The Vampire Tapestry

The Vampire Tapestry by award-winning science fiction and fantasy legend Suzy Mckee Charnas turns 45 years old in 2025. Just as the title suggests, Charnas’s novel is an intricately woven story that follows Dr. Edward Weyland, an anthropology professor, and a vampire. Charnas does not stick with the most common vampire tropes. Her vampire is more biological than supernatural. Weyland’s dependency on blood is one of the few similarities to most vampire myths. But this book is less about a monster and more about how human nature reacts when confronted by something or someone who does not fit what everyone else expects.

Half of the brilliance of this novel is Charnas’s redefined vampire myth. The other half is how Charnas constructed her tapestry. Her book was written in five parts. Each Chapter can be read as a stand-alone short story with its own characters and plot. But when put together, we learn a little more about Charnas’s vampire. The fifth Chapter neatly ties in the previous tales. It brings everything to an exciting conclusion. The Vampire Tapestry is a timeless classic that remains as relevant today as it was when it was published in 1980.