Fledgling

by Octavia Butler

Seven Stories Press, New York 2005, Hardback 317 Pages $19.96

Vampires are not what we thought. There are no Undead. Vampires are not parasitic. They are symbiotic. They are a separate race which has coexisted with mankind through its entire history. Some vampires believe they came here from another planet as suggested in their 10,000 year-old holy book. Others believe they evolved on Earth in parallel with mankind. Whatever the truth of this, vampires and their symbionts live among us today as they always have. Their symbionts live far longer than unaffiliated humans.

In the Pacific Northwest one young vampire Chori, our Fledgling, awakes alone in a cave, blind and badly burned with a severe head injury. She remembers nothing of who she is. She suffers terrible agony. After a while a creature of some sort enters the cavern. She seizes it, drinks her fill in blind hunger and consumes some of its flesh. She then begins a rapid regeneration and largely recovers over several days. Her memory, however, is lost forever. She leaves the cave one night and finds nearby a burned settlement comprised of a number of dwellings. There are no bodies, only ashes.

She salvages clothing and finds shelter with a construction worker in a nearby community. He becomes her first symbiont. Returning to the site she meets her father who has come to investigate what happened to Chori and the Matrilineal group she lived with. It is decided that Chori is to go to her father’s home the following Friday. Friday comes and her Father does not come to get her. Investigation shows that her father’s group has also been destroyed, burned just as her mother’s. She has to regroup. With the help of her friend and two surviving symbionts from her Father’s settlement, Chori sets out for California and the only settlement the surviving symbionts know about. Somehow she must discover what happened. Who is killing vampires? Is it humans? Other vampires?

Octavia Butler has done it again. As in The Parable of the Sower she uses simple narrative to build a compelling and believable tale of courage and determination. – Gary Swaty