The Space Vampires was published by Hart-Davis, MacGibbon in 1976. A British-American space mission discovers a vast alien spacecraft hidden in the coma of Halley’s Comet. Inside are thirty humanoid beings in a state of suspended animation. Three of them — two males and one female — are brought to Earth, where they awaken and begin draining the life-energy of everyone they encounter, leaving their victims in a catatonic state that gradually proves contagious.
The novel is Wilson’s most commercially successful fiction, largely because of Tobe Hooper’s 1985 film adaptation, Lifeforce, starring Mathilda May, Steve Railsback, and Patrick Stewart. The film emphasized the horror and science fiction elements; the novel, characteristically, is more interested in the philosophy. Wilson’s vampires feed not on blood but on consciousness — specifically, on the life-energy that human beings waste through chronic low-intensity living. The vampiric exchange is presented as a distorted version of the energy exchange that occurs in sexual attraction: one partner gains vitality, the other loses it.
Commander Doyle Dowd and his investigators discover that the vampires have been visiting Earth periodically for millennia, and that legends of vampirism, succubi, and incubi reflect genuine encounters with these beings. Wilson uses this premise to explore his standard themes — the waste of human potential, the relationship between sexuality and consciousness, and the possibility of deliberately raising one’s level of psychic energy.
Collecting The Space Vampires
First edition (Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, London, 1976): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $100–$300
- Very good/very good: $40–$100
- First American edition (Random House): $30–$80