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Suzy McKee Charnas
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The Vampire Tapestry Paperback – 18 Mar. 2025

by Suzy McKee Charnas (Author), Nicola Griffith (Introduction)
4.1 out of 5 stars 160 ratings

Tor Essentials presents new editions of science fiction and fantasy titles of proven merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate literary figure.

The Nebula Award-finalist reinvention of the vampire novel, described as a "masterpiece" by Guillermo del Toro.

Edward Weyland is far from your average vampire: not only is he a respected anthropology professor but his condition is biological -- rather than supernatural. He lives discrete lifetimes bounded by decades of hibernation and steals blood from labs rather than committing murder. Weyland is a monster who must form an uneasy empathy with his prey in order to survive, and The Vampire Tapestry is a story wholly unlike any you've heard before.

With a new introduction by Nicola Griffith, author of Spear.

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  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    18 Mar. 2025
  4. Dimensions
    13.46 x 1.83 x 20.83 cm
  5. ISBN-10
    1250343631
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1250343635
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Product description

Review

"The best vampire novel I've ever read." --Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn

"Among the genre's few modern classics." --The New York Times Book Review

"Devastatingly powerful.... Savage and intense and brilliantly satisfying.... rich and impressive.... a serious, startling, and revolutionary work." --The Washington Post

"Probably the best vampire novel ever written." --Oxford Times

"A consensus classic, so recognized when first published in 1980.... It's a fascinating conception, handled with masterly skill. Nothing better has been done in this, er, vein since Bram Stoker's legendary Dracula in 1897. And, as a pure piece of writing, Charnas' deeply intelligent, disturbing novel may actually be the superior book." --USA Today

About the Author

Suzy McKee Charnas (1939-2023) was the author of over a dozen works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, including the Holdfast series from Tor Books and the Sorcery Hall series of books for young adults. She was the winner of the Hugo Award (for her short story "Boobs"), the Nebula (for her novella Unicorn Tapestry) and won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award twice, once retrospectively for the first two Holdfast books and then for The Conqueror's Child, final volume of the Holdfast series. She adapted her novel, The Vampire Tapestry, for the stage in the late 1990s.

She was born and brought up in New York City, and lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico.



Nicola Griffith (she/her) is a dual UK/US citizen living in Seattle. She is the author of award-winning novels including Hild and Ammonite, and her shorter work has appeared in Nature, New Scientist, New York Times, etc. She is the founder and co-host of #CripLit, holds a PhD from Anglia Ruskin University, and enjoys a ferocious bout of wheelchair boxing. She is married to novelist and screenwriter Kelley Eskridge.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 18 Mar. 2025
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250343631
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250343635
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 263 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.46 x 1.83 x 20.83 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars 160 ratings

