Prince Lestat: The Vampire Chronicles

I don't normally do reviews because I am a very harsh critic. I know what I like and what I expect from a book. There are very very few books meet those expectations. I think out of the 857 books I have owned I have written a review on three of them. So for me to write one now means I have a book that exceeds my expectations and from an author I have snubbed for a very long time. I really like the Author Anne Rice as person she is a kind, noble, and not afraid to share her wealth of knowledge to other aspiring authors. That has earned her my respect as a person. {Not that I think Anne cares one bit}I tossed Anne Rice's vampires aside because I am a person who loves technical things. I like science and the reasons behind the way something is. I love history and knowing where something came from and for me, that wasn't present in her early works.When her new book Prince Lestat and the realms of Atlantis was revealed {I was on her page at 7:00am sharp for that} I was intrigued and decided if I was going to read the second book of a series then I should read the first book. So went from her page, bought the book and I was more than surprised.It was like Anne took everything complaint I had and said fine you want history here you are. You asked for science here you are. She lays out every single bit of history from the very beginning of the vampire family tree. She introduced science and explanations for why certain things occur and why others do not. She even explained questions I had but dismissed under the pretense that I was being too picky. This alone made the experience for me well worth it.Anne has always had the capacity to write with such beauty that she can take words and use them paint the lushest landscapes, from the deepest darkest jungles in Africa to the hustle and bustle of modern day cities. She makes them real and when you read it you not only can see it but you feel like you are there. If you have been to these places you can revisit them almost in living color.In Prince Lestat, she has a whole host of rich characters each with what I would call a summary, of who they are, {Again YAY history} what they are about, and what drives them. She brings this host together linking them together with a common threat and fitting each of them in with the precision of a jigsaw piece in a puzzle. She pulls them from all walks of life; from the gentlest souls who just want no more than to love and be loved, to those who are down right indifferent, and even the most powerful among them. She then tosses in the trouble makers and those who are so broken they are no more than sad puppets. She also throws out the time honored tradition of 'the quiet ones changing the world' the ones you don't see coming and forces the unwitting but the loudest protester to take their place. She forces them into the lime light by peer pressure just as it would happen in the real world. Then she lets them decide what they are going to do, for better or for worse and she lovingly details each internal war with the detail you would expect from her.I have to applaud Anne in this and she has great job of explaining everything and inviting even the most stubborn and analytical of those readers out there, like myself, into her world. She says see look at what you missed and indeed I seem to have missed a lot.

....but went with four because I did like the book overall. I have read most of the vampire chronicles, and have no hesitation in saying the first three are among my all time favorite books. Prince Lestat carries on the tale of Anne Rice's vampires, and seems to provide an epilogue to their story. But this is not Anne Rice at her best. Her punch and edge seem diluted, and elements are rehashed in this novel. The plot, for one, is pretty much the same as Queen of the Damned. Vampires are being burnt all over. No one knows why. A mysterious voice is communicating with vampires around the world (this mechanism parallels the universal twin-dream in QotD). Slowly the mystery is solved. The reveal is somewhat predictable, but I will not spoil here. The story is broken up into different POV chapters, and occasionally goes back to Lestat to see what he is up to. This structure is the same as QotD. However, Queen of the Damned had an energy and buildup that is not present in this novel. The POV's are mostly all male vampires and they all kind of have the same voice. The females show up towards the end, and for some reason all seem to be living together in a weird vampire Shangri-La cave place. We meet old, well established characters as well as some new ones. We get some insight into the Talamasca and its origins but it is kind of rushed through and doesn't feel like a big reveal. A mortal character named Rose is introduced. Rose's chapters are kind of interesting, but seem out of place in this novel. They seem to be there to present some social commentary on the perils that young women face in the world today. Many vampires that were presumed dead in earlier novels show up in this story. Some of them are in ghost form.All of this is OK and fine really. Anne Rice certainly can write whatever she wants and take these characters where she thinks they need to end up. The thing that I really just plain didn't like is that Lestat no longer feels like a brat prince, but more like an old fuddy duddy who can't understand iPhones and modern scientific jargon. I kind of missed the old Lestat who embraced and ran with modern technology. He, and the other vampires, also just seemed different. Lestat spent more time describing the make and cut of his suits than how he felt when he meets his "son" towards the end of the novel. Maharet is in this novel and she does things that don't make sense with her character at all as we know her. She gives up the family. The talamasca founders abandon the talamasca. The former iconoclast Lestat sets up a new governing body with rituals and ceremonies for all vampires. Everyone abandons the thing that was formerly most important to them for reasons that don't make a lot of sense.The shining and standout aspects of this novel are that it has a couple science-y vampires who do research (finally), and it deals in a pretty clever way with why people as a whole in the world of these novels still don't believe in vampires. Overall though, I think this book is Lestat mentally passing middle age and moving on into his golden years. More than any other character, he has always seemed to me like an avatar for the author and reflects how she is seeing the world. At least that is how I read it. Anyways - definitely worth the read if you are a fan of this series and of Anne Rice.

