Rating: 
Summary: Oh... My... God... Anne does it again!!
Review: About 1/2 way through "Vittorio the Vampire," I was already recommending the book to friends and family who have never read Anne Rice and, always seeing me with one or another of her books, ask that inevitable, "What is it about her? Should I read her?" Yes, everyone should read her stuff!! If you don't start with "Interview with the Vampire," which stands on its own as a classic even as it introduces The Vampire Chronicles, pick up "Vittorio" and have a taste. I really enjoyed this book... definitely one of the freshest and most captivating things she has done in quite awhile. The prose are incredibly vivid without getting tooooo wordy. The character of Vittorio is great. Part of me wants him to meet up later on with Lestat (or maybe Armand, since they were born in the same century), and part of me wants him to be left alone. I only wish Ursula and his connection with her might have been explored a bit further, to me it seemed he was more bewitched by her than in love with her. The angel storyline, without giving too much away, was simply great, a marvelous twist!! Something about this book makes me feel like Anne Rice has come full circle, whatever that means... I eagerly await whatever it is she chooses to do next. People who don't read her work tend to see Ms. Rice as only a writer of the supernatural, but her works are layers, unmasking not just vampires but contemplations on love, spirituality, and redemption. Read this book, it will engage you!
Rating: 
Summary: Rice's New Novel Has Interesting Twist
Review: In her latest terrifying novel, Ann Rice writes about a vampire who thirsts for blood. He ends up killing many people and a few animals to quench his deadly thirst. For, you see, he is a vampire. As in her previous novels, the vampires in this story want to live eternally, so they keep killing people and sucking their blood to keep living. But this story has a startling twist which will enthrall the reader - this vampire is not named Lestat or some French sounding name. This vampire is named Vittorio, like an Italian.Bravo, Ann Rice. You are our Mistress of the Dark from New Orleans and one of the great literary giants in the history of humankind. Please keep giving us your wondrous books about vampires who suck people's blood.
Rating: 
Summary: Vittorio not up to par with Pandora or Armand
Review: Normally I enjoy everything Ms Rice writes. This new book lacks the depth of her prior books. Vittorio is an angry and aguished young man and we spend more time delving into his emotions than developing a full story line. Disappointingly, Ursula appears sporadically and is never fully developed, nor is the coven she lives in. The angels storyline is interesting but also underdeveloped. I kept waiting for the climax and still, 50 pages from the end of the book had not found it. I finished the book in almost 6 hours, lacking the desire for the next installation,the exhillaration from the book, or the disappointment that the story had ended from Ms Rice as I normally do after completing her works. I remain a loyal Rice fan, but would have happily waited longer for the next installment to the chronicles,a vintage Rice book instead of this mediocre addition. Vittorio could have easily gone as an unexplained vampire and would have never been missed. His story adds nothing necessary to the history of the vampires that Rice is working to develop and we are hardly the richer for having "met" him.
Rating:
Summary: Rehash of her better works.
Review: Oh man, what a stinker. Anne Rice must have needed some more money, so she rehashed the worst parts of her first three Vampire novels (agonizing pacing, annoyingly whiney vampires, etc.) into this pile of crap. Anne can still turn a good phrase and occasionally insert a neat new detail, but you're better off re-reading "Interview..." and praying that Anne gives it up before plunging into self-mockery.
Rating:
Summary: Fans of Anne Rice will enjoy Vittorio the Vampire
Review: Once again, Anne Rice has written a very vivid and colorful tale that pulls in her reader. Written from Vittorio's view and in the timeperiod of the Renaissance, you can understand why in some places the verbage seems labored. Whereas Pandora: New Tales of the Vampires kept me totally riveted and wanting for more, in spots Vittorio had me feeling; get on with it and was this meant to be a short story. Overall the book is quite good and her die hard fans will enjoy. But as with Violin, sometimes she changes her style and I end up hopeing that her next book will solidly win me back.
Rating: 
Summary: Ms. Rice's fans will enjoy her latest Vampire tale
Review: During the Renaissance in Florence, teenager Vittorio de Rinari enjoys being a member of a noble family. However, in 1450, a pack of bloodsucking vampires annihilates his entire family as Vittorio watches in horror. Seeking vengeance, Vittorio follows the demons. However, instead of attaining his quest, Vittorio meets Ursula, a beautiful vampire who bewitches the lad even as she falls in love with him. Ursula converts Vittorio into one of the undead. Instead of relishing his new essence and love, Vittorio agonizes between his new thirst and his lost humanity. While his inner turmoil threatens to destroy their potential eternal love, Ursula continues to reach out to him. The sovereign of vampire novels, Anne Rice, returns with her twenty-first entry. The story line is her usual fare of a noble male struggling between his love for a vampiress and the hell she has doomed him to exist in for ever. The love angle never turns 180 degrees because Ursula never is developed as a full blooded character, leaving readers to see one point of view, the angst of Vittorio. Ms. Rice's horde of fans will devour VITTORIO THE VAMPIRE, but the remaining potato lovers will want to pass on this well written, but nothing new under the sun tale. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: A new Vampire tale, sort of.
