Rating: Summary: The best series I have ever read!!!!! Review: This is one of the best series I have ever read! But beware, everyone! The books are absolutely nothing
like the movie!! Sure, its kinda the
same, but different ending to Interview, and lotsa changes! Also, you get to
know and actually like Lestat, Armand,
ect. I couldn't put the books down!
It's like Anne Rice wrote them almost
to make you belive in vampires!! If you
liked the movie, these books are not
for you- you'll never be able to picture
Lestat or Louis or Armand any differently!
Armand is not supposed to look a thing like
Antonio Banderas(or however you spell it)-
he was supposed to look like he was
only 17!!! So I advise you- you'll have
to completely change the way you picture
these beings looking!!! Personally, after reading the novels, I think the movie SUX!
It just doesn't capture the spirit of the novels!
Clue-- I cannot stand Claudia now, I think
it was wrong of her to try to kill Lestat-
I found out what his life was like!!
I hate to spoil it, but he DID NOT kill
the guy who made him (Magnus)-
the guy killed himself by jumping into
a fire right after he made Lestat, who I must add, did not want to be made at
all, but then quite enjoys his life, for the
most part!!
Over all, I would recommend this to
to anyone who was willing to change
their ideas of how these people look!
(Think Brad Pitt as Lestat, Tom Cruise as Louis,
some teenager as Armand!)
Rating: Summary: Overrated Yet Worthwhile Review: I don't care much for Anne Rice's writing style. She hones in on particular words - preternatural comes to mind - far too often, and her descriptions of places and things seem clunky and formulaic.
That said, "Interview" was really a breakthrough novel. Written for all of us who watched vampire movies hoping that Dracula would somehow escape at the end, Rice tapped into a vital element of the subconscious: that part that is obsessed with dying or not dying, mortality and immortality.
While I can't recommend her style of writing, as a storyteller, Rice was top notch - especially for the first three books of the Vampire Chronicles. "Interview" and "Lestat" are parts of the same story, told from different points of view, and then "Queen" continues that story.
Rice never shies away from boundaries, stretching her characters as far as her imagination allows her to take them. She brushes on issues of theology, philosophy and society in ways that really resonate with lots of people. One of the reasons her books continue to be so popular.
Were it not for "Body Thief" a story I found so annoyingly cliche and unreadable as to be nearly worthless, I would have given this series four stars, since the plusses of Rice's imagination typically outweigh the shortcomings of her writing. For my money, the series could have stopped after "Queen of the Damned" with the possible exception of "Memnoch the Devil".
Rating: Summary: Good intro to Anne Rice, but . . . Review: Great way to introduce yourself to Rice's world, but it must be noted that since "Memnoch the Devil" (the final book in the original "Interview" series - before the new "Vampire Chronicles" or crossovers . . .)is absent from this collection, you're missing a great literary exloration of theology.
Rating: Summary: Now those were some good books! Review: Completely haunted my every dream for weeks after reading these fine volumes! I got chills reading and had to turn on every light so that I didn't sleep in the dark! Anne Rice does give a new definition to vampires as we once knew them. Now they seem to be almost ultra- unnatural beings! These are a must have for your personal library! Spooky, scary,and gets your heart pounding! I also recommend "Eternal Undying Love" by Brett Keane
Rating: Summary: The Anne Rice Collection of Stuff that Doesn't Suck. Review: Though not complete, add to it Pandora & the 1st half of Armand & THEN you have her "glory before the fall." Personally, if you like the ones I mentioned & don't like any I didn't mention, PLEASE take my advice & don't read her latter works...or the 2ed half of Armand. Like millions of others, you'll live to regret it.These were the GOOD books that made me wish she'd never taken action against her fanfic writers. (they had better sequils)
Rating: Summary: Do you really want to live forever? Review: This is a box set of the first four books of Anne Rice's popular Vampire Chronicles series. Her works are immensely popular and have spawned 1 1/2 movies (calling Queen Of The Damned even half a movie is being extremely generous!) and many many sequels. I picked up this box set after being told by numerous people that the first four were worth reading and I was really pleaseatly surprised. (I've heard that the series really goes downhill fast after the The Tail Of The Body Thief) The vampires in this universe are elegant beings of the night who are very articulate and this traslates to immense description. This may bother some but once you get used to Rice's style, it could best be described as a dreamy flow of the subconscious and it works well for the series. The books take you all over the USA and much of Europe as well and Rice does a great job of creating these vampires that have very human qualities. The series mainly centers around the title character Lestat. Lestat is a fascianting study of the flawed uber-vampire who does what he wants and refuses to conform to the vampire "rules". He knows he is not perfect but realizes the only way to live through immortality is to enjoy oneself whenever one can. The supporting cast has their fair share of interesting characters and the personalities of the vampires are really the heart of the series. A couple of things Rice does makes her vampire world so fascinating. The vampires act as their own little microsociety with rules and taboos that are well thought out and extremely interesting. For example the longer a vampire makes before creating another vampire determines how powerfull that new vampire will be. There are complications to living forever that you never would of thought of. The vampires have no sexual urges but instead the act of bloodletting serves as their mental and physical urge for copulation. Vampires don't marry each other but instead have extremely strong emotional bonds with each other and thier own fledglings (when you create another vampire they become your fledgiling) They stay together for an indefinite period until an unknown force breaks their emotional connection. This makes for some fascinating relationships that almost seem like "couples" but without the physical relationship. These bonds are often between same gender vampires and sometimes include three or four vampires. All these interesting parameters make for an web of relationships that frequently change. The biggest con of the series is that sometimes the prose drags on forever and certain parts could be shorter. They were all good, but actually I thought the fourth book was the best and it was also the shortest. Bottom Line: An entertaining series that will be most enjoyed by experienced readers and fans of romantic self indulgent nuerotic blood suckers.
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