Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you’re a fan of the Vampire Chronicles you may have had some mixed emotions about titles beyond Queen of the Damned. I found Tale of the Body Thief interesting in the beginning and at the end, but the middle was, at times, a tad painful. Memnoch the Devil was polarizing, to say the least, and even a die-hard like me must admit a certain difficulty with the hybrid Mayfair/Vampire novels. That said, Prince Lestat is everything Anne Rice’s best novels have ever been and then some. Rice has become truly masterful at drawing the reader on. All the old favorites come back out in Prince Lestat, Armand, Louis, Gabrielle, Marius, and David, and so, too, ancillary characters or even characters previously referred to but unnamed in earlier works. The familiar characters are themselves after all these years, with no slippage in continuity or feel, and yet they are as vibrant as they were when we met them for the first time. There are also so many “new” characters, from fledglings to the First Brood and Queen’s Blood who were first Born to Darkness in Ancient Egypt. Each new character has a particular magnetism, from the beautiful Allesandra to the dangerous Rhoshamandes and his fledgling, the tender-hearted Benedict (Lestat’s grandsire In the Blood). Naturally, one need not have read all the novels to appreciate this one and it may be the first introduction to Rice’s world for some—that’s perfectly all right. She has written something that will appeal to first-time readers and Lestatophiles. Without spoilers I will say the novel is centered on an existential threat to the Vampire Species which necessarily draws them together despite the weariness of the Ancients and the solitary nature of most of the Undead. Lestat must rise as a reluctant leader or risk the destruction of the Vampire race. As slumbering Elders awaken at the promptings of a mysterious Voice, the danger increases for all. What amazes me about Anne Rice is this: even when a particular scene or line of dialogue seems over-the-top, out of place, or contrived, it still works. She gets away with “mistakes” that lesser writers cannot. Yes, the Vampire Chronicles are pulp, but Anne Rice, even as Lestat’s hardboiled detective demeanor gives way to the weeping Byronic poet, manages to render those jarring transitions natural, interesting, and (even for readers who have read and reread her novels for decades) unexpected. My only caveat there is by the last sixty to eighty pages I have a good idea how the story will play out, but again, it’s such a fascinatingly-rendered story that I don’t really mind when I perceive where it’s going. Rice’s research, worldliness, and sophistication renders her heroes utterly unique in the genre. She is literary without being esoteric, intellectual without being pretentious, and most importantly she is genuine. Her characters are genuine. This is no small matter in a world where more and more genre authors (not to name names) are striking a pose when they write. If many of these seem like backhanded complements, they aren’t. I’m sincerely impressed by what Rice has done in this novel that so few authors, even “great” literary authors never seem to attain: a novel of images, ideas, and human (so to speak) truth that never beats one over the head, never condescends, and never stops being fun. This book’s tragedy is that it ends. I wanted more. I was rapt with the possibility of there being more books to follow this one—Prince Lestat has come into his own and shed so much of the pessimism and angst that has from time to time in the past, perhaps, weighed the Vampire Chronicles down. What is ahead is framed as an exciting new chapter with dazzling possibilities. Final verdict: Prince Lestat is the best vampire novel to be written in decades—by anyone. Read it slowly because by the time it’s over you’ll already be thirsting for the next one.