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Suzy McKee Charnas

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4.1 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Ellie
    5.0 out of 5 stars My favourite modern vampire novel
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 October 2020
    Format: Kindle Edition
    I saw that this had come onto kindle and just had to leave a review, as this is easily my favourite vampire novel, and one of my favourite thrillers. The handling of the vampire trope is unique and subtle, and the inhumanity of Weyland is communicated through his actions and interactions with the human characters, rather than through fangs and garlic. There's a wonderful mix of classic gothic romance and and modern grit in the handling of the vampire, and there's a definite sense of moral ambiguity. The action is bloody and shocking, and the moments of contemplation by Weyland and the other major characters are genuinely moving. I cannot recommend this novel enough!
    One person found this helpful
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  • Kindle Customer
    2.0 out of 5 stars A big let-down
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 January 2013
    Verified Purchase
    I have been meaning to read this novel for a long time since it is considered to be a modern vampire classic, but I must say I was profoundly disappointed and didn't even manage to finish it. It is simply long-winded and tedious, and in its efforts to present an up to date psychology(well, Eighties psycho-babble, anyway) of the vampire it loses any sense of atmosphere or narrative tension. Best avoided, in my view.
    One person found this helpful
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  • M. A. Ramos
    5.0 out of 5 stars A vampire walks among us
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 October 2007
    The Vampire Tapestry is the story of dream researcher and vampire Dr. Edward Weyland. This is a very unique vampire story. Unlike the horror stories we are use to, here we have a complicated creature without fangs or any of the other things we expect; but he still needs blood. The main character, the vampire, gets kidnapped and after escaping begins talking with a psychologist. He is not the stereotyped vampire at all and the author does not make him sad, pitiful, or sexual in any way. A very good read and something different. This type of vampire could actually exist...
    6 people found this helpful
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  • miriel@wanadoo.fr
    5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful monster becomes too human for his own sake...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 March 2000
    I love this book. I read it several times, and each time was the same delight. Suzy Mc Kee Charnas woves her tapestry with delicate hands and a deep insight into an inhuman mind. "the more I talk to you, the more real you become" says the vampire. Weyland his a beautiful and alien creature, and we see him changing, becoming more human than many humans. One of the most complex vampires that I know. (please forgive me, my english is not good, I'm a french reader)
    8 people found this helpful
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  • Reaper
    5.0 out of 5 stars Modern Blood: One of THE classic vampire novels
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 November 2014
    The biggest problem which novels that feature vampires face today is cultural overkill and the assumption of understanding that comes with it. As books, TV series and film have swamped us with rather unfrightening and silly vampires over the last fifteen years or so, our patience with this once seductive symbol has worn thin. For devotees of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction -unless they are young - this patience ran out a very, very long time ago.

    For me, the game was up by the mid 1990s at the latest. I'd read Stoker, leFanu, Polidori, Byron, Matheson and Rice as a teenager and I'd seen all the major (and many minor) feature films. By the time that Stephanie Meyer, Charlene Harris, Buffy, Hamilton and Smith came along, the subgenre had already been denigrated by teen movies like `The Lost Boys', interesting but deeply flawed films like `Near Dark' and the rising of new generations who had never seen `The Hunger' (easily the best modern vampire movie) or `Martin'. Despite her initial promise, Anne Rice's sequels to `Interview with the Vampire' grew more breathless and camp with each volume issued (which was a shame, as her initially dark, morose and despairing tone was overwhelmed with adolescent shrillness and ideas liberally borrowed from other modern vampire novelists which her fanbase assumed she had introduced to the subgenre). After a start as a cult novelist (`Interview' didn't sell massively internationally at first and spawned its first prequel some 8-9 years after it first appeared), Rice almost vanished into the realms of historical fiction and erotic fantasy, while her admitted rebooting of the vampire novel was soon recognised as the first flowering of a new wave of modern (not contemporary) vampire fiction. Chelsea Yarbro's `Hotel Transylvania' appeared in 1978, spawning 5 initial sequels before a hiatus of some years, whence she has produced another twenty since, Whitley Streiber's `The Hunger' was published in 1981, George R.R. Martin's `Fevre Dream' in 1983, Ray Garton's `Live Girls' a few years later. For the record, Rice's Egyptian borrowings in `Queen of the Damned' were preceded by these ideas appearing in Streiber and Yarbro's work, while Lestat's laughable "rock star" reappearance was preceded by S.P. Somtow's `Vampire Junction'.

    Then there is Suzy McKee Charnas, whose `The Vampire Tapestry' appeared in 1980, after some of its five parts appearing as short stories in magazines prior to the books' publication. `The Vampire Tapestry' is a science fiction novel, like Matheson's `I Am Legend' and Streiber's `The Hunger' (the physiognomy of Streiber's vampires is akin to Charnas' anti-hero Edward Weyland). Readers will also note that Edward is used as the name of Stephanie Meyer's key vampire in `Twilight'. The third part of the book, "The Unicorn Tapestry" won the Nebula Award for best novella in 1981. The Nebula is an award administered and voted by members of The Science Fiction Writers of America, all of whom are professional writers, so it has greater literary credibility than fan awards like the Hugo.

