Eternal Vigilance
(Eternal Vigilance #1)
by Gabrielle Faust
After a century of Sleep, Tynan Llywelyn 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 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.
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Author Bio
Acclaimed horror author Gabrielle Faust is best known for her vampire series ETERNAL VIGILANCE. Her previous work has also included three collections of poetry, BEFORE ICARUS, AFTER ACHILLES, CROSSROADS and THE BEGINNING OF NIGHTS, the novella REGRET, the celebrated dark fantasy adventure novel REVENGE, the HIGH STAKES vampire anthology and the novel THE LINEAGE. Her work has appeared in the sites SciFi Wire, Fatally Yours, Examiner, Doorways Magazine and Fear Zone, as well as various anthologies and magazines. She was the Guest of Honor at the Queen of the Damned Vampire Ball in 2008. In 2009 she was a Special Guest of the Endless Night Festival in New Orleans and was crowned "New Orleans Vampire Royalty" by the Vampire Lestat Fan Club at the Tru Blood & Gold vampire ball alongside Charlaine Harris. Faust is currently a Staff Writer for Gothic Beauty Magazine and owner of both the Nightshade Vmapire Boutique and Nightshade Publications. She was the primary graphic designer for the 2011 World Horror Convention and maintains the position as co-crewchief for the International Housing Program for the SXSW Music Festival. In 2011 Faust was awarded the Texas Social Media Award by the Austin American Statesman. More information about Gabrielle Faust and her work can be found on her website www.gabriellefaust.com. Interview
Please welcome ETERNAL
VIGILANCE author Gabrielle Faust to Diane's Book Blog.
What is
your favorite part of the story, ETERNAL VIGILANCE?
There are so many aspects
of the series that I love, but I suppose what I find most fascinating is the
evolution of the main character Tynan from a psychologically and emotional
broken man who trusts no one to a strong leader rediscovering his own purpose in
the world. If find it inspiring and exciting—I never know when he’s going to
surprise me. J
How long
did it take you to write ETERNAL VIGILANCE?
Well, I first began working
on the idea truly when the tragedy of 9-11 happened. After that, I worked on the
first novel, From Deep Within the Earth,
in my spare time (I was a Senior Graphic Designer at the time in an ad agency)
for the next couple of years. The first draft was completed in 2006 and
submitted for publication. The following novels took between 6 and 9 months
each to write because I was actually on a deadline for those.
If you
were stranded on a desert island which of your characters do you want by your
side?
Hmmm… Most likely Tynan
because he is a survivor and resourceful and wise.
If you
could be best friends with one of your characters, who would it be?
I think I would most likely
be best friends with either Khanna or Jasmine. They are both bold, intelligent,
and strong women.
What
inspired you to write your first book?
As aforementioned the series was actually inspired by 9-11. I began writing the
first novel after weeks of watching the carnage and suffering on TV. I found my
voice as an author when I started truly delving in to the darkness of
humanity’s incessant need to destroy itself and its seemingly unending
repetition of the past. However, I also wanted to develop a world in which
there was still a spark of hope and common struggle for survival, however small
it might be. Eternal Vigilance is not
simply a vampire series, but a study of the rise and fall of civilizations.
What is
your favorite book that you wrote?
Outside of the Eternal Vigilance series, I would have
to say my favorite book that I’ve written is Revenge, which I co-authored with Solomon Schneider. Revenge is unlike anything I have ever
read—it is an epic adventure brimming with more bizarre worlds and creatures
than you can imagine. It was an outrageous undertaking born out of a truly
crazy time in both of our lives. We are very proud of it.
Who or
what inspired you to be a writer?
I come from a very long
line of storytellers and have been crafting tales since I was a small child. My
first true inspiration, however, came from my grandparents on my father’s side,
both of which were poets and playwrights. They encouraged me from a very young
age to pursue writing and did not hold back on giving me constructive criticism
and guidance on work I would send them to read.
What
books have most influenced your life?
There are many, but the
ones that first come to mind are Beautiful
Losers by Leonard Cohen, Neuromancer
by William Gibson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, Illium by Dan Simmons, and of course, Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice.
What's
your favorite book-turned movie?
It’s a tie between Fight Club and Interview With the Vampire…
Who is
your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
It’s hard for me to say
that I have just one “favorite” author, but if I had to pick just one, one that
I would buy their book no matter what, it would have to be William Gibson. He
has a way of speaking about the world and technology in a way that seems
instinctual and fluid and poetic. Truly unlike any other author’s voice. He is
the Father of Cyberpunk, after all.
What is
your typical day like?
Well my typical day is
anything but glamorous. HA! It generally consists of writing, editing,
answering emails, looking for freelance work, a bit of exercise, followed by
spending quality time with my love and our friends. It is a good life in
between the events that I appear at. J
How do
you overcome writer’s block?
Generally it is about
finding a new source of inspiration for the piece I am working on. Generally my
writer’s block comes from outside stressors as well. Thus, working on
eliminating what I am stressed about in other aspects of my life generally
helps get the creative juices flowing again.
Can you
share a little of your current work with us?
