Vampires from Another World

Book excerpt: This book begins at the intersection of Dracula and War of the Worlds, both published in 1897 London, and describes the settings of Transylvania, Mars, and London as worlds linked by the body of the vampire. It explores the "vampire from another world" in all its various forms, as a manifestation of not just our anxieties around alien others, but also our alien selves. Unsurprisingly, many of the tropes these novels generated and particularly the themes they have in common have been used and adapted by vampire narratives that followed. From Nosferatu to Alien, Interstellar, Stranger Things, and many others, this book examines how these narratives have evolved since the end of the nineteenth century. Bringing together texts and films from across the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, from the far reaches of outer space and the distant future, it concludes that the unexpected and the unknown are not always to be feared, and that humanity does have the power to write its own future.