Memnoch the Devil

Rating:
Summary: What to say about a book like this?
Review: This is one of those books that will capture your imagination. It has it flaws, but it was still well written. I don't hate this book, but I didn't love it. I think that Anne Rice was running out of ideas and decided to write something about the two most controversial things on this Earth, God and the Devil. The fact that God was depicted as being evil and not caring was a bit too exagerated. Memnoch seemed too good. He talked about the history of God and his angels, yet we still know nothing about him and God and why they truly fight. You need to know Christanity quite well, which I don't, to understand this book. I loved the other books much better and hope that Anne Rice makes books like the first ones. This book just shocked me a lot and I just don't really know how to describe it!

Rating:
Summary: Could have been much better
Review: Having read almost the entire series now I can say this is not one that I would ever go back and read again. I found this book very difficult to finish, not because it was hard to follow but just because it was so wordy, and extremely boaring. It took much longer to get through this then I expected it to. I had to force myself to finish this book. I couldn't just skip through it and then read the others and expect to know what was going on. So I eventually finished it. The series as a whole is great, but this book in the series is not one that I would reccommend, or say is the best, I wouldnt even call it the 2nd best. In my opinion it was more like the worst.
I like the idea of useing Memnoch, and writing a book about him. His actual historical background is really interesting. However had it been done in a different way then it was and had it not been as lengthy and wordy as it was then maybe it could have been better. Anne Rice seems to have this problem. She sometimes gets to discriptive and leaves NOTHING to the imagination. She uses 500 pages to say what some could say in 300 and it still be as effective. I am now reading The Vampire Armand, and it is MUCH BETTER than Memnoch was... I would definatly reccommend TVA....

Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: Well, this one was certainally different. I loved it. It was the kind of book that really put you to thinking. A book that you remember. One of the greatest of the Vampire Chronicles. It was the kind of book that you keep around and read again.

Rating:
Summary: Definately Not the Best In the Chronicles
Review: I am an extreme Anne Rice fan, But this book has to be the worst in the Vampire Chronicles. I found it very hard to read but forced myself to finish it after an attempt to skip the ending made it difficult to follow the later books in the series. I felt that it was extremely long winded and the point was often lost.Before this book the thought of over describing a situation had never crossed my mind, Rice definately managed to do so. Had it not been a necessary step in the evolution of the chronicles I would have never gotten past the first chapter.

Rating:
Summary: Yeah!
Review: In the fifth Vampire Chronicle, Lestat is searching for Dora, the beautiful and charismatic mortal daughter of a drug lord. Dora has moved Lestat like no other mortal ever has, and he cannot get her out of his visions. At the same time, he is increasingly aware that the Devil knows who he is and wants something from him. While torn betwen his vampire world and his passion for Dora, Lestat is sucked in by Memnoch, who claims to be the Devil himself. Memnoch presents Lestat with unimagined opportunities: to witness creation, to visit purgatory, to be treated like a prophet. Lestat faces a choice between the Devil or God. Whom does he believe in? Who does he serve? What are the elements of religious belief? Lestat finds himself caught in a whirlpool of the ultimate choice.
This one matched the first two and with a more *magical* touch in the way Anne presented the first 50 pages. It was alluring and more of a spider web the way she spinned the events around the reader.

Rating:
Summary: Why is everyone bashing this masterpiece.
Review: This book is undoubtably her best work. Anne Rice takes Chrisitanity and rips it up by the roots to remake it in her own image. Im sure at first this is hard for some Christians to stomach. In my mind this is a perfect explaination of who and why we are. For me this is the only thing that would give Chrstianity any real basis and proof. It is a must read for anyone. I dont thing this deserves to be bashed like it is for it is a amazing book.

Rating:
Summary: More whining from vampires
Review: This one was disappointing to me. I thought it better than Tales of the Body Thief, but that is not saying a whole lot. I think a lot of the problem is that I am just getting tired of L'Estat's whining, and tortured, repentant vampires in general, even when they do meet god and the devil.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: I hated this book. I had read and loved all the other books in the series, but this one just (wasnt very good). You simply don't mix religion and fantasy. It takes the wonderful setting from the previous books, and turns it upside down. DON'T read this book. It is stupid and disgusting. If you are reading the vampire cronicles, just skip over it. Its not worth the time.

Rating:
Summary: Judging God
Review: With Memnoch the Devil, the fifth installment in her "Vampire Chronicles", Anne Rice demonstrates what I have long suspected: that she is at heart a theologian and a wonderfully heretical one too. Rice is as learned and daring as her most famous creation, the Vampire Lestat. She also has the common touch necessary to reach a wide audience. The pious and the snobbish alike are appropriately forewarned.

Readers familiar with the series will need no introduction to Lestat, who finds himself this time around sought after by no less a personage than the Devil. Those who are dipping into Rice for the first time may find themselves confused about who's who among the many characters. Not to mention why on earth God and the Devil would seek the aid of the amoral and murderous aesthete who is the Vampire Lestat.

As a novel, Memnoch is not Rice's finest. I miss the luxuriously detailed story-telling and fine-tuned characterizations of the early vampire novels. All of that is dispensed with here as Rice barely goes through the motions of introducing characters and setting the scene.

As an exploration of ideas, on the other hand - ideas about the nature of God and man, good and evil, beauty and truth - Memnoch is Rice's most ambitious, interesting and meaningful work. The story within the story - the story of the creation and evolution of the cosmos and man as told to Lestat by Memnoch the Devil is the true heart of the novel. In fact, the Vampire Chronicles could be viewed as Rice's vehicle for promoting an authentically postmodern theology (with roots in ancient Gnosticism?)...

Some critics complain that Memnoch is "too philosophical". But there is a philosophical element in all Rice's works and that is what has always made her more interesting to me than any other "pulp fiction" writer. Surely this also accounts for the widespread appeal of her writing. She writes great stories about vampires and witches it's true, but that's not all there is to her books. Her true concern has always been the human condition. Life, death, eating, killing, surviving... Loving...

Conclusion: Memnoch is a must for Rice fans. Those who have yet to be initiated into her world are advised to start at the beginning with Interview With the Vampire.

Rating:
Summary: Still good!
Review: This book explores more controversial views than any of her other ones. I certainly did not mind it, it actually made the book more interesting. It made me think about the religious world more clearly. It did drag a bit though. I recommend this book if you like philosophy.