The novel “The Space Vampires” by Colin Wilson was published for the first time in 1976.

The starship Hermes is on a mission to explore the asteroids when it runs into a huge spaceship apparently abandoned. Captain Carlsen and his crew start exploring it and discover the bodies of what appear totally like human beings. These bodies are in a state of apparent death and it’s decided to bring back three of them to Earth.

A journalist, the son of an old friend of Captain Carlsen, is allowed to enter the laboratory in which the bodies found in space are kept. While he’s checking one of them, a woman, she wakes up and absorbs his life force. The aliens are vampires and if they aren’t stopped the consequences will be devastating for humanity.

Colin Wilson wrote many books, both fiction and non-fiction, in the fields of philosophy, mysticism and paranormal. He wasn’t a specialist in the field of science fiction but “The Space Vampires” uses various elements of this genre or at the limits of the horror genre to build a rather story peculiar story about vampirism. In fact, the author was inspired by masters such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and A.E. van Vogt for the basis of a plot that then develops with his ideas.

The beginning is definitely science fiction as there’s a spaceship in a mission among the asteroids that discovers a huge alien wreckage containing bodies that appear to be totally human in suspended animation. When three of these bodies are brought to Earth for examination, the story starts taking on very different connotations.

The sudden awakening of an alien and the discovery that she’s a kind of vampire is the beginning of what in some ways is more a study of the phenomenon of vampirism than a novel. Colin Wilson retains very little of the traditional elements of vampire stories, primarily because what he describes is a psychic phenomenon and not the classic blood-sucking.

In the future in which “The Space Vampires” is set, Dr. Fallada has studied what he calls the lambda field, which is the life energy of living creatures, also creating an instrument able to detect it. On this pseudo-scientific basis, Colin Wilson develops the theme of psychic vampirism.

To better understand this phenomenon, Captain Carlsen and Dr. Fallada turn to Count von Geijerstam, a Swedish scholar who is very old but still very lively thanks to vampirism. He lives with his students in a situation that may remind that of Count Dracula but in some ways he’s the opposite.

In “The Space Vampires” the phenomenon of vampirism isn’t necessarily negative. Depending on how it’s practiced, it may constitute an exploitation of another person’s vital energy but can also be practiced in a positive manner as an exchange of energy between two persons. In the novel it’s considered a phenomenon typically linked to sexuality.

In the end, the discovery of the aliens becomes more like an excuse for Colin Wilson to develop the theme of vampirism, sometimes neglecting the plot. For long stretches of the novel, the aliens are not even present because the protagonists are busy with their research about this phenomenon. Even the other powers of the aliens, the possession of other bodies, sometimes fades into the background though it’s important in the story.

For this reason, the pace of the narrative is often really slow, especially after the initial part. The pathos of the discovery of the alien starship leaves room for a story definitely based on the ideas the author wants to develop. There are occasional moments of action but they are the exception. Even the characters are partly sacrificed and only the protagonists have some development.

“The Space Vampires” was made into the movie “Lifeforce” in 1985. This adaptation brings many changes, starting from the fact that it’s set in 1986, when a spacecraft that is studying Halley’s comet finds the alien wreck. The movie contains much less philosophy and more action than the novel in a story more related to the British disaster epics. Vampirism is seen almost as a contagion that causes havoc especially in London. The sexual component is more pronounced, so much so that many remember it because Mathilda May is naked for most of the movie.

In my opinion “The Space Vampires” is a novel all in all good but for its characteristics I’d only recommend it to anyone who is interested in a story heavily based on ideas and in particular in psychic vampirism.