Friday, April 3, 2009

Book Review: Eternal Vigilance 2 - The Death of Illusions by Gabrielle Faust


In Gabrielle Faust’s second installment of her cybergoth vampire series Eternal Vigilance, she builds upon main vampire-savior Tynan’s story and the plight of the world as the evil Tyst organization prepares to usher a horrifying vampire god named the Vicinus into the world. Tynan must battle against and defeat the Tyst’s advanced technology as well as facing the Vicinus in its own realm before it is birthed by the Tyst’s Queen and unleashed upon the world to wreak chaos and destruction.

Tynan must also deal with the weight that being the savior of the world places on his shoulders and taking orders from his Immortal Elders as well as the rebel leaders of the Phuree. He also wonders at the relationship between himself and the Tyst Queen Moria, whom he rescued from the Tyst fortress when he was just supposed to end her life and that of the Vicinus inside her.

As the time quickly approaches for the Vicinus to tear into this world, can Tynan defeat the vampire god that was responsible for creating his kind before the world is lost to chaos?

As with her first Eternal Vigilance novel, Faust has woven a gorgeously gothic tapestry that glimmers with pieces of cyberpunk placed into the fabric of the story. This mix of old and new, crumbling and glittering, creates a very exciting backdrop to the story. It really does feel like a whole new world, from the underground tunnels where hackers live to evade the Tyst’s advanced tracking systems to an old cave that used to be a tourist destination where Tynan hides Moria to the castle the Immortals reside in to the Tyst fortress.

I also enjoyed how Faust could now put more action and battles into this book. As the previous book established all the characters, the second book is all about fighting the Tyst and the Vicinus instead of just planning for these battles. Though more time is committed to these exciting battles, Faust still manages to keep her characterizations strong. Of course we get to see reoccurring characters from the first novel, but we are also introduced to a few new characters, including Queen Moria. Faust continues to make things interesting by complicating the relationship between Tynan and Moria and throwing some twists and turns to other relationships within the novel. There are quite a few surprises in Eternal Vigilance 2: The Death of Illusions!

Faust continues to use an elegant, almost elevated, way of speaking that we saw in the first book. There are times when this penchant for the dramatic becomes overly pretentious, but this captures the formal way of speaking that Tynan is used to and really helps to show us his character.

My only real complaint was with a few misspelled words, especially the incorrect use of the word “until.” In the novel it is spelled “till,” instead of the correct way of ” ’til.” This misspelling is a big pet peeve of mine (almost as bad as spelling “grisly” like “grizzly” – god, that annoys me!), so it stuck out a lot and detracted from my overall enjoyment of the novel.

Nonetheless, Eternal Vigilance 2: The Death of Illusions is a wonderful addition to the Eternal Vigilance series. The characters are so likable and intriguing that I just can’t wait until the next in the series to see what happens to them all!

Screw Twilight! Eternal Vigilance is the vampire series everyone should be reading!

Buy it on Amazon!

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