It started as a joke -- a title of a book no one should ever write or read.

But the whimsical title made up by publisher Jeff Gerke was grist for author Kerry Nietz's mill. He accepted the challenge and wrote the book.

Amish Vampires in Space is both a success and a failure.

The setup is strong. An Amish community living on a planet in the far future is threatened with extinction by changes in their sun. One of their number, Jebediah Miller, uses secret technology handed down through the generations to monitor the situation and, when catastrophe threatens, summon help to evacuate the Amish settlers and move them to another, safer world.

Jeb is shunned for his efforts -- removed from his community for using forbidden tech -- but the Amish reluctantly agree to be relocated (despite a strong voice from the community arguing that they should simply pray away their impending doom). They establish a temporary community in the massive cargo hold of a transit ship that will ferry them to their new home ... but, unfortunately, something else is on the ship. When a shipboard thief raids the sealed remnants of a destroyed science lab, he is infected with what can only be described as a vampire parasite, which fundamentally alters his personality and physiology. And soon, to feed his growing hunger, he begins preying on the ship's crew, the helpless Amish settlers and their livestock.

The ship is captained by a nice enough man, Seal, who always bases his assumptions of the women he meets on how attractive they are. In fact, he's so smitten by one of the women in his crew, Singer, that he gives her responsibilities outside her areas of expertise. Fortunately for him, she is up to the challenge, which includes shepherding the Amish as they uproot their lives and acclimatize themselves to shipboard life.

Singer also decides the vampire crisis is the right time to proselytize her faith to the captain. She reveals she's Christian, in an age when such beliefs are considered quaint; at the same time, she pushes back against the stricter, more reclusive form of Christianity practiced by the Amish.

This novel, by the way, is classified as Christian science fiction. And yes, that categorization does get in the way of the story, since people beset by vampires are unlikely to spend much time debating the finer points of faith.

There are other problems with the book, from inconsistencies in the vampires themselves to irregular pacing to -- what seems to me, as a lifelong resident of Pennsylvania's Amish country -- an incomplete understanding of Amish beliefs and practices. I'm not sure they come across very favorably in the book, from their sheep-like unwillingness to defend themselves against a monster to their sudden, inexplicable knowledge in the manufacture of crossbows -- to say nothing of their unwillingness to forgive a man who just saved their lives.

Even so, I give this book credit for taking a ludicrous title and concept and crafting it into a legitimate story. Amish Vampires in Space wasn't great, and I'm unlikely to read the zombie and werewolf sequels it inspired, but I enjoyed it for what it was -- an unusual confluence of ideas into a workable tale.