BOOKS: Peeps, Scott Westerfeld (2005)

In Westerfeld's lively, innovative take on vampire stories, vampirism is caused by a parasite; those affected refer to themselves as "parasite-positives" -- peeps, for short.

Cal is one of the lucky peeps, in that he is only a carrier of the parasite. He gets all the good stuff -- night vision, enhanced senses, super strength -- but none of the crazed cannibalistic bloodlust that usually goes with being a peep. Only about one percent of peeps are carriers, and they make up the Night Watch, whose mission it is to capture the more dangerous peeps and keep us normal folks from finding out about them.

Westerfeld does a clever job of tying traditional elements of vampire lore into his parasite concept, often through his notion of "the anathema." In ancient days, y'see, when communities were smaller, an infected person would need to leave home in order to find more potential victims; the parasite thus affects the person's brain, causing them to hate -- and therefore flee -- the things and people they once loved. They can no longer bear the sun, or in a day when more of the population was religious, the church, giving us the popular notion that vampires are killed by sunlight or crosses.

Peeps is written for the YA market, and it shows some signs of its intended audience. The vocabulary is just slightly simpler than it would be in an adult-targeted novel, and Westerfeld targets his audience's love of the slightly gross; the narrative chapters alternate, for instance, with anecdotal chapters about some of the ickier parasites that exist in the world. But the story is creative enough, and the writing funny enough, to keep adults entertained, too.