It’s been twenty-seven years since the last sunrise, and vampires freely roam the earth. Most terrifyingly, the different vampire factions fight to claim human territories, building their eternal empires. Standing in their way is Gabriel de León, last remaining silversaint of the Silver Order, and once feared by both vampires and humans alike. Now a captive of his eternal enemy, Gabriel must tell the story of his life; of battles won and forbidden love; of ancient vendettas and the lure of bloodlust. And of the holy grail, an obscure myth that just might be the last hope for humanity, and the one threat to the empire of the vampire.
We were lucky enough to (virtually) sit down with the author himself, Jay Kristoff, to talk all things vampire!
Hi Jay! Thank you for taking the time to answer a few of our burning questions regarding your highly anticipated new release, Empire of the Vampire, which is out September 14th in the US, and September 7th in the UK and Australia.
Firstly, congratulations! This is an absolute epic, and it was such a thrill to read from beginning to end. How does it feel to finally share EOTV with the world?
Thank you! It feels amazing. EMPIRE is the biggest and most ambitious book I’ve written, which means I worked on it longer than any other project I’ve ever tackled. It feels like I’ve been living with this beast for 5 years in my head, so it’ll be nice to let it out of the cage and share the pain.
I’m sure people are sick of me talking about it by now.
I’ve heard this book was a long time in the making. How long exactly?
It took three and half years to write it, but the thought at the heart of the worldbuilding—how vampires pass on their disease, and the worldbuilding fallout from that—was stolen from my first (terrible, unpublished) novel, which I wrote back in 2008. So in a way, EMPIRE is a monster 13 years in the making.
Following on from that, was there a certain turning point when you felt you could start taking the concept of EOTV and putting it down onto the page, or did the construction of this novel depend on scheduling and working around other projects?
EMPIRE was written around other book and tours, yes. But it wasn’t just schedule dependent—it was also skill dependent. EMPIRE isn’t a book I could have written 5 years ago. It really feels like the culmination of everything I’ve learned and done over the course of my career. EMPIRE is the best thing I’ve ever written.
Even as it was, the book almost broke me. There were times I genuinely thought I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Mid 2019, I realized this was either going to be a book I absolutely killed, or would absolutely kill me.
What are the first five words that come to mind when you think of EOTV?
Heavy. Bloody. Broody. Pretty. Smutty.
Tell us a bit about our main character, Gabriel!
Ah, Gabe. You poor bastard.
Gabriel is a halfbreed, born of a vampire father and mortal mother—what’s called a Paleblood in this world. He was inducted into a monastic sect known as the Silver Order at a young age, and trained to hunt the monsters of the night. He became something of a legendary figure in his time, but being one of my protagonists, he had some . . . troubles.
The book is at heart three timelines—young Gabe, full of fire and faith, and older Gabe, who has become a bitter, faithless man—and an exploration of how one man became the other by an even older version of Gabe, waiting in a prison cell for his execution.
I think Gabe wins the award for “Jay Kristoff Character Who Has Been Put Through The Most Hell By His Author”.
Poor, poor bastard.
It felt like you had a lot of fun with the play between Gabriel and Jean-Francois, considering their official relationship was that of captive and captor. What role does humour play in your work?
Humor is a huge part of my writing, and always has been. EMPIRE is a very heavy book—the darkest moments I’ve ever written are in these pages, and it’s definitely not a book for the feint of heart. So the humor is one way to lighten the mood of what would otherwise be a fairly relentless journey through a world of murder and occasional smut.
Humor is also a way to make your protagonist more likeable. We all want a friend who can make you laugh in the face of tragedy. Gabe has had a lot of practice, believe me.
Now, we know your vampires don’t sparkle—not that there’s anything wrong with a little dazzling. What were two lore-related characteristics you wanted your vampires to have from the very start?
