Rating: 
Summary: The Author Makes a Brief Statement
Review: Be assured, for what it's worth, that this book was written with considerable spiritual ambitions. Lestat is my soul. For me and for him, this quest was inevitable. The Vampire Chronicles are meant to entertain, yes, but they are meant to do a great deal more than that. Does no one want to remark on the fact that in this book Lestat turned his back on a cosmos obsessed with crime and punishment for an experience with the character Dora which affirmed what is often called "the eternal feminine?" Does no one want to connect that experience, in which Lestat drinks the blood of Dora's menses, with the legends surrounding Veronica's veil which figures so prominantly in the novel? I appreciate the thoughtful comments, but wonder if we can raise the level of discourse here for some of the other readers. Let me repeat my assurance: If you took this book seriously, trust me that it was meant seriously. Enough said. Anne Rice, New Orleans, La.
Rating:
Summary: 5 stars x 3.............definetely
Review: i've been reading some reviews for this book, and im appalled!!!! this is one of my all time favorite books. it deserves to be recognized for its utter magnificence. I will be the first person to admit that Anne Rice is a little wordy, but in this book, im "A-Ok" w/ it. Memnoch, Roger, Dora, & Lestat... *sigh* perfection. the plot, setting, the revelations of evolution make you actually go "hmmm?" the ending, oh my god, no pun intended, but it was just superb!!!! There aren't enough words in the english language to describe this book.
If you are open-minded and not some right-winger, bible thumper, you will LOVE this book.
MEMNOCH THE DEVIL, i truly insist YOU reading this, if you love fiction, that makes you think, this is your book, baby!!!
Rating:
Summary: Praise for Memnoch The Devil
Review: A wonderful work of pure elemossanary. Filled with chilling moments and pure delight to the darkest ages of horror. When Lestat meets Memnoch a whole new world opened before my eyes.
Anne Rice has created another masterpiece and attained a new height. I loved this wonderful story. It kept me on the edge at all times.
I embrace this keen story full of style and wit. This book with enlope your mind and your body within every word. I felt this book was a spectacular work.
Lestat has done it again and now because of his acts he reveals a new threat and adventure. When you want vampires and a great plot read this book. I practically drank up the story and at the end my thirst was for more.
Rating:
Summary: It's the church of Anne Rice ... and I believe!
Review: When I completed Rice's fifth vampire book, never had I been more excited. I finished the book rather quickly because I would sit for hours turning page after page, so caught up in Memnoch's tale, Rice's florid style and imaginitive storytelling.Reader, be forewarned. This installment is completely different from its four prequels. Don't buy the book expecting the horrid vampirism of 'Interview' and 'Damned' or the fairytale lucidity of 'Lestat.' This book is Satan's story, as the title so obviously points out. And Rice crafts Satan, here called Memnoch, into a very deep character. You fall in love with him just as you did with Lestat, Louis, or Armand. And his explanation of the creation of the universe, the purpose of God, the nature of man and his relationship to the angels is so compelling (but uncomfortably dark) that I felt I had to keep my Bible and this book a safe distance from each other. Not, that the book is blasphemous; it is just not a very rigid Christian interpretation of God or the mechanics of the universe. The greatest moments in the book are its unexpected twists, the long and beautiful dialogue between Lestat and Memnoch, and the metamorphosis Lestat undergoes, just as he did in 'Body Thief.' Lestat gets to visit Heaven and Hell, he meets God and witnesses the crucifixion.
Glorious, compelling, wonderful.
Rating: 
Summary: Utterly distasteful
Review: This book in the begining starts well with David talking about his new experiences as a vampire, but then Lestat becomes so entrenched in narcissism and rhetoric that everything becomes bland and boring.
Memnoch is utterly unbelievable, as well as heaven. The most despicable character is Dora, supposedly religous but yet lets Lestat lap up her menstrual blood and give her some weird kinky oral sex ( what is up with that? Geez enough senseless erotica) ...hardly a candidate for someone deeply religous.
It seems that, that Rice is trying to find her beliefs in these characters...yet it's effects are ultimatly contradictory. For if we read Queen of the Damned we see an entirely pagan viewpoint...it seemed entirely out of character for them all to believe these religous " artifacts" , especially the sensible Maharet, who supposedly was an expert in matters of the spirit. It seems we are expected to believe that Maharet is all of a sudden judgemental and meddling, when in past experiences she was distanced and caring, her philosophy being not to intefere...
While it is true that these vampiric beings are allowed to change their viewpoint, their change isnt entirely convincing. The writing also seems sophmoric in this book , as well as entirely judgemental.
I didnt care about the characters, and wished that the more sensible ones like Louis and David were allowed more of a voice. And as someone religous I found the sexual innuendos with God and Christ going a little too far. Try actually getting the mythologies straight.
If people find this as an answer to their spirituality then they have a really messed up point of view. Spirituality is not something confined to carnal desires and of the flesh but rather transcends it. Geez what happened to the wonderful Queen of the Damned and other masterpieces? She should stop being so in love with theories and actually write a story for a change.
Come back Anne Rice, we need you.
