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Nightshade (Butler novel)Nightshade is a 1989 science fiction novel by Jack Butler. The novel was Butler's first published foray into science fiction.

Plot
The story is set on Mars in the late 21st Century. It follows the exploits of the 400-year-old vampire John Shade, whose comfortable life in the Hellas crater on Mars is disrupted when he is forced to become part of a complex conspiracy to protect the Janglers, a sub-species of humans who have replaced parts of their brains with technology.

Shade eventually becomes the leader of a collection of loners, losers, drop-outs and rebels, holding them together through unwitting charisma and a sense of personal vengeance against the government of Mars.

As a vampire, Shade sometimes feels a lust for blood, though this only occurs once or twice a year - though the Need, as it is called, strikes several times during the course of the novel for reasons that are not fully explained. Shade also possesses increased strength and reflexes, a photographic memory, excellent mathematical knowledge, the ability to change his own shape and the power to "shift" into "high temporal", which tremendously enhances his speed. Shade has read Bram Stoker's Dracula and believes it to be "foolish in many details".

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