Predating the Predators (short story)

An aged Professor Summerfield is forced to confront the equally bloody past of a fellow attendee at the predictably ill-fated First Interdisciplinary Conference on Vampirology.

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Lloyd mentions the Mim.
Yesodi come from Kether.
The Blood Citadel of Alukah has architecture with similarities to "everything from Osirian to Dæmonic".

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Imogen and her sister Marina take their names from Shakespeare's plays Cymbeline and Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Imogen's later title Beatrix II comes from Much Ado About Nothing. The walking tree in Burnum Plaza is a reference to Birnam Wood in Macbeth.
The starship Serene Diameter takes its name from the ships used by the eponymous count in the novel Dracula: the Demeter and the Czarina Catherine. The name Meinir Doihara also echoes "Mina Harker", the married name of Jonathan Harker's fiancée Mina Murray from the same novel.
The planet Murigen is named after the Celtic goddess Morrigan, and its three suns Nemhain, Fea, and Macha are the aspects of Morrigan from Celtic myth. Similarly, Lugh is Cuchulainn's sun, despite Cuchulainn being Lugh's son in myth.
The aquatic Lavellan species is named for the la-mhalan of Scottish folklore.
The "Lithian question" is a reference to James Blish’s 1958 novel A Case of Conscience, which also features a Jesuit encountering a secular alien race.
Luke Duke's name comes from the Father Ted episode "A Christmassy Ted".
The word "alukah", meaning a vampiric shapeshifter, comes from the Book of Proverbs, though it's sometimes translated as "horse leech". "Ekimmu" comes from Sumerian mythology.