Rating:
Summary: Awful
Review: Boring. Terrible. I am not a religious person, but the theology was absurd, dreadful, and endless. When I read a book I want to be entertained, not lectured. There was hardly any plot, only this tedious diatribe.
Rating: 
Summary: Memnoch The Devil Short Review
Review: As a tremendous Anne Rice fan I loved her style of writing and her way of making the book so full of details you feel as if you're there, in this book. But this book, I believe, was weak compared to the other books in "The Vampire Chronicles." The base of the book was strong suggesting that Lestat was being chased by Satan, yet I feel it got lost with the way in which Rice tried to add in nonsense fluff to the story. I think that she went too deeply into religion, the beginnings of man, and the way she believes heaven and hell will be. I just hope the next one will be better.
Rating:
Summary: The Absolute WORST In The Series
Review: As a rabid fan I followed Lestat from "Interview" to "Memnoch". This book was the most self-involved, irrelevant bunch of garbage I have read from the hands of Rice. Rather than a vampiric adventure, it's a long boring lesson in theology that takes up 90% of the book--LITERALLY. The characters (God and the Devil) are so unplausible and long-winded it COULD arguably destroy anyone's desire to meet them! This book is so filled with Rice's personal anxieties about religion and the next life that she neglects the fact that other people have to read it. Hello??? Why bore us to death by regurgitating the same old beliefs and worries about God and Christ and dogma that people have had for centuries? PLEASE!!! As I said, no vampiric adventure, just a lecture in theology from the very boring, effiminate, ultra-delicate Memnoch, and Lestat's uninteresting adventure. Another flaw that each character in her book has is that they ALL sound alike. That is actually common in most of her books. As I've said elsewhere, this series should have ended in "Queen of the Damned" which was the crown of them all. "Memnoch" is a true downer and joy killer. If you want to remain in love with Lestat, don't read this one--he will kill you by sucking the enthusiasm out you!
Rating: 
Summary: It was a hard way to lestat go.
Review: The book was beautiful. I loved the way she described the feelings I have been having for so long. My belief in God was easily shaken each time I saw a starving beggar on the street side. How is it possible, I thought, that God the almighty can allow such suffering? How can a perfect being have created such a world that is so full of flaws? In this book you can get an answer as good as any: God isn't perfect after all. You can even, in the end, learn to forgive God for his flaws. The book is worth reading if you worry about such matters. However, it was hard letting Lestat go.
Rating:
Summary: Another Fascination from Anne Rice
Review: Anne Rice has dazzled me for a good year now. I am a new addition to the Anne Rice world you could say. My friend's mother love these books and told me to go read one because I reminded her of Louis. So I read it, missed the comparison but got immediately hooked on the story. I'd have to say the books up until Memnoch are suberb. Interview With The Vampire, classic, there's nothing better. Rice's vivid descriptions of color and scenery are excellent. She brings you into a whole no world and makes you believe that these things, these vampires, existed and are in all the corners of the world. If you don't believe it you know you at least pretend you could soar the skies and travel and have all these fantasmic powers. Rice may not creature literary classics, but what really makes a literary classic? Insanity and racism. Go ahead and look at classic literature sections of your library. All that it takes to be a classic is an author who was ballsy enough for their time to come out and speak about racism or someone to get so detailed in the mind of an insane person. There's no unique style of writing (Hemmingway is the exception to that). So, in now being a classic, Anne Rice is still a genius in her own sense. Bad points about the Vampire Chronicles in General. -Someone is near death and becomes a vampire
-Someone comes and has someone tell you the story of their life hence starting a whole book.
-The above two repeated enough to bore you. Those reasons are why I have to say that the first 6 books in the series are excellent.
Interview, Lestat, Queen of the Damned, Body Their, Memnoch, and Armand are good. It goes downhill with Armand though. Armand is the last real good story that brings you to a not so familiar place and somehow brings it to its dark eerie life. Pandora is Rome, so familiar, so boring, plus the book is printed in such an odd way as to take up a lot of space. Rice needn't have tried to fool us, the book was too short, useless. On to Memnoch, above all my favorite book in the series. I am an open minded Christian. I have no church because all churches hold boundaries that make it impossible for me to admit myself to such hypocrisy. Rice dazzles the lucid minds with her descriptions of creation. Chrous' of Angels, God, God Incarnate, the story of Christ, the coming of the Devil. All of these things are so interestingly described. It's something that you can't help but feel raging emotion over, either positively or negatively. I have forced a few of my Russian Orthodox friends to read it and they are deliberating the first hundred pages still so that I can't get much out of them as to their emotions on it. Still, the story is suspenseful and opens slow like most Rice stories. Then imburses you in this beautiful yet terrifying depiction of creation and religions in general. As the open minded one I think now that all religions have the general idea, yes it has changed a life. It seems all rather childish to totally believe everything Rice says but it still creates a beautiful world for you. Heaven and Hell are depicted in such realism that you love it. You fear hell, you adore heaven. You wish to bypass the terrible void that awaits you post-mordum. Ahh, I loved it so much and I hope you all shall as well. If you are new to Rice and haven't read this far yet, you will soon be surprised. If you are just an open minded human being and like religions please do yourself a favor and check this book out at the least. Buy it and read it, pure beauty.
Adios
|
