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Summary: The Vampire Armand is the best Anne Rice book
Review: The Vampire Armand is wondefully done, I love everyhing about it. When I read Interview with an vampire I fell in love with Armand and was hoping for more on that character so when The VA came out I was estatic. This book answered so many questions I asked myself while reading Anne Rice's books. I love the sexual relationship between Marius and Armand, I felt as if I was right their with them. In this book you get to understand Armand's persona, and at times you feel with him and at times you hate him. Anne Rice did a superb job and I highly reccomend this book.
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Summary: Oh dear, more of Rice's pale-skinned pederasts...
Review: Anne Rice has outdone herself this time. Her unique style of formulaic decadence and prissy pornography has never been done in as overblown and pompous a manner as here in "The Vampire Armand".Everything is swamped in turgid and repetitive descriptions of "sumptuous velvet", "dark curls", preternaturally pale skin, angelic boys, and of course mature vampires sodomizing youths. I actually believe that Rice has some form of pathological predilection for this paedophile filth. This book is even worse than her "beauty" series, and that is no mean feat.
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Summary: Not for the faint of heart
Review: This is again a brave tale, not meant for all readers... but it is finally a worthy follow up! It is certainly the most masterfully written and well told story Rice has produced since Interview. If you come to these pages with an open mind and the ability view its contents objectively, you will not be disappointed.Rice finally delivers another hero which maintains his flaws right along with his perfections -- and is fully conscious of both. She has finally left behind the heavy handed metaphor that haunted and diminshed Queen and Memnoch. She has given us the subtle beauty of Interview where we can be transported into an entirely new realm and where we can learn of our own deepest fears and frailties. In Armand, we delve into the mind and emotions of a child torn from a unique, bleak, but oddly fulfilling existence. Suddenly he finds himself in a plush world of learning, art, and decadance. Again, he is roughly torn from his happiness and thrown into a long, deep, era of infinite darkness. It is only with a great deal of difficulty that he finally emerges and learns to find his own way. His story is the story of each of us... his journey is our own. Though he walks a path that many of us will find forgien and difficult to understand, in it we can see our own stages and emotions. Finally, after so many attempts, I did not have to force myself to turn the pages and keep reading. This one, like Interview, I could not put down. I had to read more of Armand, more of his brilliance, innocence, fear, understanding, villiany, altruism, failings, despair, triumph, desperation, longing -- he thoroughly covers the vast range of human emotions. Here's hoping that Marius' forth coming story is just as wonderous!
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Summary: Homosexual pornography is not literature.
Review: I have been a faithful follower of all things written by Anne Rice. Whether I liked the genre or no, I have still given a chance to everything she's written. However, I draw the line at reading about a young child having sex with a long dead middle-aged looking vampire. Not even halfway through I had to put it down and distract myself from it so I wouldn't throw up. I find it foul and disgusting that Rice can no longer write a story without two men "bonding" every five pages. If she feels this need, she should continue the Beauty series again and leave vampires in the world of blood, not demented carnal pleasures.
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Summary: a meandering mess
Review: I was highly disappointed with this chapter of Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Unfortunately, it's a sprawling mess... To me, it doesn't seem like Rice had any clear direction where she was steering this book... first it followed the usual pattern of her books, giving us a glimpse of the present, then falling back on the history of Armand for half the book, then jumping back to the present to tie things up. However, that just doesn't happen here... the characters and events from the first half are dropped, she rushes through several hundred years of his life in a chapter or so, does a basic review of the rest of the vamps, then tried to tie up a couple loose pieces from Memnoch the Devil (i.e., the veil, Lestat, Dora). With the *rest* of Rice's vampire books, I've always felt that a new reader could pick up any one of them and find an excellent read. However, if you haven't read one of the other books in the series, you'll find this a mangled mess. It's as if she assembled a bunch of chapters that had previously been cut from other books and slapped them together here.
