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Summary: Another continuation in the Vampire Chronicles
Review: I was thrilled to learn that this book also included a link to the Mayfair Witches series. Although Anne Rice writes this book in a way so that anyone can pick it up and enjoy it, I don't think you would fully understand it unless you have been reading her other books as well. I loved having these two series combined in one book, but I was disappointed with Lestat's interruptions throughout the book. I also found that there were too many unexplained threads throughout the book. There are witches, vampires, ghosts, love interests and more; but not enough explanation surrounding each of these threads. You get an interest in one and then it's dropped to move on to something completely different, leaving you to wonder what's going to happen only to reach the end and find that the only thing resolved has to do with the main plot; all those other little threads are left hanging. So, the main plot? Lestat makes it his mission to learn about and find the Taltos (a species of life discussed in the Mayfair Witches chronicles). Definitely not one of her best books
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Summary: Is this really Anne?
Review: I know many diehard fans may wish to throw stones at me for what I am about to say but it must be said. Please to not take it in poor taste in speaking of the dead, but after the drivel that I found in Blood Cantacle it left me curious as to whether Anne's departed Stan may be the real writer behind the Vampire Chronicals and perhaps other of her works as well. It seems totally incomprehensable that the same author who gave us Memnoch the Devil could spew forth such juvenile literary garbage. It was poor closure to what I had always cherished as a wonderful collection.
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Summary: The Vampire Wuss-stat
Review: While 2003 was chock full of horrors and major disappointments in the realms of politics and popular culture, it had one thing going for it ... after last year, we will no longer have to fear being subjected to any more ostentatious Anne Rice vampire and witch novels around the end of October. For more than two decades, those of us who enjoyed the original installments in Rice's creative series returned to her books again and again, often hitting paydirt. But more often of late, we found ourselves getting far less in return for our time and money than we expected. And with the arrival of the 1990s, picking up a Rice novel was more akin to stumbling upon a train wreck -- it was wretched, but we couldn't turn our heads away. Now, however, our favorite Queen of Halloween has officially announced that both of her popular series, The Vampire Chronicles and The Lives of the Mayfair Witches, are whole and complete with the publication of her latest autoerotic novena BLOOD CANTICLE. I finished reading it just this past weekend and I have to tell you, it was probably the dullest and most pretentious of the entire lot (save for that completely self-indulgent BLOOD AND GOLD installment that was nothing more than a pulpy rehash of THE VAMPIRE LESTAT). My hard-earned $25 would have been better spent on gin, cigarettes, and porn. I thought BLOOD CANTICLE was not only extremely disappointing as the swan-song episode of Rice's two-decade homage to the macabre, but also whiny, affected, uninspired, and poorly written. I could have written a better final installment myself ... even if I'd never read the rest of her series. For her diehard fans, Rice provides absolutely no closure. Her heroes, antiheroes, villains, vampires, witches, monsters, ghosts, and saints act and react entirely out of character with the personalities Rice established in previous editions. And most of her major protagonists are left dangling, or worse ...(...). Clearly, what started out with a bang, has ended with a barely audible hiss ... and the contemptible, lingering odor of bad flatulence. Instead of prodding us with incessant prattle about Lestat wanting to be a saint, perhaps Rice should have adopted the old adage, "It's better to quit while you're ahead!" as Lestat's farewell banner. Or maybe it would be more fitting for Rice to simply change the name of her beloved antihero to Wuss-stat ... and then perhaps it would all make more sense!
Rating: 
Summary: This is how it ends?
Review: I have read all of Anne's vampire books and have, for the most part, loved each one in it's own right. This, however, is such a departure in writing style, story-line and intensity, that I am shocked it was written by the same woman who brought us timeless stories of other vampires. Lestat seems to be written like an 18 year old surfer, using the word "dude" too many times for me to count. Mona is detached and cold. Quinn is a stumbling fool. This book lacks Lestat's charm, it also lacks Louis, Marius, Armand, Pandora and every other entertaing character she has previously brought to life. I am sad this is her last chronicle. I am more sad that this is how the chronicle ended, which such a disappointing book.
Rating:
Summary: It was Fun...Kinda sorta
Review: A saint, please...Lestat must have stayed out in the sun a little longer than he thought. He does kinda go on and on about this whole saint business too much. I didn't like Mona Mayfair as a witch and I don't like her as a vampire. I loved Quinn story in Blackwood Farm. I have to now go back and see what's the deal with the Taltos. Overall it as a fun read.
