"T. K. F. Weisskopf & Greg Cox Ed. - Tomorrow Sucks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weisskopf T.K.F)

It wasn't until the 1950s, though, that scientific vampires really came into their
own. In the wake of Hiroshima and Sputnik, science fiction spread like fall-out over
the haunted castles and crypts of the Gothic tradition. On the silver screen,
radioactive mutants and Things from Outer Space suddenly outnumbered ghosts,
werewolves, and undead. But what might have seemed like a bad time for
bloodsuckers proved instead a rebirth.
Forget curses, spells, and pacts with the Devil. Suddenly vampirism could be the
result of bacteria, genetics, mental illness, parallel evolution, atomic mutation,
robotics, or even an invasion from another planet. Anything was possible, and all the
old rules were suddenly subject to change. Even traditional, supernatural vampires
suddenly found themselves confronted with such unusual situations as time travel,
space travel, and planets with two or more suns. Somehow, Dorothy, they weren't in
Transylvania anymoreтАж
After years of stodgy cliches, vampire fiction received a rejuvenating jolt of fresh
blood. The new wave of scientific nosferatu included such instant classics as
Richard Matheson's I am Legend (1954), Theodore Sturgeon's Some of Your Blood
(1961), and, in a lighter vein, "Blood" (1955) by Fredric Brown, about an
old-fashioned vamp's ill-fated attempt to drain blood from a sentient turnip.
Perhaps most significantly, vampires didn't have to be evil anymore. No longer a
creature of hell by definition, vampires could be villains, victims, or even heroes.
Science draws no moral distinctions, and what used to be an unnatural plague of
darkness could now be treated as merely a handicap, an alternative lifestyle, or
possibly the next stage in human evolution. Vampire stories became a lot more
complicatedтАж and interesting.
 Which doesn't mean, of course, that a scientific vampire couldn't be twice as
scary as its supernatural brethren. If the old rules no longer applied, neither did the
traditional defenses. And an entire species of non-human bloodsuckers, be they
earthly or alien, might have less sympathy for mere homo sapiens than even the
resurrected corpse of Vlad the Impaler.
In time, after the scientific vampire boom of the '50s, the children of Dracula
eventually staged a comeback of sorts. Hammer Films beget a new generation of
Gothic thrillers, while writers like Anne Rice and Stephen King found new ways to
open the old graves. But vampirism would never be the same; the virus had escaped
from the test tube, and a new, vital and sometimes virulent strain has entered the
collective bloodstream of the genre, spawning memorable works like Suzy McKee
Charnas's The Vampire Tapestry (1980), Whitley Strieber's The Hunger (1981),
George R. R. Martin's Fevre Dream (1982), and continuing to mutate with each new
novel, movie, short story, and comic book.
So throw away that crucifix. Pour your holy water down the drain. There's a new
breed of vampire stalking your future, starting only a few pages away, and neither
science nor sorcery can protect you from their unquenchable thirst.


Ray Bradbury is, of course, one of the best known sf authors in the world.
"Pillar of Fire," originally published in 1948, is a chilling elegy for yesterday's
monstersтАФand a case study in what can happen when science confronts the
undead. Bradbury has written at least two other stories, "Usher II" and "The
Exiles," set in the same (or similar) future.