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Summary: Dark Angel
Review: I have read many of the other reviews written about this book, and am quite surprised by the negative response so many had. I,m especially surprised by the comments about the sexual content of the book. Mostly, form those who claim they are Anne Rice fans and have read soooo many of her books. Come on give me a break all of her novels are sexually erotic, and Armand has always been the most sexually charged vampire of all. As with all enertainment whether books, music, movies, or magazines if YOU don't like the content, Don't partake of it.
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Summary: Can we go forward now please?
Review: All right, this book was good in the sense that it gave us the insight to one of her most likeable vampires, Armand. I did enjoy the story, the settings the sex scenes (if only I could have such a luscious love life) yet after finishing the book I scratched my head and asked myself, havne't I read this story somewhere before? I.E. Beautiful mortal is found by vampire, vampire and beautiful mortal have a mad passionate affair, vampire turns beautiful mortal into vampire. Next, beautiful vampire that was beautiful mortal starts to question everything. Who am I really? Why does God allow this? Who was the first...and so on. It gets pretty tiresome if this plot is done again and again. Enough with the religious questions! I am a fan of Anne Rice but though she loves detail, and good character development plot to her is like an after thought which more often then not spoils her great landscapes and characters. I hope in the upcoming book that we can leave the past behind; please Anne we've had enough history lessons! Lets see some action, some tragic events! By the way folks what on earth happens to all those dead bodies that the vampires kill? I mean you would think a cop or two would start to get just a little suspicious.
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Summary: Same-o-Same-o
Review: Vivid, flowing words make up this intricately woven and thoroughly descriptive novel, but what else is new? Its an Anne Rice novel, we expect that as readers. The problem with this novel is that it may be an interesting read for anyone unfamiliar with her previous work. However to fans, although the book may offer some interesting insite and tidbits on the characters, it seems so DONE and STALE. Every page is like a rehash of another novel she's written before. Vampire tells life story to someone who writes it down...blah blah blah. It seems too similar to "Interview..", "...Lestat", "Pandora", and even non vampire books like "Servant of the Bones", all of which were written by Rice. Armand has always been a very interesting character with his boyish deviltry, and the novel does offer some very dynamic and sensual moments, but nothing makes this novel any different from any of Rice's other novels. It's a little disheartening when an author starts ripping of other people's works, but it's even worse when she's ripping off her own previous ones.
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Summary: This could have been so much better.
Review: I purchased this book because Armand is such a great character and I wanted to learn a bit more about him. The first half of the book was wonderful, it answered all my questions. That joy lasted up until the middle when things just started to fall apart. Unfortunately for the reader it just never gets better and by chapter 24 you too are willing to go into the light to end the misery. Things happen that Rice can't or won't explain, leaving you and Armand at a loss. So take my advice, read The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned but none of the rest. If Ms. Rice can't get the facts straight you can't.
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Summary: Don't know what you all are talking about but.....
Review: Maybe it's because I'm kind of new to Anne Rice, but, by far, Armand is my most favorite character because of this book. It seems that most of the reviewers who didn't like this book were looking for a more "action" book (i.e. Queen of the Damned). Let's get this one straight, Armand is absolutely a different and very unique vampire even by, dare I say, Rice's standards. This is the kind of book you would read w/ your cup o' Java, not one that you'd expect to have all blood and glory. Armand seems like the ultimate brat prince but at the same time seems like a fragile angel teetering on the brink of oblivion, and in some parts of the book he falls in, but amazingly flys back up, reborn but still the eternal child. He's the fallen angel, but the only one worthy of Heaven. Rice, as always, is poetic in all her work and this book is no exception, she treats every detail as if it is a divine revelation. I say keep it up, her books just keep getting better and better, even if some of the things she writes aren't very agreeable to me, but at least I still respect her passion of HONEST expression. I don't think she even tries to sugar her novels up for the sake of readers. She writes what's in her heart (which is purely selfish) at that moment, and I praise her for it.
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