi. As for vampires in space, it's been done by Neal Asher in some tiresome book I couldn't finish and forgot the name of. Some gibberish about vampires as another species. The vamp of course was the captain of the spaceship. Then they meet something even worse.

[Greg Cox]

I believe A. E. Van Vogt did it as well, although I'm too lazy to look up the story.

And it suddenly dawns on me that I have neglected to plug my anthology, Tomorrow Sucks (now on sale at B&N), which consists of nothing but sf vampire stories . . . .

[Temis the Vorta]

Yeah the time is right for some heavily disguised space vampire story. It doesn't need elements like drinking blood or worrying about sunburn, but should focus on the core stuff that makes them popular. They're sexy, they're dangerous, they're angsty, they're powerful, they're the eternally fascinating inhuman Other. Use those elements and build something from scratch. I still like the cyborg angle, but without the mindlessness of the Borg.

[Kegg]

Christopher wrote:

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True... and, granted, the idea about vampires being unable to survive sunlight is not an intrinsic part of vampire lore, but an invention of the silent film Nosferatu.

And intrinsic vampire lore would be... what, exactly? Because Nosferatu is as influential a vampire movie as they come (and the 'die with sunlight' idea is only the most obvious example).

Unless you're talking about mythological vampires, which aren't quite the same thing as the bloodsuckers of Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker's books.

[Greg Cox]

Kegg wrote:

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And intrinsic vampire lore would be... what, exactly? Because Nosferatu is as influential a vampire movie as they come (and the 'die with sunlight' idea is only the most obvious example).

Unless you're talking about mythological vampires, which aren't quite the same thing as the bloodsuckers of Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker's books.

Well, every vampire series tweaks the rules to fit their own purposes. Buffy vampires aren't exactly the same as Anne Rice vampires, which play by different rules than Underworld vampires and Blade vampires and Being Human vampires and True Blood vampires, etc.

The "lore" has never been locked in stone. Even Le Fanu and Stoker aren't consistent with each other, or the various movie versions.

Heck, the Hammer films aren't even consistent with each other!

[Kegg]

^
Kind of my point, Cox, how vampires are depicted is obviously pretty fluid and depends on the author. Still I don't get someone insisting that something from Nosferatu is somehow less intrinsic to the vampire idea, because if we restrict the idea to folklore that feels reductive when discussing vampires in fiction, and if the line is drawn past one of the most famous and influential vampire movies ever made, where the heck does one put the line?

[Christopher]

Kegg wrote:

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And intrinsic vampire lore would be... what, exactly? Because Nosferatu is as influential a vampire movie as they come (and the 'die with sunlight' idea is only the most obvious example).

But vampire lore is centuries older than motion pictures. And the foundational work of all modern vampire fiction is Bram Stoker's Dracula, which predates Nosferatu by a quarter century (after all, Nosferatu was an unauthorized adaptation of the book with the names changed to avoid a lawsuit). And Stoker's Count Dracula is able to walk around in daylight without burning up or disintegrating or whatever. He just prefers the darkness.

"Intrinsic" means essential, part of the fundamental nature of a thing. If it were intrinsic, then it would be impossible to tell a vampire story without it. But Stoker told his vampire story -- the vampire story -- without it, and so have others (including, let's face it, Stephenie Meyer). Thus it is optional, not intrinsic.

[Kegg]

Christopher wrote:

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But vampire lore is centuries older than motion pictures.

Which I explicitly stated, twice. The point being that restricting instrinic properties of vampires in fiction to folklore is pretty limiting.

Of course you don't mean vampire works that are centuries older than motion pictures. Or even a decade older than motion pictures (though a couple decades older than Nosferatu), you basically just mean Bram Stoker's Dracula, apparently. And also:

"Intrinsic" means essential, part of the fundamental nature of a thing. If it were intrinsic, then it would be impossible to tell a vampire story without it.

Then the only intrinsic part of the vampire idea is that they're called vampires (if that). They don't need to suck blood, be undead, have the ability to change into wolves or climb walls (to cite Bram Stoker), they just need to be identified as vampires.

...otherwise they're just beings similar to vampires (like the 'salt vampire' in "The Man Trap") or basically vampires given a different name.

And while this is basically true - a writer can use a word of an unreal thing, like a vampire or an ogre or whatever, to mean whatever he wants it to mean in the context of his story - it's not that helpful in defining what we usually mean when we talk about vampires, and what we may expect from a vampire story.