Nothing wrong with some dazzle. Or a little love triangle action (#teamdamonforlife)
But I wanted my vampires to be old school. AnneRicepires. Monsters of the night, terrifying and seductive and utterly bereft of human morality. If you’re killing people every night to survive, you’re very quickly going to stop seeing them as people and start seeing them as food.
They also share a lot of traditional weaknesses from vampire lore—repelled by holy symbols, can’t enter holy ground, can’t cross running water, burn in full sunlight. A monster’s limitations are important in a book like this. Humanity is on the back foot in the world of EMPIRE, and we need every advantage we can get!
EOTV pays, in part, homage to Interview with a Vampire in its mode of storytelling. How did you find the challenge of telling a story that consistently plays around with multiple timelines?
It was brutal. Like I said, EMPIRE almost broke me. Traditionally, I’m not a plotter—I tend to find my stories as I write them. But EMPIRE was so big, and so complex, I reached a point where I had to force myself to sit down and plan on a level I’d never done before. But, change is good for the soul, and EMPIRE is the best thing I’ve ever written, so the hard work paid off.
But yes, it was tough.
One of the main themes in this book is what happens when the consequences of one’s actions are taken away. What was it like to slip into the mindset of a monster like the vampire?
Oh, it was great fun. I grew up reading about monsters, so it was brilliant to step into their shoes for a while, and imagine the way darkness could twist you.
Fabièn is a dark father achetype—kind of an unkillable Tywin Lannister, determined to carve an immortal family legacy. Laure is the immortal temptress, the vampire princess. Liathe is the dark enigma. And while I love me some Vampire Diaries, there’s something disturbing about a guy who’s hundreds of years old pursuing highschool girls. So Danton is a dark exemplar of where that trope could lead (spoilers: nowhere good)
There’s certainly some amazing payoff throughout this book, whether it be in the form of hilarious banter-filled moments between characters, intense battle scenes, or big bombshell revelations—some of which had me swearing out loud (I even used Gabriel’s choice curse at one point, ‘F___ my face’). Without going into spoilers, can you tell us one of your favourite moments to write in EOTV?
It’s a tie. The first is a conversation between Aaron and Gabriel in Aveléne cathedral about the nature of faith. Firstly, because EMPIRE is really a book about faith, and those two characters are basically me arguing with myself about it. And second, because Aaron was a hugely surprising character for me—I wrote him as a kind of teen antagonist for Gabe, but he blossomed into so much much more over the book. His journey is one of my favorite parts of the whole story.
My other favorite scene is when Dior gets a new coat. But I can’t say any more than that.
We’re lucky enough to have beautiful illustrations throughout the book by the amazingly talented Bon Orthwick (@monolimeart). What was it like working with Bon and sharing your creative vision?
She’s amazing. Bonnie did such an extraordinary job on this novel. I wanted the illustrations to be more than just a gimmick—I wanted them to serve a narrative purpose, and breath a different kind of life into the story. Bonnie not only captured that idea and the aesthetic of the world perfectly, but she brought her own ideas and themes and inimitable style. I’ve been a fan of her work for years, and she’s truly outdone herself this time.
I love the way you play around with different ways of telling a story—from footnotes in the Nevernight Chronicle, mixed media formatting and dossier files in the Illuminae Files (co-written with the brilliant Amie Kaufman), and now an interview type format with EOTV. What would you like to try next?
You sound like my agent! Let’s wait til one series is finished before we jump too far into the next one. I’m hip-deep in EMPIRE 2 at the moment, so I’m going to be playing in this world for a while yet. We’ll see what the future brings when it arrives.
Thank you for sitting down and chatting with us here at The Nerd Daily, and for letting us pick your brain on your creative process! It’s been a pleasure watching Gabriel suffer on the page and to witness the rise of vampires once more.
Empire of the Vampire is out on September 14th in the US, and September 7th in the UK and Australia, and it promises to bruise your heart, but not entirely break it, as long as you say ‘please’. Beware: this is a book with serious bite.
