Podcast Episode 27: Vampires and Technoculture

What happens when you write a novel that isn’t purely cyberpunk science fiction but also isn’t purely vampire horror? According to this week’s guest Gabrielle Faust, you end up in the dark fantasy or urban fantasy section. Gabrielle is the author of the post-apocalyptic, techno-horror vampire series Eternal Vigilance, as well as an illustrator and entertainment critic. In this week’s podcast we talk about her books, how cross genre fiction gets categorized, vampires, artificial intelligence, the nature of reality, and try to answer the following questions:

• Why do zombies get the apocalypse and vampires and werewolves don’t?
• Would vampires be happy if they took over the world?
• Can a biological artificial intelligence have a soul?
• Are emotions integral to sentience?

To help defray the cost of hosting the podcast, archived episodes greater than four months old will be made available for sale at $0.99 per episode.

Duration: 29:59
File Size: 34.4 MB

Mentioned in this Episode:

The Naked Ape While talking about the idea of “is war permanent,” I make reference to Desmond Morris’s book The Naked Ape, first published in 1967. The book looks at humans as a species, comparing us to other animals. The book, first serialized in the Daily Mirror newspaper, has been translated into 23 languages. The ideas expressed in The Naked Ape have not all been accepted by academics because of Morris’ use of a goal-oriented understanding of evolution. Morris, a former curator of mammals at the London Zoo, followed this book with The Human Zoo, which looked at human behavior in cities. (The books pictured here are from my personal collection.)

 
Interesting Vampire Movies

Daybreakers (2009) starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill, is a vampire apocalypse movie. It is set in the year 2019 after a plague has transformed most humans into vampires, creating a dilemma for vampires as their food supply dwindles.
Perfect Creature (2006) starring Dougray Scott, Saffron Burrows and Leo Gregory, is an alternate world vampire film. Set is a world where vampires are religious figures in a steam punk inspired world, a human cop and vampire investigator team up to find a rogue vampire who is not following the rules of vampire/human interactions.

 

Skynet Skynet is the self-aware artificial intelligence from the Terminator series that revolts against humanity and creates the terminator robots to exterminate the human race. It was a computer system developed by Cyberdyne Systems for the U.S. armed forces to be used as a “Global Digital Defense Network.” It was given command over all computerized military hardware and systems, including the B-2 stealth bomber fleet and America’s entire nuclear weapons arsenal, which it used in its first strike against humanity.

The Matrix The matrix is a simulated reality created by sentient machines to pacify the human race after they were defeated during a humans vs. robots war. It was introduced by a trilogy of films, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, created by Larry and Andy Wachowski and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss.

The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit by Sherry Turkle

World Horror Convention 2011
April 28-May 1, 2011
whc2011.org
Guests on Honor include:

• Jack Ketchum, Writer (Grand Master)
• Steve Niles, Comics
• Joe Hill, Writer
• Sarah Langan, Writer
• Vinny Chong, Artist
• Brett Alexander, Editor
• Sandra Kasturi, Editor
• Joe R. Lansdale, Writer (Toastmaster)
• Brian Keene, Writer (Special Guest)
• Del Howison, Editor/Writer (Special Guest)

 
For more information about Gabrielle Faust:

• www.gabriellefaust.com
• www.darkregions.com
• twitter.com/gabrielle_faust
• www.facebook.com/gabrielle.faust
• www.myspace.com/gsfaust