Memnoch the Devil

Rating:
Summary: Not the best, but thought provoking novel
Review: I recently completed Memnoch The Devil and I began reading some of the reviews on here. While Memnoch did babble on a bit and hold many controversial issues, I think people should take this book for what it is. It's a fictional novel and a very well written one at that. Rice was not saying that this is the way the world was created and she wasn't expecting everyone to believe in her views. She was just supplying a story and I personally think her brilliance shows up in this tale. A person who is sure enough of his own religious views would be able to put them aside for a little while and read this very thought provoking novel. While Memnoch wasn't one of Lestat's traditional adventures, it was an amazing journey. I can't wait for his next adventure.

Rating:
Summary: I thought this book was awsome!!!
Review: The book was true to form with the rest of the series. It provides a solution provided in the very first book-nice touch. Lestat has to make a choise; which he does. I would recomend this book to anyone that wanta suspense and horror all in one book. Way to go Anne Rice!

Rating:
Summary: OK for it's genre, not my style
Review: It's ok for Anne Rice to delve into religious stuff, but please don't try to wrap your vampires in it, you just can't pull it off! Anne Rice's veiws on God and the Devil would be interesting at any other time, but not when we're expecting something to equal Queen of the Damned! I picked it up expecting vampires and got a lecture in theology. Write your religion literature, but don't package it as Vampire Chonicles.

Rating:
Summary: A work of religion, not vampirism
Review: Although I didn't think this book was much of a "vampire chronicle", so to speak, it was a fantastic religious exposition. Readers open-minded enough to set aside their religious training will find an interesting twist on the fight between God and the devil. The imagery is superb, the scenes vast. The fight over Lestat's soul and his eventual denial of both sides was not to be put down.

Rating:
Summary: You take a different road and...
Review: I am rather sick of people saying "Why does Anne Rice have to change? I want her to write the same stuff she was writing 15 years ago!" or "Stick to your old formula, Anne Rice". I loved the first four novels in the Vampire Chronicles, but Memnoch absolutely blew me away. I read the book, and it made more sense to me than probably anything I have ever read on organized religion. Sure, she could have "stuck to vampires", but she chose to expand, and I thought it was incredible. It fit the character of Lestat to a "t" -and who else would capture the interest of the devil? The book completely fulfilled me. I had heard, before I read it, that it would be the last book that she would write about Lestat, and I was sad. I considered begging and threatening her to never stop writing about him, but then I read the book, and I didn't need anything else. When I reached the end, and read the time, it was over for me. The story was completed, and though I have reread all of the novels in the Chronicles several times over, I hope that she doesn't tell us any more about Lestat. She took him to Heaven and Hell, and ripped the world apart while doing so. Rice writes about universal issues that she's always written about, that her vampires have always dwelled upon: if you just want a story about bloodsuckers, I wouldn't suggest reading this, but if you are open to more, Memnoch is an incredibly powerful book.

Rating:
Summary: Don't know what was wrong with this book.
Review: I think this book was well written. Don't get why others don't like this. Maybe if you don't like the theological debate you shouldn't read it save if for people who enjoy and have maturity....

Rating:
Summary: I really enjoyed and got involved in this book
Review: Most people I talk to who have read this book say they didn't even like it as much as the others Anne Rice has written. Personally I found it to be creative and generous in the openmindedness of this book. It took different forms of beliefs and transformed them into one reality. During the time I was reading this book, I found myself lost in another world. I think the reason people were put off by this book was all the talk of God and religion, but people have to remember, this is a fictional book. I look at it as a theory, a "maybe this is what our reality is". I think whoever reads this and is athiest should be more openminded to anything and everything like us agnostics. Kimberly

Rating:
Summary: A deep, touching book
Review: This book takes everything you think of the world, of heaven and hell, and turns it upsidedown. It has deep meanings that you can find if you look closely and a shocking ending...

Rating:
Summary: Unexpectedly disturbing, yet.....
Review: I first read this book about 2 to 2 1/2 years ago. Didn't think of reviewing it till now. Have to admit first; snuck a peek @ some of the other reviews. Still, I have to agree overall that I do have mixed feelings about this book. Having read all the predecessor books in the Chronicles, SOTB, Taltos and Lasher, I still love her vampires in the way only she can describe... This book, however, was a revelation in itself. That Lestat has learnt early on in his vampiric life that God and the Devil does not exist, we all know. It is therefore, a duanting task indeed to challenge that very premise in which he(and a lot of others) have lived by. A heavy-duty piece that really required time and attention; I don't really think it's suitable for bedtime reading. A really mentally-challenging piece that forces one to look into our own beliefs and the foundations on which they are based. As an aesthetist, I don't feel offended, but highly challenged. But, I'm sure that a lot of deeply-religiously people may be put off by her style of writing. Bear in mind, one and all, that THIS IS A PIECE OF FICTION WORK in which every person has the right to express his/her opinion, even if not everyone concurs with the idea and notions. Speaking as one who also loves Lestat for the anti-hero he portrays -- the evil being who would do good -- I'm kinda disappointed with how he is characterized by the end of the novel; about to reach, if not already at, his breaking point. Also, that some of our fav characters are killed off. But that's life, isn't it? C'est la vie!! Reality check: life eternal for these immortals are fiction, much as we may like it to be reality. Yet, the situations they face are those with which we grapple with in reality. Besides, for the die-hards out there, haven't you realised the trend from QOTD onwards the slight cynism Lestat has ever since the encounter with Akasha? In the subsequent TOTBT and of cours MTD, Lestat is dealt blow after blow, his beliefs shot to bits. He's going through what Louis went through in the first novel; only that it's an extended version. I don't think its meant to feed Anne Rice's idiosyncrasies, but rather: Lestat, being the strong creature that he is (unlike Louis) refuses to die quietly. He would rather go down fighting! For those who wish to see the "old" Lestat and bemoaning his "madness" at the end of Memnoch, I tell you, he's there and never been away! He hasn't been beaten, he's just learnt a lot more....

Rating:
Summary: A literary atrocity
Review: This book has no redeeming qualities. I miss the days when the Vampire Chronicles were actually about Vampirism. I feel like Anne Rice is desecrating her own characters. I fell totally in love with both Lestat and Louis; and in this book Lestat is irritating and Louis practically doesn't exist. I totally hated the plot. It was boring and pretensious and frankly, just stupid. This was the last thing by Anne Rice that I read. I can't bear to imagine what Pandora and Armand are like. I won't be finding out. I read Memnoch hoping for the magic of the first four books (especially the priceless scenes between Lestat and Louis) and found none of it. I was so disappointed.