Rating: Summary: Wonderful Review: This novel is exhilirating. The complex narrative and histories detailed in it is a work of genius; the way the characters are all so inextricably intertwined is wonderful. The story behind Daniel, the interviewer in "Interview With the Vampire", and the allusions to ancient Egypt brought to this novel a mixture of gothic wonder and compex storytelling that Anne Rice excels in. As a closing point, can I also stipulate that I can't believe that some people have problems with the sexual content in the book-- I mean, come on! After 200 years and three novels, Louis and Lestat finally...kiss! Oh, the horror! That's one of the best parts in the book-- it sees a reconciliation of two of the most enduring characters in modern fiction. I strongly urge you to read this, what I feel to be the last of the truly great books in the Vampire Chronicles. Its surpassed only by 'Interview With the Vampire' and 'The Vampire Lestat'. It's all downhill from here, folks. But what a ride it was to start with!
Rating: Summary: The Queen has awoken Review: 'You are no healer. You cannot give life or save it, nor can you prevent death and disease, my queen. And those people will expect such miracles. All you can do is kill.' -MariusIn this book: The Vampire Queen, Akasha, has awakened after 6,000 years of being locked deep in her own mind. And now the world is in danger of being taken over by this Dark Queen and her beloved prince: the rock-star vampire, Lestat. Akasha now seeks to utterly destroy 90% of the male population (only leaving one male per 100 females), believing it would end all war, rape, and violence. Anne Rice, the beloved author of Queen of the Damned (and many other books in this series), brings this wonderful book to life as if it were straight from history itself. She starts out with a bang and elevates the action until you feel like you're living in the story moment by moment. You honestly can't ask for a better type of author! If you saw the movie, you haven't even seen half the story. The book is so much better! The book gives you the history of how all the vampires in Rice's world came into being, and a fictional history of Egypt that swallows you, bringing you deeper and deeper into the lifestyles of the vampires. And the story of the Twins is magnificent all its own-a beautiful twist! 'Behold, the new Queen of the Damned.' When I first started reading this book, it was a little confusing because it jumps from the point of view of one vampire (or person) to another. But in the later of the book, it only jumps from Lestat's journey with Akasha to the meeting of the other seven vampires-all of which are connected to each other and Lestat, which makes the book even more wonderful. But does Lestat change his childish and immature ways? My advice is read the book and find out.
Rating: Summary: Good. Review: This is my favorite novel by Anne Rice, probably because my favorite character, Khayman is in it, and no other book has him that I know of. It also interested me because it told how vampires came into being.
Rating: Summary: Despite a few flaws, a worthy read. Review: In comparison to the previous chapters in the Vampire Chronicles, the Queen of the Damned is composed of a lot more fantastical elements--particularly in relation to the vampires' powers--which provide the story with a much more "fictional" feel. Nevertheless, Anne Rice's poetic prose deftly guides the subject matter to a satisfactory conclusion, never pushing the story's credulity to a dangerous level. However, the book does suffer from a major flaw: varying points of perspective coming from far too many different characters. The charm of the previous books was that with the first-person redaction, it was easy to become attached and relate to the main character. Yet when roughly half of the book is spent describing the experiences of minor characters to progress the plot and nothing more, with hardly any worthwhile introspective commentary, it becomes strenuous to retain interest. Thankfully, the latter half of the book, where Lestat returns, more than makes up for this deficiency; by the end of the novel it's incredibly difficult to not wish that the story kept going. If there were one point I would like to emphasize, it is the following: the story of the twins is sheer brilliance. Read the book solely for this; then mourn the fact that Anne Rice makes it impossible to enjoy anyone else's vampire stories. They seem so puerile afterwards, it's unbelievable!
Rating: Summary: A masterful book of fantastic storytelling! Review: This is just amazing. It's one of the best books I've ever read. Anne Rice weaves a masterful tale that sucks you in and never lets go. I've heard that the rest of the series isn't as good, which might be true, because this is going to be hard to beat. I'll just have to read the rest and see what I think for myself. The book introduces us to several new, exciting, fascinating people, and explains the stories of several older ones like Daniel, the 'boy' from 'Interview with the Vampire'. It also goes into detail about Akasha, the Queen of the Damned (obviously!) The story of the twins was for me, the highlight of the book. I'd like to see a novel in the future concentrating specifically on Maharet and Mekare (and Jesse too). After reading this, I can't wait to read the rest of the series and everything Anne Rice has ever written. Buy it! You definitely won't regret entering the fascinating, sensual world of Anne Rice's vampires.