This is an excerpt from
Chapter 1 of the first Eternal Vigilance
novel, From Deep Within the Earth…
“My eyes fluttered open.
Darkness.
Dense, formless shadows pressed down on me with the weight of a corpse. All
sense of dimension was lost to me in the pitch dark. My stomach twisted in a
nauseous delirium, my teeth chattering uncontrollably as if from a severe
hypothermia. Blind in my instinct to fight, I flailed about, searching for a
way out of the smothering nothingness. My fists collided with a hard, flat
surface— thick marble— to my left and then to my right. In a fleeting moment of
clarity, I paused, the silence a high-pitched wail within my skull. I pressed
my palms against the flat surfaces to either side of me. A heartbeat passed
through my fingertips and into the stone. Confused rage engulfed my soul as the
second of hesitation snapped like a matchstick. I slammed my body against the
walls containing me, fighting furiously against my prison. Whatever sanity
might have remained vanished in a hellish, unearthly shriek as I punched
upwards with all of my strength.
Something
exploded above me. The air rang with the sudden impact, a thick cloud of dust
and hard, tiny shards of stone raining down upon my face and arms. Coughing and
sputtering blindly, I pulled myself from the coffin, falling to the floor with
an unceremonious thud. For a long while, I lay curled on the icy stone floor
shivering, my arms wrapped tightly around my bent legs. My lungs ached from the
dust and grit that filled the air around me, settling like a thin veil of
ancient holy gauze upon my skin and hair. My body convulsed uncontrollably with
pain, my mind whimpering, racing without rhyme or reason, clawing for the
fragments of dreams that now spiraled away from my grasp, shreds of white silk
in a cyclone wind.
It
was cold. It was silent.
Gradually,
my heart began to ease, and with it, my mind. My muscles loosened, making me
weak and queasy as the adrenaline rushed through my veins and into my stomach.
Slowly, I opened my eyes again. I lay at the
base of a massive stone sarcophagus. The tiny tomb was windowless and drenched
in shadow. Angles and planes were one and the same, shadows converging in the
same ephemeral fashion, swept to a dusty corner to be forgotten. It was a
strange archaic beauty of a time long past. I marveled at my surroundings; it
was like I was seeing the features of the room by moonlight. Time had not
dulled my preternatural vision and I found myself lost within the cold alien
beauty. A shudder breezed through me. Icy recognition gripped my heart as I
separated the remaining tendrils of dreams, wrapped like whispers of cobwebs,
from reality.
Chunks
of what had been the lid of the sarcophagus lay scattered around me in dusty,
irreparable ruins. With trembling fingers, I reached up and grasped the sides,
using their solid strength to pull myself unsteadily to my feet. A dull ache
invaded my legs when I attempted to use them, the muscles hurriedly repairing
and rejuvenating themselves even as I rose. It made me wonder just how much
time had passed since I had crawled into that box. It was a strange and distant
sensation, that of my own tissue knitting together in fibrous strands, becoming
stronger and stronger with each second. I listened to the blood rushing through
my ears, simply learning to breathe again.
With
great care, I turned from the coffin, my gaze drifting along the unadorned stone
walls to finally rest on the small chamber door. Gradually, my memories fell
about me like sand sifting through the cracks in an Egyptian temple. The truth
was sickeningly sharp, twisting my innards with swarming hornet images. The
spell I had cast upon myself was supposed to have been permanent; I was not to
have awoken to the world ever again.
Anger
ripped through me. I staggered towards the door and, with trembling fingers,
traced the outline of the crucifix chiseled on the stone. My fingers danced delicately
across the intricate and ancient curves. How skeletal the digits appeared:
animated bones bathed in false blue light. My eyes traveled over my wrist to my
arm. So thin, the flesh, an albino white, almost transparent, marred by ropes
of blue veins that wrapped around my arm like earthworms. In much the same way
that a starving prisoner forgets the pleasures of food, an aching numbness had
replaced the unquenchable Thirst that had bound me to my madness. I could
barely even remember the smell of blood or the taste of the flesh that held it.
My parched, swollen tongue played over my sharp fangs, testing the tips in
search of my past.
The
remnants of my former paranoia returned, stalking the edges of my mind; savage
little beasts. How long had I slept and what remained of the world above? The
human race was a hive of industrious, destructive insects. I had seen
revolutions spawned of revolutions, bloody wars quickened from the ashes of
their predecessors. The centuries, flying past me as quickly as mortal decades,
had elevated and leveled empires, cultures, and technologies, all the while
dictating a silent directive of slow planetary death. The fabric of the world I
had left behind had been riddled with a stifling fear. Layers upon layers of
devious demons crept up behind the sleeping denizens of civilization,
whispering their black intentions in riddles even a child could discern. No one
listened, though, to the ever-pervasive moan of global societal collapse. No
one dared to breathe the truth. Scream and the glass might shatter; sigh and
the house might blow down. They were too enamored of watching the dirty
whirlpool spiraling down deeper and deeper to a place of no return.
