Rating:  Summary: The Inevitable Loss of Innocence Review: Once upon a time. Oh how the heart of every reader quickens with those simple words. Oh how the soul of every reader is touched by them. Now, see if you can resist the inexorable pull of the following words: "When I was a small boy I had a terrible dream. I dreamt I held in my arms the severed heads of my younger brother and sister. They were quick still, and mute, with big fluttering eyes and reddened cheeks, and so horrified was I that I could make no more of a sound than they could. The dream came true." Thus begins Vittorio, The Vampire, Anne Rice's second book in her wonderful New Tales Of The Vampires series. Vittorio di Raniari, as the title implies, is a vampire. He has, as he puts it, "...been in bed with the dead since 1450...," or, in other words, since the glory days of the Medici in Italy's aptly called Age of Gold. Vittorio became the creature he is today at the tender age of sixteen. He was still "...A beautiful boy for the time. I wouldn't be alive now if I hadn't been. That's the case with most vampires, no matter who says otherwise. Beauty carries us to our doom. Or, to put it more accurately, we are made immortal by those who cannot sever themselves from our charms..." In what has become a distinctive trademark style of narrative for Anne Rice, Vittorio writes for us the fable of his making from what is now the tallest tower of the ruined mountaintop castle where he was born well over five-hundred years ago. And what a mesmerizing fable it is! It begins with a nearly incomprehensible tragedy. In the latest, darkest hours of one fateful night, a band of evil demons invades the peaceful ancestral castle and its surroundings where Vittorio lives with his beloved family. All but Vittorio himself are mercilessly slaughtered, and the only reason he is spared is because he has caught the eye and the heart and the soul of the beautiful young demon, Ursula. The next day, a reeling Vittorio sets out with nothing but vengeance in his heart, and little thought for his own well-being, on a determined quest to track down the demons. Inevitably, perhaps, his quest lands him in the very mouth of hell, a horrific place with the oh-so fancy name of 'The Court Of The Ruby Grail,' where the demons rule as they have for centuries. There, in the dominion of the demons, Vittorio is made a witness as well as subjected to a mind numbing array of perversions, degradations and horrors that only the dark imagination of Anne Rice could envision let alone write about in such evocative and loving detail. Does Vittorio survive 'The Court Of The Ruby Grail'? Is he ever able to avenge his family? Suffice to say all is revealed as the fast-paced narrative unfolds in a way that would make Poe, Hawthorne, Shelley and all of the other long-dead masters of the macabre in Rice's literary lineage sit up and take careful notice from their very graves. The great William Shakespeare is also a presence in Vittorio, The Vampire, as he has been in many Anne Rice novels. Rice has stated that Vittorio, The Vampire, is, in fact, her vampire Romeo and Juliet. Whether this was a deliberate choice on her part, or if it grew organically out of the strength of story and character, I have, of course, no way of knowing. Regardless, she succeeds brilliantly with this affect because it is so subtle. Here's a hint: think of vampires as the Capulets, and think of human beings as the Montagues, and remember that these two families were at mortal war with each other in the tragic play; then think of Vittorio and Ursula as the doomed young lovers Romeo and Juliet, and the affect becomes clear. Setting literary influences aside, Rice has with Vittorio, The Vampire, written a powerful tale about the inevitable loss of innocence we all must go through on our way to becoming our adult selves. Not to mention the fact that Vittorio, The Vampire is, simply, a darn good read, first page to last. Don't be tempted to pass up Vittorio, The Vampire just because it doesn't deal with the more familiar characters from Rice's celebrated Vampire Chronicles. You'll really be missing out on something special if you do. Vittorio, The Vampire is most definitely an exceptional book in its own right and deserves a place on your bookshelf right next to Pandora, the elegant and beautifully written first volume of the New Tales Of The Vampires series.
Rating:  Summary: She's done it yet again Review: I love the book, Vittorio the Vampire! He's yet another favorite character that I have fell in love with. The book was refreshing and very satisfying, although I was a tad bit disappointed that Vittorio didn't have anything to do with the "romantic New Orleans vampires". He's seen angels from his most beloved painting and has to deal with a battle inside himself somewhat, between good and evil, religious and sinful. All that he believed in took a toll when he fell for Ursula who somewhat deceive him, giving him the Dark Gift. Hopefully Anne Rice will make another great book, connecting him with the other favored vampires in New Orleans. I would love to read that. It seems like I find another fave vampire in every story Anne Rice writes. From Lestat, to Maruis, to Pandora, to Armand, and now to Vittorio. He is definately on of my top faves.
Rating:  Summary: A new vampire hero. Review: Anne Rice has created a character in Vittorio the Vampire that I hope to read more of. Frankly, though I love Lestat, I am getting tired of him and feel like he has gone about as far as he can go, what with that boring Memnoch fiasco and all that. Vittorio could easily become a new vampire hero. He is what we expect of Anne Rice vampires, beautiful and brooding. Vittorio is strong and daring like Lestat, but is more like Louis in his sensitivity and introspection. I liked how the story was told from the mortal Vittorio's point of view. It is more effectively chilling to read of a mortal's dealings with the undead. Vittorio the Vampire is a wonderful, but short story. The end of the book came too soon. I was left wanting more, and I hope that was the book's intent. Hopefully this is not the last we read of Vittorio and his beautiful sire Ursula.
