Blindsight

(this is back-fill into my blog because I loved this book.)

You had me at Space Vampires!

A first contact novel where a crew from a heavily militarized near-apocalypse earth heads out to meet an extraterrestrial presence and they are in waaaay over their heads. The captain of the crew is a vampire. In this world vampires are a distinct species who predate upon homo sapiens and (here’s the clever bit) when they hunt mankind not-quite to extinction, they will hide and hibernate for thousands of years if necessary to emerge only when there is again plenty of prey. Now the government has discovered and recruited(?) a few vampires and use them for extremely hazardous jobs, for which they are much more capable than humans (for example the human crew must be put into hibernation for the journey out beyond Pluto (I think), but the vampire can stay awake - what could go wrong!?). As scarey as having a vampire as your boss (the protagonist is a human scientist), the aliens are subtle and seem harmless … at first. I can’t remember the details enough to explain the aliens… which is probably for the best. This book created then maintained an intense dread/anticipation in this reader all the way to an ending that paid off in the best (terrifying) way.