Rating: Summary: A pinnacle in the series! Review: This and "Memnoch" are the best of the 5 Vampire Chronicles - after Memnoch, they start going downhill...
Rating: Summary: If you have already seen the movie... Review: As a long time reader of Anne Rices' work I was very pleased with her efforts in "Queen of the Damned". I try not to read books after I see the movie, but I was already mid-way through this one. I enjoyed the movie only to later find; as you almost always will that much of the story line was lost in the making of the movie. I was upset at the loss of the story line of the twins. The beginning of the movie was false compared to "The Vampire Lestat". I know that I'm more descriptive about the movie in this review, but I feel that to truly understand and enjoy what was happening with Lestat, you'll need to read the books. Rice has this way of putting things that you feel that you are right there with Lestat and every one he encounters. I absolutely loved the entire story of the twins. This gave you a better understanding of the creation of Akasha and Enkil and just exactly how Jessie fit into Maharets' history and what really happened at the end of the story.
Rating: Summary: Over written, over wrought Review: A great example of an author not knowing when to quit. Interview and Lestat were both great fun, but in trying to give her story a universal theme [ie: the end of the whole wide world! (gasp!)], Rice completely looses the 'personal' aspects that made the earlier works work. In attempting to create a sweeping epic, Rice gets swept away in her own excess verbige, and would have profited greatly from a through re-write. Its breathtaking in the asmatic sense: everything in it is so BIG! and IMPORTANT!! that the reader simply stops caring. This book either needed to be much shorter, with 90% of its exposition excised, or much larger [a trilogy unto itself] allowing some modulation in the scream a minute pacing. Still, it does fill in some interesting blanks in the history of Rice's vampires, meriting a second star. But really, only die-hard fans need bother with this one.
Rating: Summary: ... Review: A strange story with a plot that I couldn't really follow. There were stories from other people's POV and you can't tell if it's from a vampire or a human. And the book starts to look good when Akasha finally makes her appearance to the coven but in like two paragraphs, she dies at random when Mekare comes. The whole time, they were afraid of her and her all-powerfulness and some random vampire comes and kills her? That just makes the whole thing, well, pointless. It's an okay book because there wer some parts I did like but it really didn't make any sense.
Rating: Summary: One of her very best Review: I have read this book twice. It vies with "Interview with the vampire" for the honour of being my favourite Rice novel. Though interview is likely better, it has the advantage of being the first, whereas this has the disadvantage of being a sequel. The book's imagery is top quality as it explores the coming of an apocalypse for vampires all over the world. Akasha, the mother vampire, the source of vampirism, and the one who's death would bring about the deaths of all vampires, has awoken from her long sleep and is travelling the world, slaughtering her own kind, and creating visitations among third world communities, where she encourages them to slaughter their males to bring about a 'perfect' world, free of war, rape etc. Step in all the vampires we know and love from the previous two books (Armand, Louis, Marius, Lestat, Gabrielle), and a few new (and in my opinion even more interesting) ones led by a vampire as old as Akasha, the fascinating and bizarre character of Maharet, an old foe of hers, who was indirectly responsible for making Akasha a vampire 6000 years ago. These survivors gather and await a final meeting with their queen who's awakening was caused by the irreverent rock music of the vampire Lestat. There is also a love interest between Lestat and Akasha, and the highlight of the book, a spellbinding recounting of the events of six thousand years ago the Legend of the Twins, which is so skillfully and subtly brought to life. The book is packed so full of interesting new characters, that eventually even Marius begins to look unspectacular in comparison. There is the enigmatic Khayman who is as old as Akasha, and Mael, Eric and Azim, as well as Jesse and Daniel. I reallu enjoyed reading this book, and i would strongly recomend it to anyone who enjoys quality fiction. I can only give it four stars because a book that gets five should be nothing short of outstanding. But for me, four stars = excellent.
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