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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

Watts did a whole academic presentation on the science of vampirism in the book's context. It's a fun watch and makes it feel much less random. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEOUaJW05bU

If you want a really shoehorned scifi vampire, there's a David Weber book in which it comes out of fucking nowhere towards the end.

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Best explanation for vampires not liking crosses I have ever seen. I always enjoy vampires that are explained scientifically for some reason in fiction, its like some sort of challenge and they usually avoid the whole dislike of crosses, not here, thought it was a decent attempt along with many other ideas in the book, very enjoyable to me.

My favorite explanation for it - and I forget where it's from, but it probably isn't uncommon - is that vampires who were humans raised in Christian cultures believe themselves to be damned by God when they turn because that's what the folklore says, and that belief and self-hatred manifests as a phobic aversion to religious symbolism.

Rings a bell for Netflix’s Stephen Moffat Dracula.

Not bad, think I still prefer that their visual cortex was more advanced such that they could easily perceive multiple perspectives (necker cubes) and maybe even higher dimensions but they had a "crucifixion glitch" such that too much euclidean geometry in the visual field of view caused seizures which doesn't normally occur in nature.

This helped explained their downfall with man creating euclidean geometry everywhere and was taken advantage of when they where brought back as they where very good at certain tasks while also requiring anti seizure drugs which kept them in control.

That David Weber twist was absolutely terrible. Ruined the book for me.

I'm really curious what David Weber book was that it sounds kind of funny to have a vampire randomly show up part way through a book.

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