Rating: 
Summary: I loved it!
Review: I don't know what everyone is going on about. I think this is the best Anne Rice book to come out in a long time. I am a huge fan of the vampire chronicles and they have been pretty boring until this one. I didn't enjoy The Vampire Armand, or Pandora. This one was a much better story and I didn't think it went too much into the storylines that we already knew about. I think if you are a true fan of Anne Rice's work, this book should be high on your list.
Rating: 
Summary: This wasn't very good...
Review: I love Anne Rice, but she seems to not have really gotten any where with this book. It was basically the same story we've all heard before from some uninteresting point of view. It never really went anywhere, and the ending was not very impressive. I was embarassed by reading this. I hope Anne wakes up and gets back to her good old self.
Rating: 
Summary: Sheer Disappointment
Review: I've been an Anne Rice fan for over 20 years. I have enjoyed all of her books except this one. Blood and Gold is a huge disappointment. I kept thinking that I had heard this story before...and I had. Just pick up a copy of The Vampire Armand and the majority of Blood and Gold has been harvested from those pages. It seems that Anne needs to take a break from the VC and recharge her batteries. There is nothing more annoying than spending money on something that you pretty much already have. I feel like I've got two books telling the same story (Armand, Blood and Gold).Blood and Gold does introduce some new material about Marius, but getting to it is a tedious endeavor. I would not recommend this book. Read the Vampire Armand or the Queen of the Damned instead. If you must read this book, save your money and go to your local library and borrow it!
Rating:
Summary: nujts!
Review: Got it, hated it. Where is my Anne Rice?
Rating:
Summary: Too bad there is only one star!!!
Review: I will not waste valuable time critiquing this novel. Suffice to say that it one of the worst pieces of trash I have ever attempted to read. Anne Rice is creatively bankrupt. Her writing style is ridiculously purple and laughably stupid. It is obvious that all she wants to do now is fulfill contractual obligations with formulaic tripe!
Rating: 
Summary: The 'Art' of Writing.
Review: "'Blood and Gold' is the telling of Marius' life as told to his new immortal friend and companion, Thorne. Thorne, a Viking warrior when mortal, awakens after centuries of sleep to search for his maker, the great Maharet and to search for the companionship of another ancient one. He finds Marius, hungry for conversation, desperately lonely in spite of his companion, Daniel, who has become obsessed with building model cities and can concentrate on nothing else. Marius takes advantage of Thorne's curiosity and thirst for knowledge and settles in to explain to him the history of his life. "The story revolves around Marius' various travels, from Rome to Constantinople, Venice to Dresden, his Aegean island palace to the dense jungles of South America. The overwhelming theme throughout is the urgent search to find his beloved Pandora, who he abandoned without a word so long ago. He mourns for her and regrets leaving her, and this breeds great anger and resentment in him. This anger, which he usually hides deep within himself, has a tendency to flare up at the least provocation. This mixed with his frantic need to find Pandora hinders his life dramatically, leaving all those he encounters hurt or dead. The action of his inflicting pain on others hurts him deeply and causes him extreme despair, thus leading to more anger. This vicious cycle is never-ending and leaves poor Marius emotionally scared forever. "Through Marius we are reunited with some old friends as well as introduced to some new and incredibly vivid new characters; the bitter and angry Mael, the innocent and childish Amadeo, the magnificent and emotional Pandora, the mute and wild Mekare, and the snide and vengeful Santino. Also appearing is an eclectic cast of new immortals; the brave and curious Thorne, the young and insanely evil Eudoxia, the innocent and beautiful Zedonia, the ancient and intelligent Avicus, the dark and cunning Arjun, and the graceful and powerful Bianca. This infusion of old and new creates a story much like Queen of the Damned in its complexity. We finally have new characters that will leave us craving their stories, their lives. "'Blood and Gold' is just what the Vampire Chronicles needed to be brought back to life. The story of Marius is a roller coaster ride of emotions, bringing you to incredible highs and dramatic lows. From page one you will be caught up in the story, twisting and turning down the road from its historic beginnings all the way to its climatic and shocking ending. I highly recommend this book! If you don't like Marius now, you will fall in love with him by the time you've finished. He is, quite possibly, the most incredible immortal that the Vampire Chronicles will ever see."
Simply, the book is written by Anne Rice, that says it all doesn't it?
