Jacob
By David Gerrold
- Release Date: 2023-09-05
- Genre: Horror
Winner of the Lord Ruthven Award for Best Vampire Novel of the Year: The first horror novel from the author of Star Trek’s “The Trouble with Tribbles” script.
Includes the bonus short story “Jacob in Manhattan.”
With a writing legacy that includes Star Trek, Land of the Lost, and the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novella The Martian Child, David Gerrold knows what it’s like to be an author. Writing about vampires should be easy for him, right? But real vampires are far more sinister in real life than they are in fiction. Jacob is the story of an author’s encounters with the undead creature who gives him success, forbidden knowledge, and ultimately, a choice.
Jacob is a cunning survivor. Orphaned in Seattle in the mid-nineteenth century, he could have been someone’s convenient meal. Instead, he becomes the “daykeeper” for a man he knows only as Monsieur. Then he discovers the hidden community of nightsiders—men who live in secrecy and darkness—the true apex predators.
To be a nightsider is to experience heightened senses, bursts of super-strength, and frequent hallucinogenic episodes. Nightsiders also need to lie dormant to recover from their excesses. The daykeeper must be a protector against the daylight. But Jacob wanted more than that; he craved the promise of immortality. And so a century later, Jacob tells his story, this time to an ambitious young writer. It’s a different kind of interview. Is it a seduction? Or is he just playing with his food? And who will write the final chapter?
Praise for The Man Who Folded Himself
“Most impressive.” —The Times Literary Supplement
“Wildly imaginative and mindbending.” —Publishers Weekly
