Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut, Vol. 3

Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut Light Novel #3

by Keisuke Makino, KAREI (Illustrator), Hengtee Lim (Translator)

Seeing that the Zirnitra Union has edged a lead in the space race, the United Kingdom of Arnack announces a bold plan to send humans to the moon. Young engineer Bart Fifield must partner up with genius dhampir Kaye Scarlet to make the project a success and promote Arnack’s human-vampire relations. Struggling to balance engineering and PR, the peculiar pair soon find themselves facing a calamity close to home that could bring the whole space program crashing down!

Genres: Light Novel

292 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 2018

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

The third volume of Keisuke Makino’s Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut light novel series takes us beyond the story of the anime and literally around the world to introduce us to a new set of characters on their own quest for space. In the world of Irina: Vampire Cosmonaut, vampires are simply another hominid species that evolved parallel to humans. They have fangs, pointed ears, sensitivity to sunlight, and blood strengthens them. Most of the old legends about vampires being monsters are simply propaganda. The first two volumes of the series are set in the fictional Republic of Zirnitra – basically the Soviet Union – where our title subject is recruited and used as a test subject before humans are sent into space.

Volume 3 takes us to the United Kingdom of Arnack – basically the United States – where engineers are desperately trying to catch up to the Zirnitrans. Long ago, vampires crossed the ocean from the old world to the new. Many of them married humans and had children. Their offspring, who retain many of the vampire traits are known as dhampirs. In the early days of the United Kingdom, human settlers began using the dhampirs as slave labor. Dhampirs finally achieved freedom from slavery during a civil war, but by the time of the space race, they haven’t really achieved equality in pay or rights with humans. Seeing the metaphors here doesn’t take a lot of work.

Volume 3 opens at the headquarters of the United Kingdom’s space agency, ANSA, located in the crescent city of New Marseilles. Bart Fifield, younger brother of the United Kingdom’s first astronaut has just been assigned to work in the computer division, which is mostly run by young dhampir women because they aren’t as expensive to employ as humans. The leader of the computer division is a dhampir named Kaye Scarlet, whose mother had encouraged her love of space and engineering. Unfortunately, Kaye’s mother had also been a murder victim and the police never really investigated precisely because she was a dhampir.

ANSA leadership decide to make Kaye and Bart part of a public relations campaign to highlight the role of computers in developing space flight. Neither one is really comfortable in this role, but they do their best while also doing their best to support an upcoming orbital flight. Now, in this world, dhampirs don’t drink blood like their vampire cousins unless they have something called Nosferatu Syndrome. Unfortunately, Kaye suffers from the syndrome and when it’s discovered she’s booted out of ANSA. Horrified by the injustice of this, Bart finds his most heroic self and must find a way to make ANSA recognize the contributions of Kaye and the dhampir computer operators.

This story clearly parallels many of the events recounted in the novel and film, Hidden Figures. The first two volumes of Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut highlighted both reprehensible and noble traits in the people of the Zinitra Republic. Now, we get to see the United Kingdom get the same scrutiny. It can be uncomfortable to see the darker side of your own history brought to light, but we do need to face it, even while recognizing the great things we’ve done as a people.

[Mayonez Sidorovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was initially concerned that the shift in focus from the Soviet space program to the US would entail copious amounts of thoughtless praise for the Americans, given the Japanese author. Instead, I was surprised by a nuanced depiction of the Reconstruction Era south, complete with parallels to Jim Crow, lynching mobs, and even an examination of how misogyny and racism intersect to erase the struggles of minority women. In the afterword, the author mentions he drew inspiration from the movie Hidden Figures, and it shows.

Also, glad to see that Bart and Kaye aren't just American copies of Lev and Irina. Both have their own unique personalities, making their dynamic very different from their Soviet counterparts, keeping the story fresh.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically hidden figures but with dhampir (half vampire) girls as acknowledged in the afterword. The series really shifted gears with new characters and a new setting, the United Kingdom of Arnack which is the cold war United States but with a queen. The theme of discrimination is definitely more overt with the historical parallels than with the equivalent of the USSR which I’m not as familiar with. I’m not sure Bart and Kaye’s relationship is quite as compelling as Lev and Irina’s but is more about their own personal development. Definitely interested where this series will go.

[Scott Mattson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is pretty good novel. Think, the hidden figures movie, but with vampires. The United Kingdom has to catch up to their rivals in the space race. But they must oversome their hatred of Vampires the people working in the computer room doing the math to acheive this.

The neat thing about this book, is the author was working on the story, before Hidden figures arrived in Japan. The characters are really neat, the action and plot move along well.

[Cell · Rating 5 out of 5]

本集是美國篇，主角換了，小說的名稱全部要重記
原先擔心好看程度也跟著重置而遲遲未讀，但這擔心在這一次是多餘的

既然是連日期都照著史實的小說，有些角色也是有個原型存在
而女主角的原型是非裔的女性數學家 Dorothy Vaughan（多虧了《未來地圖：對工作…（略）》讓我得知確切人名）

一般而言，我不喜歡校園霸凌的劇情，想不到種族歧視以及對它抗爭的部分會讀得下

[slugbiscuit · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all, I really enjoyed the first two volumes of this series. I thought they were a great piece of alternate history storytelling. I did get the sense that Irina and the vampires were substitutions for real oppressed cultures in the USSR, but I was able to look at it abstractly due to my distance from that culture. So I am sure that in the same way, Japanese audiences can look at US history in a similar apathetic manner.

In volume 3, we get the unasked for switch of location and characters to the US (UK). This story takes place in New Orleans (New Marseille) on the banks of the Mississippi (Misibi) River, but you have to imagine a US where all of Black History has been whitewashed and overwritten with vampires. The vampires (Dhampir) were slaves until emancipated after the Civil War, they have been racially segregated in society, and now in 1961 they are in the midst of a struggle for civil rights. There is even a KKK (Solar Flare Club). At NASA (ANSA), Kaye Scarlet (Katherine Johnson) works in an all-Dhampir women’s unit of math computers. Since Irina and Lev stirred up the world’s public image of vampires, the UK has been shamed into taking racial relations more serious, and so now Bart Fifield and Kaye Scarlett are going to be the poster boy and girl of the mixed workforce.

I found the perspective change between volumes and the gross usurpation of history to be incredibly distracting, and I was plagued by tangential thoughts (which significantly slowed down my reading) until about the halfway point. Overall, I like the message of this series which seems to be very critical of the historic handling of racial relations by states and institutions as well as the politics that drove the Space Race, but I am a little conflicted about the execution. Personally, I felt that it was a mistake to move the story away from Irina and Lev as they are much more likable, and honestly if this series continues to follow real history and the UK wins the Space Race, I’ll be so pissed.

[Tiago Deane · Rating 2 out of 5]

This just felt like a lesser version of the story told in the first 2 volumes