I
had tried to observe it all from the detached place that all Immortals watch
life. At least, it should have been a detached place. I was too young to have
had my heart grow numb and, possessed with the idealism and naivety of
innocence, embraced my new path with every ounce of my soul. I tried to change
the world. I tried and failed, and after a mere two hundred and seventy years
of Immortality, had found myself driven to the brink of madness by my own
powers and an embittered disillusionment.
I
had always longed for the aloof arrogance that seemed to come so naturally to
most vampires. Where the hearts of others of my kind turned to stone as the
centuries passed, mine only became tender, my antipathy for all that was
vicious and cruel about the world nearly crushing my spirit. As my powers
progressed and my unique ability to absorb the memories of my prey evolved, the
atrocities inflicted, whether with malice or ignorance, and the sadness of
humanity became a mantle of broken glass I donned each time I fed. I could not
understand how my kindred could swim in excess and gluttony, when everywhere I
looked there was chaos and pain.
At
times I hated them; at times I envied them. They saw the world as a tediously
simple game in which they partook only for mild amusement. A world that they
ruled with ease and without conscience or remorse. Mortals were random
senseless creatures—their lack of unity their undoing. I had never been able to
see it that way, always too swept up in the philosophical debate of man versus
vampire, predator versus prey, and the great evolution of the universe’s
preordained plan. The others had said I retained too much of my own ancient
sense of humanity. They said it would be my downfall.
My pulse pounded in my ears as I considered
the possible fate of my own race in the cruel fist of Time. From my prison deep
within the Earth, there was simply no way of knowing what had become of them.
I
sank to the floor, barely able to draw breath, my mind racing over the infinite
scrolls of confusion: a madman debating truth with his own reflection. The
world I had turned my back on had been polluted and tortured, the ranks of
humanity having lost complete control of their own governments. Societal voices
had been buried beneath the screech of propaganda and loyalist contributions,
technology evolving around them at such an infinite speed that the line between
fact and fiction had nearly faded completely.
What if time had not taught the lessons all
empires must learn in one dawning era or another? Was it conceivable that the
world still grew outside, more gluttonous and numb and silent than the
patronizingly pacified generations before? My heart slowed and plummeted, a
stone ricocheting off the rotten gullet of a dead tree. Red tears of anguished
rage streamed down my gaunt white cheeks as I pounded the walls like a child denied.
NO! No. Nooo.
It
was useless.
I
was awake.”
What book
are you reading now?
I am reading Nick Cave: Sinner Saint: The True Confessions, Thirty
Years of Essential Interviews by Mat
Snow (Editor).
What do
you prefer paperback, hardcover, or ebooks?
Paperbacks or hardcovers,
something I can hold in my hands that has that great book smell. I still
haven’t been able to embrace ebooks…
Do you
have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Thank you for all of your
continued support! The first trilogy of the Eternal
Vigilance series is being re-release by Nightshade Publications. The first
novel, From Deep Within the Earth is
now available on Amazon—books 2 & 3 will be out by the end of the year.
Character Interview
Please welcome Tynan from
Gabrielle Faust's ETERNAL VIGILANCE to Diane's Book Blog.
What is
your full name? Do you have a nickname?
Tynan Llywelyn. I had a
nickname once upon a time, but those that called me by that are all now dead
and gone.
What is your
hair color? Eye color?
Dark blond hair with hazel
eyes flecked with gold.
How old
are you?
330
Where
were you born? Where have you lived since then? Where do you currently call
home?
I was born just outside of
Aberdeen, Scotland. Since that time I have traveled the world. I currently call
my Maker’s estate just outside of Austin, Texas “home”.
What is
in your refrigerator right now? On your bedroom floor? On your nightstand? In
your garbage can?
Well, the refrigerator at
the estate is stocked with homemade cheese, bread, and deer meat for the Phuree
human refugees in our protection. My bedroom floor? My combat boots and a
Persian rug. My nightstand… Several white candles and my leather-bound notebook
containing my current philosophical musings. I do not have a garbage can…
Who are
the people you are closest to?
The mother of my first
child, Moria. My Immortal lover and mother of my second child, Jasmine. And…I
cannot believe I can finally say this after all of these year of estrangement,
but…my Maker, Phelan.
What is
your biggest fear?
Seeing history repeat
itself, yet again, and that all of my sacrifices will have been for naught.
What is
your greatest regret?
This is difficult still for
me to talk about, but it is turning my back on my followers when I began to
question my own teachings. But I am, slowly, very slowly, beginning to realize
the uselessness of regrets. They consumed me for too many years, stole too much
of my sanity from me…
What is
the quality you most like in a man/woman?
Honesty.
What do
you most value in your friends?
Their immovable loyalty and
the ability to empathize with those in pain.
What is
your favorite journey?
Life itself is the greatest
journey. I may curse my immortality from time to time, but I cannot deny my
fascination with our circumstance and the higher powers that guide us in this
reality. I have seen great unexplainable phenomenon, as well as the deepest
depths of hell I would not wish on my greatest enemy. My journey is finding a
purpose to it, a song that weaves it all together…
What is
your motto?
Death is not an option.
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