    `The Vampire Tapestry' is regarded as a modern classic of the subgenre. It is referenced and praised in all the key reference books on SF & Horror (the other reviewer here who seemed uncertain of the usage of the term `classic' regarding this book merely has to look at the review copy and comments from other authors such as Yarbro, Marge Piercy and Joanna Russ inside the current Tor edition - if she bought a new physical copy, this would have been the edition she bought- to see what notable newspapers, magazines and writers thought of the book). Having read all the vampire fiction I mention here -and a lot more- I can say this: it is a book that reawakened my interest in the over-tired trope of the vampire and that convinced me that if there is one book that adults interested in mainstream literature should read from the modern era that approaches the vampire, it is this one. There is nothing in it that is any more preposterous than any of the events or tone of `Dracula', in which is a deeply melodramatic book -don't get me wrong, I love it, but it owes its longevity to a successful early stage adaptations and a few memorable films starting with `Nosferatu' (1919).

    `The Vampire Tapestry' is often described as a "feminist" take on the vampire legend. This is arguable, but there is no doubt that Charnas' placing of prominent female characters in the opening segment - an Afrikaans widow and university campus cleaner who realises that the charismatic Professor Wayland is a vampire and a female psychoanalyst in "the Unicorn Tapestry" - adds weight to this reading. Charnas is noted for her feminist SF and the last UK edition of the book under review here was unhelpfully published by The Women's Press (I say `unhelpfully' because this series had dreadful, dull cover designs and because of an overemphasis on their `feminist' content they tended to put many male readers off - a pity as many of them were excellent). However, I feel this element of the work has been overstressed, as the main theme of the book is how a vampire would cope (or fail to cope) in a world where science and reason have become predominant and the danger of discovery is arguably greater than in the ages of superstition, when people actually believed in revenants.

    The book has a cold, flat tone at times, which I enjoyed, but this is enlivened by the characters and situations. Weyland is a predator, seeing human beings merely as cattle and he has no redeeming features in human terms as he isn't human - though he is fascinating. Initially imperilled by humans in the first two segments of the book, he rallies significantly in "The Unicorn Tapestry". The weakest segment is the fourth, which demands knowledge of opera to be fully appreciated (it is also the most pulpy and melodramatic section of the book and this particular tale seems to me to be below Charnas' usually high standard). The final segment is the most emotive and chilling and sad, as Weyland - whose purity and rapaciousness make him as strangely attractive as Lestat was in `Interview with the vampire' (this unambiguous nastiness was lost in later books) - realises there is only one way to evade certain discovery and death at the hands of humans.

    Overall, `The Vampire Tapestry' succeeds as a novel and as a startling modern classic of the subgenre because it is a tapestry - one can relish the interesting human characters, the novel situations and scrapes Weyland gets into (which reminded me of gritty urban vampire films such as `Martin' and `The Last Man on Earth' plus the TV pilot `Kolchak: The Night Stalker') and Charnas' subtle explorations of human psychology as it is affected by a predatory blood-drinker. Her description of Weyland himself in science fiction terms is also fascinating and mysterious and to my way of thinking laid the groundwork for Streiber's Miriam Blaylock, though this could be coincidence.

