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Interview with Vampire novelist Gabrielle Faust about her dark and exciting ETERNAL VIGILANCE series.

I’m thrilled to be interviewing my fellow author and friend, Gabrielle Faust, today. Gabrielle is an amazing writer who takes her reader on a beautifully dark ride through post-apocalyptic Austin. Her vampires certainly don’t sparkle in the sun! With the great popularity of vampires in movies, TV shows, and books, it’s refreshing to read a unique story about vampires that doesn’t betray the mythos of our beloved bloodsuckers. Gabrielle weaves a fantastic and exciting tale in her EV series. Let’s let Gabrielle tell us all about them:

1) For those out there who haven’t heard about your Eternal Vigilance series can you give a brief introduction?

ETERNAL VIGILANCE is the story of an ancient Scottish vampire named Tynan Llywelyn and his battle to save humanity from a vampiric god and the global dictatorship that desires to summon him. After a century-long Sleep, Tynan has awoken to find the world he once knew utterly obliterated by a brutal war of epic proportions. In a new apocalyptic society bitterly divided by magic and technology, the Tyst Empire has found that a hundred years of global domination is not enough to sate their thirst for power. They have discovered the secret of the vampire race and have designed a plan to seize their own sinister form of immortality with the help of an ancient vampiric god. The Phuree, a rebel uprising that has been engaged in a bloody war with the Tyst since the beginning of the new regime, have obtained the knowledge of Lord Cardone’s plans and have allied themselves with the remaining Immortal clan. The powerful Phuree oracle, Nahalo, has had a vision that in Tynan alone lies the power to defeat the vampiric god and the dictatorship. Cast in violence and conspiracy into the midst of a global war between magic and technology, mortals and vampires, in a new world he is still struggling to define, Tynan must make the harrowing decision to save the world he so bitterly detests or stand and watch as humanity is destroyed by a primordial evil beyond all imagining…

2.  How did you come up with the idea for the books?
ETERNAL VIGILANCE actually began with a short story I wrote back in college. I never published the short story, but held on to it because I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else to the character I had created. A few years later I found the story and read again, but this time with a fresh perspective. From there the story simply began to mutate and evolve into the epic series it is now.

3.  What were your influences and inspirations for the books?
I have had a passionate interest in the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations since I was a child from the Olmecs to the Romans. I have also been fascinated by the Mayan calendar’s prediction of the “end of civilization” on December 21st, 2012. For me, I wanted to work with these concepts and integrate them into the development of my own vampire mythos to create a philosophical contemplation of life after the downfall of modern civilization.

4.  Describe your writing process. Do you have to be alone? Write on computer or longhand? Revisions?

Most of the time I have to be alone. However, I do find that I can, for some reason, write really well in hotel bars. I’m not sure why that is, but it seems to work well when I am traveling. I do all of my writing on my laptop. I tend to type at the speed which the thoughts come into my head, whereas longhand takes me far too much time.
 

5.  Eternal Vigilance is set in post-apocalypse Austin, what kind of research did you do for your book?

I have grown up in Austin so I know the city inside and out. However, when I was first beginning the series I did tend take multiple walks alone through the areas which I knew certain scenes would take place, so that I could have an immediate impression of the soul of the city when I wrote the comparisons between the post-war version and the city of the past.

6. Would you consider writing in other genres in the future, if so, which ones?
I am very interested in pursuing a steampunk novel in the future, as well as a hardcore cyberpunk novel. I have been crafting a few zombie short stories here and there recently, but I don’t see myself writing anything longer than that in the genre.

7. What do you do to help promote your book? With over 800 books published every day in the US, it can be difficult to be seen. As a fellow author, I live this truth!
I am a promotions machine, some say. I maintain a primary site/blog, www.gabriellefaust.com, as well as a LiveJournal page, MySpace page and Facebook account. I am also a Twitteraholic and post dozens of updates a day on, not only my own work, but also industry news. I attend as many conventions as possible throughout the year and spend a great deal of time networking with fellow authors, bookstores and organizations that are focused on my specific genre.

8. Who are your major influences?

My main influences range greatly. However a few of the authors that have inspired me the most are Storm Constantine, Anne Rice, Poppy Z. Brite, C. S. Lewis, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Dean Koontz, Leonard Cohen, William Gibson, William Boroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Michael Marano, Edgar Allen Poe, Neil Gaiman and Kim Paffenroth.

9. Tell us what you think about the current popularity of vampire books.

Personally, I’m thrilled that the public love of vampires has resurfaced once again, as it seems to do every ten years or so! Humanity is always fascinated with the genre, but recently Hollywood has made it far more accessible and embraceable to the mainstream public. This is both good and bad. The result, as we have seen with Twilight, has been a watering down of the original mythos until it barely resembles a “vampire.” However, on the other hand, in response to this defanging of the creature, authors and directors on the opposite end of the spectrum have become determined to reclaim the vampire and return it back to the monster it used to be in the old days before the western world romanticized it during the 1970’s and 80’s. I find the whole of the modern evolution quite interesting from both a sociological and psychological standpoint.

Please read more about this amazing author on her website, and catch up with her on her social networking pages:

• BittenByBooks Ning Page

• Live Journal

• My Space

• Twitter @VampireFaust

• blogTV

• Facebook

Don’t forget to pick up your copy of ETERNAL VIGILANCE and ETERNAL VIGILANCE 2: The Death of Illusions

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Christine Rose is half of the husband/wife writing team: Christine and Ethan Rose, award-winning authors of YA fantasy Rowan of the Wood. The authors are on a year-long book tour, traveling the country in a fancifully painted RV they affectionately call the Geekalicous Gypsy Caravan. Christine blogs daily, produces two videos weekly (TheTuberRose) on YouTube, and was named one of the top 100 authors on Twitter by mashable. Catch her prolific tweets and pictures from the road @christinerose. The second book in their series, Witch on the Water, will be released October 12, 2009.
http://www.christineandethanrose.com