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also discover the potential for energy vampirism—and more generalised voluntary energy transfer—that exists in all humans, and the parallels between vampirism, criminality, and sexual fetishisation. At last
Carlsen tracks down the vampires in London, their leader having possessed the body of the Prime Minister; but their confrontation is averted when representatives from the Nioth-Korghai, the vampires' original race, appear and offer the vampires (the Ubbo-Sathla, as they call themselves) the chance to regain their original nature as higher-dimension energy-beings. The vampires accept joyfully, but destroy themselves upon regaining the ability to see themselves for what they had become.
197:. Wilson mentioned Lovecraft's influence and said that "Lovecraft's favorite idea of incubi who can steal a human body, expelling its rightful owner" was central to the story. Other Lovecraftian elements noted by Carol Margaret Davison include "an ancient race of creatures who inhabited Earth long before the human race and who lurk out of sight, usually in dark nasty corners, plotting to reclaim it." Lovecraft's stories with similar themes include "
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Carlsen joins forces with Dr. Hans
Fallada, a scientist researching energy vampirism and longevity, to find the escaped vampire and recapture her. In the course of their investigations they discover that the aliens can transfer from one body to another, and that the other two have also escaped; they
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is given a much more prominent place, and the story's vampirism is more evocative of traditional vampire legends in its details, most specifically in how the vampires can be killed (a leaded iron shaft through the "energy centre two inches below the heart", a possible allusion to
Eastern-mysticism
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An epilogue, set nearly a century later, reveals that
Carlsen has used the techniques of benevolent energy transference he learned via his encounters with the vampires to live an extraordinarily long life, and possibly (it is implied) to have achieved a kind of transcendence upon his death.
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Returning to Earth with the preserved humanoids, Carlsen discovers the true nature of the beings when one of them kills a young reporter (and the son of a friend of
Carlsen) whom Carlsen illicitly allowed to view the body. The woman kills her victim by completely draining his life-force (a
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commanded by
Captain Olof Carlsen. Investigating the spacecraft's interior, the astronauts first discover the desiccated corpses of giant bat-like creatures, then three glass coffins containing three immobilised humanoids—two male and one female—preserved in a state of
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quantifiable energy measured by devices called "lambda-field scanners") and when
Carlsen attempts to intervene, partially draining him of energy as well. Carlsen survives, but is unable to prevent the woman from escaping from the hospital.
173:. Though the aliens initially appear to be humanoid bat-like creatures, they are subsequently shown to be squidlike, then ultimately revealed to be insubstantial energy-beings from a higher dimension. The novel's
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as a plot element), and the character of
Carlsen (an American colonel named Tom) is much weaker, with a more obsessive relationship to the female vampire. The character of Colonel Caine of the
169:, rather than the familiar undead bloodsucking revenants from Earth folklore. They consume the "life force" by seducing living beings with a deadly kiss and also have the ability to
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The novel was mildly successful and was translated into many languages including
Spanish, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Dutch and Swedish. In 1985 it was adapted into a film,
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to be so
Lovecraftian that authors such as Daniel Harms and John Wisdom Gonce have classed it as actually being a part of the Cthulhu Mythos. Rosemary Guiley describes
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316:) and in the process by which vampire victims become vampires themselves, a much deadlier and more prolific contagion in the film.
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is Captain Olof Carlsen, the commanding officer of the space exploration vehicle that discovered the vampires' spacecraft.
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Bram Stoker's Dracula: Sucking Through the Century, 1897-1997 edited by Carol Margaret Davison, pg. 227
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The film differs in many respects from the novel; it is set in the modern day (using the 1986 flyby of
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to accompany the film's original theatrical release, under the same title as its movie counterpart.
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called it a "new slant on horror...unique rendering of the age-old enigma of the kiss of death."
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The entire premise and shape of the story is heavily indebted to, and influenced by, the work of
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Around the Outsider: Essays presented to Colin Wilson on the occasion of his 80th birthday
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in 1976. Wilson's fifty-first book, it is about the remnants of a race of intergalactic
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who are brought back from outer space and are inadvertently let loose on Earth.
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The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters
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The Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind Lovecraft's Legend
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regarded the novel as "Thoroughly intriguing", while the
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take control of the willing host bodies of their victims
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In the late twenty-first century, far out in a nearby
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221:as being "inspired" by the Cthulhu Mythos.
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388:are taken from the works of horror writer
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642:Science fiction novels adapted into films
344:By Daniel Harms, John Wisdom Gonce pg. 49
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278:Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
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617:British novels adapted into films
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211:The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
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592:Novels set in the 21st century
528:The Mammoth Book of True Crime
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602:Science fiction horror novels
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165:The titular space aliens are
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535:From Atlantis to the Sphinx
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356:by Rosemary Guiley, pg. 9
207:The Whisperer in Darkness
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612:Novels by Colin Wilson
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632:Cthulhu Mythos novels
652:Novels set in London
582:1976 British novels
240:suspended animation
199:The Call of Cthulhu
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22:The Space Vampires
647:Random House books
482:The Space Vampires
461:The Mind Parasites
390:Clark Ashton Smith
219:The Space Vampires
215:The Space Vampires
213:". Some consider
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140:The Space Vampires
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506:Non-fiction
386:Ubbo-Sathla
294:Tobe Hooper
175:protagonist
576:Categories
521:The Occult
475:The Killer
380:The names
320:References
53:Paul Bacon
560:Lifeforce
496:The Delta
489:The Tower
289:Lifeforce
258:Reception
183:Lifeforce
110:Hardcover
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209:", and "
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160:vampires
59:Language
314:chakras
235:Hermes,
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67:Genre
384:and
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92:1976
309:SAS
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373:^
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