Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Oh dear where to begin Pros: I enjoy seeing what the Vampires I loved are doing now. It's like checking up on old friends. Louis Cons: Where do I begin. The plot so far is very weak and is just a rehash of Queen of the Damned but with Amel. The book suffers from way too many characters. Checking up on past vampires wouldn't be so bad if Anne Rice didn't feel the need to dig up every single random Vampire that was ever alluded to in every single VC book she'd ever written. Even Lestat's maker appears as a freaking ghost! Then on top of past characters and random past characters such as the "Musician" from IWTV, we have brand new characters such as Rose, Viktor and these two supposed science Vampires. None of these characters add anything to the story, they offer filler to bulk up the book and nothing more. They just sit around being rich, beautiful, and weeping in their silk garments and Hugo Boss suits, and on occasion they think about how awesome Lestat is and how he's gonna be superman Lestat and save them. Not only does she dig up all these Vampires but each of them feel the need to refer to every past novel written. It's like they don't read anything else. "And the stories in truth amazed (Rose), not only by their complexity and depth, but by the peculiar dark turns they took, and the chronology they laid out for the main character's moral development" She seriously has her own characters reviewing her past novels. lol!! The plot alludes to danger for the Vampires but like QoTD only the red shirts are in danger. The coven of the Articulate and their friends are A okay so you don't worry nor feel anything about the events taking place. I sort of wished the story was from the perspective of the Vampires who are truly in danger but instead we get pages after pages of monolog and weeping. Sadly even the vampires we know and love are just cardboard cut outs with no passion or desire. Just beautiful dolls who weep in silk. You can't tell where one character end and the other begins as they all have the same dialogue, same look, same lifestyle. Perhaps this would have appealed to me when I was in my teens and early twenties but I want more than just beautiful rich people. I want characters with a soul I can relate to and I'm not getting it here. The pacing sucks and the structure is all over the place. One moment you are with Lestat, Jesse, and David contemplating the new possible threat then the next moment you are reading about some random little girl you care nothing about. it just takes you away from the plot..oh yeah cause there is no plot. I had to literally drag myself through this story and it just went downhill as it progressed. Anne Rice attempts to use science to explain Vampires yet she obviously knows nothing about science nor is she a sci-fi writer so expect no real explanation other than "it's too complex to understand." as an answer. Why even bother introducing scientific elements if your characters are too dumb to even understand it? Which is hilarious considering that all these characters have either studied at Standford or Harvard or have at least lived long enough to pick up a book and do some research....but I guess they are all busy reading Anne rice's past books. The ending of this novel is beyond dumb. It makes you wonder how these Vampires even lived to be as old as they are. They decide they need a ruler so they adopt a Vampire monarchy complete with Lestat as ruler based solely on everyone knowing who he is. Mind you, this is the same Vampire who hates rules, the same Vampire who was dumb enough to turn his powerful body over to a human he just met, the same Vampire who turned his body over to a lab ran by Vampires he just met, allowed them to take DNA samples from him and inject him with drugs, and was just suicidal at the beginning of the book and has shown suicidal tendencies in the past. THIS is who every last Vampire is trusting their very existence to, this suicidal hamburger brained moron called Lestat. And then they create these silly little rainbow brite rules that cannot possibly work in any society much less a society of Vampires. They have a castle and will hold some form of archaic court...I swear it's like the Vampires all got together and decided to play a game called "monarchy". And I just need to say this. Lestat is such a Gary Stu. The other Vampires are practically chanting his name with a royal title in front of it. "His royal highness" as he gives his elementary school Vampire rules complete with one character sobbing with joy that he will lead them. I think my eyes rolled to the back of head reading this nonsense. It's like the character Lestat sat down and wrote fan fiction about himself. He gets to be the King of all Vampires, a Prince, has a clone *Facepalm*, and can now have sex and produce sperm....cause...science reasons. I half expected the Vampires to crawl on their hands and knees to polish Lestat's boots with their tongue. smh Oh yeah and the big threat turned out to be nothing much as Anne Rice is determined to not write any sort of consequences for her characters. *sigh* It seemed more like it was just a reason for the Vampires to meet up and talk to each other.