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Home » Blood looks at women's role

December 20, 2007 (SciFi Wire / John Joseph Adams) -- Horror author Chelsea Quinn Yarbro told SCI FI Wire that Borne in Blood -- the latest entry in her long-running series about the "humane" vampire, the Count Saint-Germain -- is about the competition between women dealing with the real world and those having to deal with their fantasies.

"Borne in Blood is concerned with the demands imposed by expectations having to do with long-established cultural expectations and folklore being brought to bear on day-to-day experiences," Yarbro said in an interview.

That post-Napoleonic Europe should be trapped in expectations shaped by folklore on one hand and new social models on the other has been discussed in all manner of history texts, Yarbro said. "But what this meant to individual persons, particularly women, is not often touched on, and so I read letters and journals of women of the period to try to get a sense of what their realities were like in terms of real experience," she said.

The book begins shortly after Napoleon's final defeat. "European infrastructure is a mess, and the winter of 1817 is severe," Yarbro said. "Many soldiers, unable to find work in a struggling economy, have taken to outlawry. There are more widows and orphans as well. But there is also a new interest in scientific inquiry, which is both welcome and dreaded. Most of the action in the book stems from personal motivation more than social, but the social climate definitely shapes the personal experiences."

In addition to the diaries, journals and letters Yarbro read for research, she also studied several histories of Napoleon, several dozen historical maps and a guide to inns, hotels and taverns for travelers of the period in order to get the details right, she said. "[Plus] three books on scientific experiments and theories of the time, and the help of one of my consulted experts, which means many questions asked over lunch," Yarbro said.

Borne in Blood is the 20th book in the series. Number 21, Saint-Germain: Memoirs, is a short-story collection from Elder Signs Press. The next novel in the series, A Dangerous Climate, will be published in December of next year.

 

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Posted by Vladimir
Fri, 12/21/2007 - 18:50

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book info

Submitted by Vladimir on Fri, 12/21/2007 - 18:53.

Borne in Blood | Saint-Germain: Memoirs



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