Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

So I finished my first non-YA book. Somehow, when I picked up Fledgling, I didn't expect a vampire novel. I'm not sure why it surprised me, after all Butler's done aliens and time travel so vampires fit right in.

Generally there are two camps with vampire books. 1: vampires are evil festering undead and the stuff of nightmares. 2: vampires are sparkly and sexy. In either case, what makes a vampire a vampire is something mystical or magical. Fledgling took a different approach. Butler's vampires are explained as a separate and symbiotic species to humans. There is a sexual component to them but they are far more alien than human, so they end up somewhere between the two camps.

The book opens when Shori wakes up in a cave in incredible pain and without any memory of who or what she is. At first she simply tries to heal and survive. Soon though she begins looking for people and crosses paths with Wright and binds him to her without really meaning to. It soon becomes apparent what she is, and despite looking about 11, she's actually 53 years old.

The rest of the book is a slow discovery of what Shori is and what has happened to her. In many ways, aside from the whole vampire thing, this is just a really well written mystery.

I have to admit that I found the sexual aspects somewhat off putting. It reminded me very much of my experience of the Xenogenesis trilogy. I don't tend to think of myself as being a prude, but there is something kind of creepy about a being who looks to be a bout 10 years old having intimate relations with adult humans even if she is, in fact, over twice the age of the humans in question. I got used to it quickly and Butler did a good job of creating an alternate sense of normal, but still. . . disturbing.

Excellent book, but obviously it's not one I can recommend to my students as a general rule. Everyone else should read it though.