Prince Lestat has a richly layered, well thought out cosmology, with all small parts supporting the whole. There are references throughout the beginning to remind of characters, histories, and relationships. This must have been painstaking to write, I am sure, but I found this to be wonderfully effective for this important work, in the chronicles. I think Victoria Wilson should be mentioned, in this respect. Victoria has edited Anne's books since 'Interview.' We never see her exact influence but, I can imagine editing this book was quite a challenge. So I say, "Hail Victoria!" I love the feel of this work and all others!Now...The first three books of the chronicles are AR vampire lore 101. You must read them, to fully to understand the many characters within this novel. Truthfully, I think you must read Anne Rice's books more than once to absorb the labyrinth of this authors hypnotic, and intriguing vampiric cosmology.Isn't it a part of survival to change and adapt? Well these immortals never cease to surprise us on that account. Opening this book was sometimes mind altering, it was a completely different kind of experience.The Rice vampire pantheon is infused with present day things, with their roots firmly embedded in the past. The colorful, cultural references embellished with astute detail, add a richness, and an authenticity to this epic tale.It is a grand thing to hear that familiar voice, as I read! To be back, venturing with the ever entertaining Lestat, in that strange vampiric world, woven in the words of a Rice novel. There are many parts to this work, and it is quite complicated. We are blessed with some of the familiar vampires, and there are new characters that are mindfully revealed ,and in their perfect time. The tale is all pulled together by a thread through, in the guise of an unfamiliar voice. There is an ever looming threat that builds the parts into an intriguing plot, and an incredible climactic resolve.Upon finishing I had to take some time to absorb the contents of this work. I kind of had to erase everything I knew about the chronicles. Like a reboot of consciousness. I was overwhelmed by the ending and was so surprised, and perplexed, I did not know how to take it in, after awhile I felt a kind of elation. It's hard to articulate but it is such a shift. Anne seems to have transcended her written work in the chronicles to another level. I immediately wanted to continue onto the journey, the next chapter, the next novel. I can't wait!I can't ever remember having such a reaction to a novel. I guess it's kind of a collective building, from reading Anne Rice's novels for many years, and having the great fortune of learning more of her work on facebook, along with seeing her reviews, and discussions here on Amazon.It 'is' a whole new era, and how grand to be in the throes of it as it progresses.The vampire legend is forever changed, once again.Opening a door to the past, present, and future of Anne's iconic characters and their immortal world.All Hail! Prince Lestat!All Hail! Anne Rice!....and your triumphant return!

Finally found the time to read "Prince Lestat" and LOVED LOVED LOVED it. I feel the book starts off slow but the second half, for me, just took off. There was a wow moment with Lestat late in the book that made the book totally worth all. I fell totally and completely in love with it. This book is in sections and some are from other vampire viewpoints, but it soars when it's Lestat.I was so impressed and relieved that the theme of this entire book is about bringing the vampires and their curse/gift into the 21st century with new thinking. Gone must be the outmoded, old-fashioned ways of thinking about it. No more medieval programming to make them think they are demons, monsters or damned or going to Hell. They need to bring more science into it, more forward-thinking about the future (not just 2015 but far into the future since they are immortals.) And this is what this book does. It has been a long time in coming and I think Anne needed to be in the right place in her head to write it. She needed to take more than a decade to let that vampire universe sit around and maybe do some evolving, philosophically speaking, on its own. As a result, I feel Anne delivered with this book BIG TIME. This novel is about vampire evolution, and instead of depression and darkness it is about connection and community and living in harmony with humans instead of murdering them willy-nilly (except for evil-doers.) It's a huge book and it requires getting a lot of vampires out of the way and bringing others (especially very old 5000/6000 year old ones, some of the very first ever made) into the picture and scene, learning survival from them and other gifts, but also teaching them to move ahead in their thinking. She did an amazing job. The writing is not perfect but it totally flows. It is repetitive in some parts but I didn't care. It's her art and from her heart and all that came gushing forth because it's not honed and rendered down to sounding like everyone else in the average, ordinary, play-it-safe writing world. In fact, I appreciate that. Her florid and flowing writing is her trademark of heat and inspiration and I, as a writer myself, take extreme inspiration from that. She does a LOT of telling, just like one of my other favorite authors Alice Hoffman, a thing we're told in classes not to do. Yet she sorta just gives the finger to the world and does it and it works! It's wonderful because the writing just flows and there's a lot of necessary information that can imparted that way quickly.What I adored about Prince Lestat is that the vampires are human and finally acknowledge that they are still human. And Anne breaks them out of their cliches, which I don't see a lot of other vampire books doing.There are also some amazing and vivid images in this book, scenes, poses, etc. They are so well done that some of these well-described images are still burning in my brain.Final thought: Anne breaks new ground here. I highly recommend this book. If you love Lestat you will love this. I like that her vampires evolve but that they can still have their eccentricities (Lestat still likes to wear lace at his throat in the 21st century, and long frock coats. Not that he can't wear jeans.) Her vampires still like to be spectacles of themselves, live in posh private digs or castles, drive Bentleys, things like that. Also, tiny spoiler here: I love that Louis gets the last chapter. It is absolutely perfect that he gets the last word. I just love it.

