It's on the tip of my tongue!

November 22, 2012 6:51 PM

What (probably 70s or 80s-era) science fiction novel involved colonizing an alien world which was inherently hostile to the human protagonists but which had a native population of vampire-like creatures who were similar enough to humans to "pass?" (Possibly shapeshifters.) I thought it was C.J. Cherryh's Faded Sun books, but it isn't – although I think I read it around the same time that I read those books in omnibus.
posted by sonic meat machine to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Response by poster: Note: I am not referring to the inhumi from Gene Wolfe's Short Sun. This was a more conventional science fiction story. It seems as if there was "Dark" or "Night" or "Black" or something similar in the title of the thing... all of which are impossible to search for...
posted by sonic meat machine at 6:59 PM on November 22, 2012

Hmm...could it have been the Majipoor series by Robert Silverberg? It's set on a planet that's larger than Earth but with fewer dense metals, so surface gravity is about the same, and though the planet isn't inherently hostile, its native inhabitants grudgingly cooperate with humans, except for the shapeshifters, who are confined to reservations. They get involved in human politics, which drives much of the action. Lord Valentine's Castle was the first novel in the series, followed by the short story collection Majipoor Chronicles, and then the second novel, Valentine Pontifex.
posted by brianogilvie at 7:01 PM on November 22, 2012

Response by poster: I don't think it's Majipoor because that had wizards and other fantasy elements. This was pretty straight science fiction, if I remember correctly.
posted by sonic meat machine at 7:11 PM on November 22, 2012

Best answer: It's not the Coldfire trilogy by C.S. Friedman, is it? It's sort of right on the border between fantasy and science fiction though.
posted by cheesegrater at 7:18 PM on November 22, 2012 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: It is! I found it almost simultaneously with your posting. I guess I got them confused because of the similarity of the naming (C.S. Friedman vs. C.J. Cherryh). It does seem more fantasy-oriented than I remembered, though... occluded by the mists of time.
posted by sonic meat machine at 7:20 PM on November 22, 2012

Kind of reminds me of one of the wonderfully awful Necroscope books by Brian Lumley. It would be the third one, The Source.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 6:03 AM on November 23, 2012