Review: "Vittorio the Vampire" is about Vittorio, a 15th Centrey Italian knight who loves art and his family (a rare turn for an Anne Rice vampire). One night his family is given an ultematum; give vampires a tribute or the village dies. The tribute is refused, and Vittorio's family is murdered in front of him; but he spared by the beautiful vampire named Ursula. He escapes and goes after the vampires for revenge with the help of some gaurdian angels. This is Anne Rice's attempt to seperate herself from Lestat; and it dose seems more like a sequal to "Memnoch the Devil" than anything else. It has a lot to do with angel and devil worship, to a degree. There is a lot to this book that is pretty good. I liked the Ruby Grail court, it has a kind of Charles Manson like cult spooky feel to it. There are some big problems with "Vittorio the Vampire"; it is too close to "Interveiw with the Vampire", with Claudia/Ursula comparison, and the Ruby Grail court reminds me a lot of "Theater of the Vampires" that Armand run in Paris. Also it seemed like a history lesson of the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy. But all in all it is short enough to really injoy before it gets tedious.
Rating:
Summary: a book with a new twist
Review: Just as in the Vampire Chronicles, this book is told in the first person by the vampire Vittorio, who recounts how he became a vampire. The story is set in Italy in the mid-1400s, during the heyday of the Medici family.
Vittorio, like Lestat, grew up in a wealthy family. He lost them all to a horde of vampires known as the Court of the Ruby Grail. His life is spared by the vampire Ursula, with whom he later falls in love.
The great thing about Anne Rice is that her style changes depeding upon the narrator of the story. "Vittorio's style" is vastly different from that of Louis, Armand or Lestat. From the beginning, Vittorio says that he loves language, but he is not as verbose and descriptive as Lestat or Armand. One could call Vittorio the Hemingway of the vampires. His sentences are simple and to-the-point. That doesn't mean that the reader is left to build the scenes himself; enough is given for a full picture.
There are many exciting moments in this book. Rice is at her most sinister and demonic when Vittorio is captured by the Court of the Ruby Grail. The scenes of Satanic ritual and worship are gripping. One feels as if he stands right beside Vittorio and his guardian angels as he sets off to destroy the Court of the Ruby Grail.
One thing that Vittorio shares with nearly all of Rice's vampires is his love for humanity, a lesson he really doesn't learn until the end of the story.
Rice's story also takes place within history, and one learns fascinating information about the Medici court and the painter Fra Filippo Lippi, an artist whose work Vittorio dearly loves. As in "Memnoch the Devil," when Lestat witnessed the crucifixion, it's interesting to see how much influence Rice's vampires had on history. Although Vittorio's influence isn't as intriguing as Lestat's (and I don't want to reveal too much), it's still interesting to see how much of an effect Vittorio's actions had on Lippi's life.
I gave this book three stars because I favor Rice's more verbose works. Vittorio also does not go off on philisophical rants like Lestat or Armand, thus this book contains more action and less of the narrator's self-reflection.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad
Review: This was the first Anne Rice novel I've ever read. So, I had no expectations. I didn't mind the novel. I found it quick to read, and the story was entertaining. Plus, I loved the history part the most. That time period is fascinating, but the genre isn't necessarily one of my favorites.
Rating:
Summary: Good entertaining read.
Review:
We've been reading and enjoying Ann Rice's vampire novels for a few years now. "Vittorio the Vampire" is one of the more recently written ones. In "Vittorio," Rice departs from the usual list of characters, Armand, Pandora, Lestat, etc., to introduce another and only slightly related branch of the vampire family. Vittorio was the son of a rich noble family from the mountains of northern Italy in the 16th century. His family associates itself with the Medici of Florence, Italy, and tries to stay out of wars and politics. Vittorio grows up learning both cultural knowledge of literature, mathematics, and art in addition to manly arts of knighthood. Unknown to Vittorio while growing up in the peaceful mountain valley castle of his family is the existence of a vampire cult called "The Court of the Ruby Grail." These vampires had, apparently for hundreds of years, demanded and received children, criminals, and other sacrificial victims from surrounding villages and nobles. When Vittorio's father refuses their renewed demand for sacrificial children, the vampire cult kills his whole family. Vittorio, who is only 16 years old, survives when he meets a young "girl" vampire and it's love at first sight. In the subsequent chapters Vittorio gets captured and taken to the castle of the Ruby (blood) Grail vampires and learns of their horrors. We are entertained by their blood red mass at midnight before a statue of Satan with sacrificial victims lined up at the communion rail to be bled dead. We never are told where these vampires originated, but loyal Rice readers might presume that they may have come originally out of the Satanic vampires who have plagued Marius for many centuries. Ursula convinces the elders to spare Vittorio once more and he is taken to Florence and dumped on a street. He is taken in by monks associated with the Medici, for indeed as his father's heir he has a small fortune in the Medici banks. From there he meets guardian angels, and they call a major angel. They help him go back to destroy the Ruby Cult by daylight, but he can't destroy Ursula, his true love. At nightfall she awakes and tricks him into becoming a vampire himself. True love has triumphed over vampires and angles, and the two of them live together happily ever after.
This book raises the philosophical question of whether or not it is acceptable to sacrifice the infirm and helpless of a society for the others to be wealthy and prosperous. Both in Vittorio's family lands, and in the town of Santa Maddalana, the people had sacrificed their children and their week in order to prosper. They had no crime, no infirm, no sick, no plague, none of the suffering that usually plagues human society. But is prosperity and peace worth the horrible price? The question has troubled philosophers and politicians for a long time.
[Note: The Ruby Grail cult apparently numbered about 46 vampires. In Rice's vampire novels, every vampire needs about 1 victim's blood per day. That comes to about 16790 victims per year, or significant city in the 16th century. It comes to about 840,000 deaths in a 50 year human lifetime, more than even the largest cities. That seems to me to be a non-sustainable depletion of human population.]
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