Customer Reviews

Shadows After Dark

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Shadows After Dark is the story of women living in two different dimensions, on two different planets, whose lives cross and make connections. Kyril comes to Earth to discover what the strange illness is that killed her lover on her home planet. She is sure that it is something that was brought back from a previous visit. She has also been infatuated with a woman she met on a previous trip, Kathryn, who is searching for a soul mate and has been fixated on Kyril for two years after a brief meeting in a lesbian bar. What Kyril will quickly discover is that her deceased mate contracted AIDS. This is a special threat to Kyril's homeworld since all of the people there are vampires. It turns out that her people have been crossing the dimensional time line to live on Earth, and yes, occasionally feed off of its people, for centuries. Kathryn ironically is an AIDS researcher who is trying to find the cause and cure of this epidemic on her own planet. The book is about how these two join forces, become lovers and try to overcome some significant cultural differences to be with each other. It's an interesting book, but not one for those who are looking for creatures of the night who are running around draining humans and sleeping in coffins during the day. It's sort of a blend of scifi, vampirism, lesbian romance, coming together of different cultures and social awareness lecture all in one book. It's a good first novel for Crozier and the ending is open ended enough that, if she wants to, she could pick up this pair in a later book.

In this fantasy/romance, Oida Crozier has written a story that turns upside down (or inside out) the legend of the vampire. Kyril, a beautiful bloodsucker, comes to Earth from another dimension to renew acquiantance with human Kathryn and to do research on AIDS, which threatens her world as well as ours. This story gives Crozier a chance to compare Earth culture with the much older and more sophisticated culture of the vampire world and, for the most part, to find Earth culture wanting. The ethical problem of one race of people preying on another is alluded to but not resolved. This book requires a sequel.

An original and creative story. Kyril is a researcher from another planet who travels to Earth through a dimensional portal located in Transylvania. Her mission is to discover the cause, and cure, for a mysterious disease that infects her people after some of them come to Earth to feed on the blood of humans. This disease is AIDS. She seeks out one of Earth's top AIDS researcher, Dr. Kathryn Hartell. The two had met a couple of years before in a lesbian bar and Kathryn never forgot Kyril. Kathryn offers to help Kyril's people. The AIDS portion is a bit outdated as this book was written in 1993. Both protagonists were interesting and had depth. The story was solid. I enjoyed the world building and creating a different culture and race. The location of the portal, in Transylvania through which Kyril's people travel, would explain why we associate that country with vampires. No stereotypical coffins, elongated fangs, or turning to dust in the daylight. Cover art was attractive and matched the descriptions of the protagonists. The dog was a nice addition to the story.