This is my review of Prince Lestat by Anne Rice. The newest book in the vampire chronicles.Please keep in mind, I am trying not to reveal any of the major, numerous, and extensive plot twists here.(No spoiler alert required.)In 1976 Anne Rice published Interview with the Vampire While on the surface a Gothic horror tale, Anne Rice opened for us the glorious world of Vampires which would yield a dozen novels, collectively known as "The Vampire Chronicles." (not to mention her other series and stand alone books.)What distinguishes Anne Rice's writing is her meticulous attention to detail, historical research, imagination and character development. There is also a relentless existentialism that leaps from the very first page of Interview with the Vampire and continues through her present works.The world and characters of Anne Rice's writings are more than stock figures used in superficial plots to satisfy a reader's taste for violence. The violence is in many ways an incidental part of the vampire's existence (as well as ours, and every other living thing). Each character is a complex persona with virtues and tragic flaws, a complicated living being (or undead as the case may be). They manage to possess a unique literary equivalent of leitmotif, wherein their very presence brings forward a unique representative account forged in the time and culture in which they were turned into a vampire. Spanning six thousand years of history, they struggle to come to terms with their strange powers and the evil acts that must sustain them. They live in a world dominated by humans and despite their accumulated power, wealth, and knowledge they cannot escape themselves and the times in which they were changed. Each is a creature of his or her own aeon.It seems there is a certain maddening tension found throughout Anne Rice's work yet she refuses to give in to the suspense. There must be some purpose, some trajectory and above all, some hope to it all.In Prince Lestat, we revisit the outlandish actions of our unforgettable and unwilling anti-hero. Lestat recklessly serves his own will which is driven by mid-enlightenment and pre revolutionary French aristocratic ideals. His actions in part, awaken Anne Rice's cast of characters to deal with the latest and arguably biggest cataclysm faced by all the undead, in all their long history.A crisis has occurred that threatens to destroy them. Their estate is a mirror of an enigmatic life force, Amel, trapped in a mindless body and trying to break out and forge a destiny and identity for himself. Amel's life has been characterized by disorientation and confusion as it interacts and enters into a world that for him is meaningless and absurd. Now Amel is trapped in an eternal hell, alone, unable to become by acting. His only connection to the outside is tangential to the lives of the beings that depend upon his existence for their very lives.The true horror here is not the blood, burnings and the destruction but the abject hopelessness and sense of uncertain meaning that pervades the existence of Amel and Anne Rice's vampires. In shuffling off their mortal traits, they too have lost much of the human experience which in turn is tangential and elusive.Out of this mire Anne Rice raises a hero whose capacity to overcome lay not merely in his substantial power but in the force of his mind and will which is driven by the dreams and ideals of the dawn of the modern world. Yet there is a problem. Lestat is a rugged individualist who, unable to break out, has turned inwards. Can a modern man rise above circumstances far greater than he knows? Will he achieve victory as the Vampire everyone is trying to turn him into or will he find a better way?Underlying the existential trap is the problem of immortality itself. While many of the modern vampires in Anne Rice's world have chosen this Faustian bargain, those like Lestat and many of the elders did not. Lestat describes his making as a rape. In addition to the root crisis involving Amel and the most ancient of these creatures, Anne Rice has created a new type of vampire. This new vampire seeks immortality for either vice or virtue. There is a generational conflict paralleling the hyperbolic changes in human society today, philosophy and science. It brings both promise and chaos and raises another important theme in Anne Rice's work: the ethics of a finite immortal creature.Anne Rice's vampires face dilemmas. They range from the practical challenge, constantly having to move on, change identity, preserve wealth and live undetected, as the world is becoming more sophisticated and hiding becomes harder. In addition to facing crisis after crisis, and the ever present hunger.Immortality has it's attractions and problems for Anne Rice's characters. We are introduced to a host of brilliant and virtuous people who wish to use their immortality to gain knowledge and improve the realm of the undead, and indeed the living as well. Yet they must live with ...