Rating:  Summary: Who is the author? Review: This book is hugely infuriating. I finally finished it on the 3rd try. I keep asking myself is this the same Anne Rice who wrote "Interview" and "The Witching Hour?" I think she has become so successful--making so much money for her publishers--that they're afraid to edit her anymore. Lately she has become so self-indulgent as to be virtually unreadable. I struggled with "Armand" and simply could not read "Violin" even after 4 tries. "Vittorio" is hardly better. It is so maddeningly amateurish that it probably couldn't be published if it had been written by a first-time author. I told myself that it wasn't really Rice's voice that I found so annoying, but was the persona she'd adopted for writing as Vittorio. But then I remembered that I'd had the same problems with "Violin" and "Armand" and have to conclude that Anne Rice is simply getting lazy. And that saddens me because I used to like her work so much.
Rating:  Summary: Auch! Review: Usually Anne Rice writes pretty decent books but this must be her worst. The book raves as she tries to describe hallucinations. This makes it tough to follow. The ending is also a complete reversal the direction which the book took. And the logic and justification for that reversal lacks merit.
Rating:  Summary: Vittorio the Vampire Review: I loved this book so much I did not want it to end. Vittorio and Ursula were so good together. I was hoping for a miraculous ending. Please write another book about them and The Court of the Ruby Grail and there journeys in the beautiful Renaissance Italy. I can not help but to imagine how they would look if they were brought to life in a Motion Picture. This book let my imagination run WILD. Please continue there saga and life together.
Rating:  Summary: A jumbled mess Review: I was hugely dissapointed after reading this book. However, it was not really the book itself that bothered me so much, but the fact that it was by Anne Rice and she can do so much better. I had thought that she had made a triumphant return to her glorious writing style of yore when I read Armand, especially after being so dissapointed by Pandora. This is along the same vein as Pandora though. The entire book is like the first chapter of one of her better novels. You have only just started to get to know Vittorio when the story abrubtly ends. The relationships are never made clear, nor Ursula's motivation for being so loyal to a mere mortal. The religious imagery also left me feeling cold. Anne seems to more and more focus on Christianity in her books, and that is well and good when it has a point in moving the plot along or creating an atmosphere, but I could see no reason for all the references , especially the angels. I was also disappointed by Anne's descriptive narrative. Normally, her sensuous descriptions of time and place are the most rich and enjoyable part of her books, but I never really felt truth behind the narrative in Vittorio. I can only hope that Anne once again veers away from these short story type novels and into richer, deeper territory - Surely the reason her books are so loved?
Rating:  Summary: The latest but not the greatest Review: I don't know about you, but I'm one of those readers who have read Interveiw with the Vampire (the book that started it all) and have been hooked on vampire chronicles ever since. Some were good, some were bad, but I always had to know what would happen next, what new vampire would turn up - after all, these guys are immortal, nothing can stop them from decimating a city or breeding new vampires until eternity. In Vittorio, Rice rehashes an old plot - the naive fledging vampire falling for the professional older vampire's dirty tricks, the 'good' (i.e. beautiful) vampire wiping out the 'bad' (i.e.ugly and abhorrent) vampires as well as some trademark Rice erotica. As always Rice excels in atmosphere and setting, and when I say excel, I mean in every detail - historical personage, item of furniture, texture of fabric, nuance of architecture....and here it almost takes over the entire novel. Rice dwells lovingly on period detail, then rushes us forward into the present day (to conveniently show how long-lived these vampires are) in a matter of pages. Therin lies the puzzle. What happened during those hundreds of years somehow escaped Rice's notice?? Art history conoisseurs will lap this up, seasoned vampire readers will yawn. (Or skim). That said, it is a notch or two above Rice's previous effort, Pandora, but nowhere near as riveting or profound as the original.
Rating:  Summary: Stick with interview with the vampire Review: I had read the first in the new series Pandora and found it more interesting and bareable. I found that this book dragged at parts as you hear the young, still human Vittorio talk of revenge. He doesn't even become a vampire till almost the very end whereas in Interview the Vampire the tale begins with how he was created. The whole moral of the book is summed up in the last few chapters: revenge will eat away at you, people do crazy things for love, and whatever evil you do will come back to haunt you and stay on your conscience forever. To suffer through most of the novel to find out the obvious in the end just made it seem like a waste of time. If you really like Anne Rice's work read it for the hell of it but let me say this, I warned you it was bad.
Rating:  Summary: Angels & Vampires, Oh My! Review: I've loved and admired Ann Rice's talent from the time I read her first book. Through the years I've remained loyal and enjoyed works of hers that had nothing to do with vampires or other supernatural creatures (Cry to Heaven, Feast of all Saints), so it's not like I expect her to always write the same thing.For me, her work started to head downhill with Memnoch, and after a small rally with Pandora, I'm sorry to say I'm losing interest in Ann Rice novels. The primary problem is her ever growing interest in religious debate and an annoying dependence on the recent craze for angels.I appreciate the incidents in Rice's personal history that might give her reason to want to endlessly explore the nature and relationship of God, man, angels and the Devil, but whatever happened to good story telling? Vittorio meanders through a storyline that was weak at best, and then doesn't even bother to infuse it with any hint of truth. The great love story at the heart of the tale makes little sense. Neither Ursula or Vittorio knows anything about the other, and given their different natures (vampire/human) it seems unlikely that they would have fallen so completely for each other. Surely as a man of his times, Vittorio's love of religion and hatred for the destroyers of his family would have prevented lust for Ursula from overwhelming his good sense. And are we to believe that in all her years among the undead, Ursula had never encountered anyone whose physical beauty caught her interest? Certainly that's all she had to base her initial attraction to Vittorio on. To give credit where it's due, Rice does her usual wonderful job of creating a particular time and place with atmosphere and great detail. If you're new to Ann Rice, don't base your opinion of her on this book. Try her earlier works, when imagination carried her through intricate characters and narrations. Leave the angels to heaven and bumper stickers.
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