The Empire of Fear

The year is 1623. Attila the Hun is a vampire and so are Richard the Lionhearted and the Pope. Such is the alarming premise of this richly detailed ``alternative history'' in which the era ia dominated by a minority race of vampires. Edmund Cordery, scientist and courtier to the king, has long sought the means by which vampires are made (a bite on the neck is not the answer) and by which they can be destroyed. When he murders Richard's vampire mistress with his own plague-tainted blood, he is put to death for treason, and his son, Noell, must flee England for his life. Continuing his father's detective work, Noell journeys to the African kingdom of Adamawara where the first vampires are believed to have evolved thousands of years before. There, along with loyal monk Quintus, the pirate Langoisse and his mistress Leilah, Noell must endure hardship, warfare and pestilence in his continuing quest for the secrets of immortality. This latest effort by British scientist, novelist and nonfiction writer Stableford ( The Walking Shadow ; Future Man ) falls somewhere between horror novel and historical saga; while it does not quite deliver the frissons of a conventional horror tale, its informed speculation, the result of Stableford's wide-ranging research, is sure to fascinate history buffs--alternative and otherwise. (Sept.)