Rating:
Summary: (3.5) Two sides to every story
Review: I enjoyed this book, except for the subplot about the Norse vampire, Thorne, at the beginning and end. This frame story had a lot of promise but ended up making little sense to me. I think maybe it alludes to Norse myth, which has never been my forte. Whatever the reason, it left me scratching my head. But at least it gets Marius telling his life story, and perhaps because the "interviewer" is a stranger, he feels comfortable opening up about all sorts of things. In the words of Alanis Morissette, it's "strangely exciting, to watch the stoic squirm." Yes, at times Marius's story seems really familiar, since most of the major plot events have been told already in _The Vampire Lestat_, _Pandora_, and _The Vampire Armand_. But now we know just how broken-up Marius was about some of the tragedies in his "life". We find out how much he loved Pandora, and how much he had to lean on a certain other vampire (I'll avoid the spoiler) after Santino burned him. I especially love the fact that his recollection of his brief reunion with Pandora is so very different from Pandora's version. Pandora says the Indian vamp was a jerk and that she didn't love him; Marius believes the two were codependent as heck. And Marius breaks someone else's heart that night as well. Even the letter, lost for fifty years, is different between the two books. In short, this is a pretty good book. You may feel like you've read all this stuff before, but if you pay close attention, you'll get to see the other side of the cool, logical Marius.
Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining Book
Review: This book combines fiction with actual historical events to a point where it almost classifies as nonfiction. While describing 2000 years of single life, every single part, sad or exciting, is interesting. If you read all of the Vampire Chronicals before it, like me, you will better comprehend events that happen in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Explain to me again why I should care...
Review: From his first appearance in _The Vampire Lestat_, Marius has been one of my favourite of Anne Rice's characters. _Blood and Gold_, which purports to be Marius' story told in his own words, unfortunately goes a long way to proving that a good supporting character does not a leading man (or vampire, as the case may be) make. I was not expecting much from this book, as, in my opinion, the Vampire Chronicles have seriously deteriorated from their excellent beginnings into a haphazard mishmash flecked with occasional points of interest. Even so, I was disappointed. In the first place, there was nothing really new here. Every major event has already been related in far more detail in previous volumes, and Marius' personal perspective does not really add any new dimension. For a being who has been around for 2000 years (give or take), Marius comes across as surprisingly un-introspective and divorced from his own experience. As a supporting player, Marius has always struck me as one of the most "human" of the immortals, so the lack of deep human feeling in his personal story clashed with the character as I have come to understand him. In fact, it seemed to me that Marius was revealed as an emotional adolescent, always attaching himself to the unavailable in order to find some justification for his existence. It just didn't add up. One thing I was looking for was some explanation of Marius' sudden about-face regarding the proper age one should have reached before being turned. While some attempt was made to address this, it was distinctly unsatisfying, leaving me wondering why, if he had been convinced all along that vampires were best made from young humans, he had ever claimed the opposite. Once again, it gave the impression that Marius has lived much of his life without intent or thought, simply allowing himself to be blown wherever the winds of fate happened to carry him. The ending was totally incomprehensible, not in terms of events, but in terms of underlying logic. Although it seemed pretty clear that what happened in the last ten or so pages was what Rice meant this book to accomplish, I didn't quite get why or how the story to that point led up to it. It almost seemed to be the ending from some other story tacked on. I was interested in Thorne, the mysterious Northern vampire who provided Marius with an audience. I wished we could have known more about him, as perhaps that may have made his actions at the end of the book make some kind of sense. But his story was sadly neglected; we only got hints. I thought this was a sorry oversight. All in all, B&G took a character whom I had liked and transformed him into someone I didn't like much at all and ignored potentially interesting threads in favour of a rehash of all-too-familiar events. I can't recommend it, either to Rice fans or to those new to the series.
Rating:
Summary: What?!
Review: I'm still trying to figure out why this book was written. There was no plot, everything was already covered (Lestat, Pandora & Queen Of The Damned)so I'm still tring to figure it out. It seemed kind of stubid. Anne doesn't need the money, so I'm still tring to figure out why she wrote it. Why write about something covered over and over and over again? I stopped reading it and then after awhile picked it up and said: "I should finish it and then maybe I would understand it." Ah, but still nothing. I hope I can once again give Anne a four star-no one is a five star I don't care what anyone thinks-billing on her next book Blackwood Farm-which I am really looking foward to reading. But man, the last two book of her's have been real stinkers. Merrick was even worse that should have been placed in the recycling bin. Phew!, it stinks in here. Anne dear, editor is not a dirty word. Even J.K. Rowling uses one. You have got to have someone look over your work. An Editor can make a GOOD writer a GREAT writer. Even Charles Dicken's had someone look over his work before it went into print. Please consider it, they will work out some of the bumps in your books highway. And, in the long run make them easier for us to drive over. All and all great cover art, but a really boring story, already covered, nothing new here. Sorry wish I could say something good, but I can't. Really awful. And how some are raving about how good it is. What book are they reading?! It sure wasn't this one.
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