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Summary: What happened to Lestat!?!?!
Review: I have read almost every one of Anne Rice's novels, and I have to say this is the worst one. Usually the language is poetic, yet forceful, and in this one, I thought Lestat seemed scattered and stupid. Suddenly, everything and everyone was "facinating". He talks like a 17-year old surfer, not a 200-year old well-read vampire. It almost seems like it was written by a different person. I can blame Anne Rice for some of it (though the story was good) but the editing was terrible (a slow downward trend has been noticeable for some time). Has she made so much money now that no one is going to tell her that she needs to FOCUS... not babble? Someone needed to take the fluff out of this book, but didn't.
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Summary: A crossroads of possibilities
Review: Anne Rice is back on her blood track. Lestat is back too and as lethally biting as usual. She brings together her two story lines : the Mayfair Saga and Lestat's Memoirs. It leads to some very fascinating moments where the psychology of the vampire, as it has evolved from that of the living being that was before, is explored in the various clashes each one of them has with the others, other vampires of course, but also human beings. And Anne Rice brings the Taltos line back into her writing. Fascinating too, but to a point. She decides to retrieve the Taltos from doom a little bit too late and she finds too many corpses that have been produced by a society, the Taltos society, that was doomed to get destroyed because of their own psychological and biological limits and possibilities and by the impossible commerce these Taltos can entertain with humans. They are taken over, which means destroyed both by the plotting members of their society and by the thugs of drug dealing. So we only get a description of their society through the survivors. It would have been interesting to enter this society and discover its shortcomings and its values and possibilities before they were destroyed. This is a little bit frustrating. But what is also kind of irritating is the fact that Anne Rice opens a great number of possible future developments but produces here a transitory book that does not really reach the level and height her novels generally reach. To the point of making a mistake and asserting that Lestat had to retrieve the microprocessor of a computer to take the memory of the computer along. Luckily she corrects the mistake later and this microprocessor becomes a hard drive, though only the hard disk was necessary. I find this volume a little less powerful than the previous ones and defintely less full of research and culture. Maybe she wanted to satisfy her readers who wanted a real Lestat again. Lestat may regress if he does not reach beyond what he has already done and into absolutely virginal lands. For sure he discovers love for a woman, and what woman, but this runs the risk of becoming a little bit soft in the intensity of the psychic and psychological exploration. And that poor Lestat loses his ambiguity in this adventure, though his ambiguity is his personal signature.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
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Summary: Blood Canticle
Review: I have recently read all of the Vampire Chronicles and Lives of the Mayfair Witches books, and I must say that I enjoyed this book. Lestat is back at it again, along, this time, with Quinn and Mona Mayfair. If you have not read the LOTMW series, then I recommend you do so, if you want to fully understand this book. I would like to comment on a reviewer who said that Lestat is a "goody goody guy." He is indeed not a goody-goody, though he indeed talks about wanting to be a Saint. After what he has been through in Memnoch the Devil, it is entirely understandable. He has seen both Heaven and Hell, and is still a little out-of-shape from his experience. Fear not, potential reader, for Lestat is still most certainly the Brat Prince, through and through. He just has his moods, and so does everybody. But again, I warn you, this book covers a great deal on the Mayfairs and the Taltos. Also, give Anne credit where credit is due. She has produced a wonderful series, the best books about vampires that I have read, and she again delivers a good book. If you have previously read the other books in the Chronicles, then it might be good to read this book.
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Summary: It wasn't what i expected
Review: Anne Rice has been one of my favorite authors of all times and i have enjoyed all her vampire novels. Expecting this book to be the same, i was dissapointed throughout the whole book. I did not read the Mayfair witch series because I wasn't interested in them in the first place. When she combined the two series together, i felt so lost and wondered why in the first place Anne Rice would do that. It was a waste of time and money. I do not recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Vampire Chronicles
Review: I've really enjoyed the Vampire Chonicles. One of the Spotlight Reviewers said Anne was very ill, so I hope the Chronicles continue once she regains her health. I've found her escapist stories about escentric, super-wealthy superheroes to be a blast. I'm not at all into the "alternate sexuality" thing, but she never has it as part of the actual plot and it's simple enough to ignore. My friends who avoid Anne Rice's books because of it are really making a mistake. Every writer puts their own personal loves and/or vices into their work.
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