MicroDracula

Among the microbes that churn and turn the nutrients of our biosphere, there are vampire microbes that attack and digest their fellow microbes. MicroDracula is a rebirth of Bram Stoker's Dracula, a famous tale of occult and vampires, at the micron scale. In a microbial mat growing on the stonework of Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire, a single vampire microbe, Dracula, brings fear and mayhem to the microbial community. Mina and Jonathan Coccus-Durans, Staphylococcus Seward, and Van Vibrio and others must work together to thwart his terrible plans to overwhelm the mat with his progeny. They have already lost Lucy Luciferase to his diabolical intentions. How can they save the mat and bring peace to their terrorised trillions? Shrink your vision, dear reader, to a millionth of its normal scale and join our heroes and heroines as they battle the forces of darkness in the literary genre of microbial fiction. Charles Cockell is Professor of Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh. He studies microbes in extreme environments and works on the exploration and settlement of space. He previously worked for NASA and the British Antarctic Survey, where he studied microbes on the White Continent. He has published many papers and books. Sitting in the grounds of Whitby Abbey, Yorkshire, in early 2020, a location in Bram Stoker's book Dracula, admiring a biofilm he saw growing on one of the stones, he wondered how the story would play out with vampire microbes. During a week's holiday on the Isle of Tiree, Scotland in August 2020, laptop at hand, he decided to assuage his imagination. He is author of Bruntsfield Brook: An Adventure Romance Among Microbes.