    For anyone who thinks they are tired of vampires, for anyone who seeks something intelligent in the genre, for anyone who has only read `Dracula', `The Vampire Tapestry' is indeed a modern classic. No reader of fantastic fiction or modern literature can consider themselves educated on the vampire as a symbol until they've at least read "The Unicorn Tapestry". If you loved the key works by Polidori, LeFanu, Stoker, Matheson, Rice, Yarbro and Streiber, you'll love this. If your only experience of "vampires" comes from `Twilight', Charlaine Harris, Buffy or `The Lost Boys', your true education begins here. For this reader, bored by bad rehashes of tired old lore, `The Vampire Tapestry' was a welcome taste of fresh blood that for him reinvigorated a subgenre that was dead on its feet.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • S. Smith
    2.0 out of 5 stars The Vampire Tapestry
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 December 2013
    Having just finished a real classic, ie. Bram Stokers Dracula, i found myself in front of a row of similar books in a well known book shop, where the shop assistant strongly recommended this as being a 'classic' (Mem. to look up the true meaning of this word).
    The story has a good opening hook and for the first 5 pages i was intrigued, however, what with the clunky sentences and utterly preposterous narrative, i soon found myself querying the merits of this book. By page 77 i had abandoned it.
    I liked the premise of it being a comtemporary story, but the writing on many occasions was poor, and her description of the main character, ie the vampire, should have been compelling. Unfortunately it was something akin to a Mills and Boon , with the vampire having a 'disdainful' look and 'having domination' over his listeners whilst giving a lecture.
    Essentially, if you are looking for a story with a believable set of characters, and with an interesting plot line, this is not the book for you.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Floblabla
    1.0 out of 5 stars Trop mou!
    Reviewed in France on 6 April 2010
    Verified Purchase
    Intrigue très molle, je n'ai pas du tout accroché et je n'ai même pas fini le livre.
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  • Paige
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very original.
    Reviewed in the United States on 27 January 2020
    Verified Purchase
    Spoiler alert.

    This is one of the best vampire novels I have ever read. I'm not a fan of the stereotypical Dracula, Nosferatu, or classic undead vampires, nor do I like cheesy vampires, vampire dramas or soap operas, or teen vampire dramas. I like vampire stuff that has it's own unique take on vampires, and this was a goldmine. A biological vampire who is the only one of his kind who lives alongside his prey with an uneasy empathy with those around him. He isn't undead or supernatural in any way. His condition is purely biological in nature. I didn't like the sexual scene in the book, but that's my preference. Otherwise I think it was a masterpiece, and a modern take on a unique type of vampire who drinks not with fangs, but his tongue. This is the kind of vampire stuff I was searching for for years. The book also explores the mental and physical differences between humans and this vampire, which is very fascinating, and also has some intriguing messages and themes mixed in as well. An excellent vampire novel.
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  • Artur Barretto Lins
    5.0 out of 5 stars Uma das melhores histórias de vampiro
    Reviewed in Brazil on 4 May 2023
    Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
    Seja pela pegada intimista, e não de dominação global; seja pela natureza da besta, digamos assim, e pelo contato e descoberta do humano, seja pela discussão filosófica sobre arte e necessidade de sociabilidade de uma criatura que, entre humanos, é predador da espécie. Vale demais a leitura.
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  • Mister C.
    3.0 out of 5 stars A Different Kind of Vampire, Through the Lens of A Monotonous Life
    Reviewed in the United States on 28 November 2017
    Verified Purchase
    The book is... okay. It wasn't an unpleasant read by any means. What it was, however, was slow-paced and drawn out, especially when it comes to dialogue and description. The dialogue, however, often does little to advance the plot. I would argue that you could skim until you came across a paragraph that moves the scene forward and miss little. The Vampire Tapestry is a slice-of-life drama about a different kind of Vampire, the normal and well-adjusted kind. This isn't an epic clash of good versus evil, nor is it a dark and mysterious vampire noire. It's neither dark nor scary, rather, it's a sort of morality play pertaining to issues of social justice. I feel like that's why the author spend so much time on characterization and dialogue, but that extra description came at the expense of pacing and plot. All in all, I'd recommend it if you want something to pick apart and read analytically, but not if you're looking for something thrilling.
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  • Michael Greenwell
    3.0 out of 5 stars The unexpected versatility of vampirism as a metaphor
    Reviewed in Canada on 13 February 2017
    Verified Purchase
    I was delighted by Weyland's acerbic internal monologue, and its carefully established distance, the slow unravelling of which is the journey that we're taking. Charnas manages to hit some unique notes in this tale of vampire as carefully constructed academic, with its own flavour of inhumanity, and its peculiar relation to humanity, the result of which is a particularly incisive reinvention of vampire as outsider.
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