Watts did a whole academic presentation on the science of vampirism in the book's context. It's a fun watch and makes it feel much less random. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEOUaJW05bU

If you want a really shoehorned scifi vampire, there's a David Weber book in which it comes out of fucking nowhere towards the end.

I felt similar. I finished it but couldn’t finish the sequel. The primary idea was “intelligence can take different shapes” and I kept reading to get insightful descriptions of these different shapes but they never really came. I don’t disagree with the premise it just didn’t really get across the message very well.

It felt to me like he wanted to write a treatise on the nature of intelligence and also space vampire fiction and for some reason decided to put them in the same book.

Unfortunately I have to agree with you. I finally got round to this to see what the fuss was about, and was very disappointed. Oblique to the point of baffling and unlikable characters aplenty.

Agreed. Very edgelord-y right off the bat. Couldn't finish it.

The space vampire really felt like an unnecessary add to the entire thing. Could have established similar sci-fi woo-woo with a super-intelligent test-tube baby who might have some lingering trauma from that development.

Exactly my thought. It's hard to take any sci-fi novel with space vampires seriously.

This...coming from someone who did finish it. Such meh execution that it continues to baffle me whenever it makes front page.