Servant of the Bones

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Books I've ever Read!
Review: I am very young, and I love books. Anne Rice is my favorite, and is a god-send to book readers. Her latest tale is about a ghost, phantom, whathave you, Azriel. He tells a gripping story about the gods of Babylonain, and how he was chosen by the god, Marduk. It is a very well paced, and thought out plot, that leaves the reader gasping for more. I hope that this will become a trilogy, for it is superbly written and gripping. The only complaint that I have, is that she goes on and on about the scenery and what he's thinking, and she's thinking. Well, that's a very minor flaw, and I tried my best to find another, but to no avail!!!! Hurray for Mrs.Rice, for she is the best writer of our time. -Ben Petiprin, age 13.

Rating:
Summary: Very wordy - but a gripping story
Review: What ever happened to Anne Rice? Ever since Lasher, her flavor has become too lyrical and difficult to absorb. In her latest offering, Servant of the Bones, she tells us the story of Azriel a ghost dating back to ancient Babylon, who by her own discription on the Rose O'Donnell show, looks like Antonio Banderas. Azriel witnesses a murder and searches out the writer, Jonathan to tell us the story. The first half of the book is Azriel telling us how he became the servant of the bones and the rest of the story is about the death of Rachel (the murder), his sleeping with her mother, etc. It is an interest tale, mind you, however, Anne's style is too wordy, too many,"and this, and this, and this, this," making the reader wonder whether she is getting paid by the word. I loved Anne's earlier books, especially The Witching Hour and of course the first 3 Vampire books, I wish that Anne would look back on her lyrical roots and find a happy medium once again of telling a story without making it feel like reading Dante's Inferno.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite Anne Rice book!
Review: I'm not a big fan of the Vampire Chronicles, but I absolutely loved Rice's Mayfair Witch trilogy, and decided to give Servant of the Bones a shot. It was fabulous!! My favorite Anne Rice book to date. You will absolutely love Azriel and you'll be swept away by the world of Ancient Babylon.

Rating:
Summary: Them bones, them bones, them gold bones...
Review: Anne Rice boldly goes where she's gone before in "Servant of the Bones," a flaccid deviation from her Vampire Chronicles. Rice's plot has some raw promise, but it's quickly squandered by the dull characters and meandering, bizarre plot. It would take all of a genii's power to give some life to this story.

A genii arrives at a man's house one night, and relates the story of his life (and afterlife), and a weird tale it is too. Azriel was a young Jewish boy in Babylon, who had the unusual gift of being able to talk to the god Marduk. He permitted himself to be turned into a living gold statue, a human sacrifice for the sake of the Jews -- but things go horribly wrong when an old witch curses and murders him. Now he is no longer human, but a powerful spirit that isn't an angel or a demon.

Azriel spends centuries sleeping inside his own gold-encrusted bones, occasionally getting woken up to do something for his masters. Then he's suddenly out and about -- and there's no master. He witnesses the murder of a young girl, who recognizes him as "the Servant of the Bones." The angry Azriel is determined to unravel the mystery of why the girl was murdered.

"Servant of the Bones" follows the format of the Vampire Chronicles: an incredibly attractive immortal relates his life story to a listener (who, oddly enough, never seems to need the bathroom during the long oral bio). But the grandeur and richness of her other writings is missing here.

Rice seems to be aware that her plot is too short and thin to be an entire novel. So she stretches it with lots of filler -- current events (no Bill-Clinton worship, please), her late husband's incomprehensible poetry, and endless descriptions of Azriel's skin, hair and eyes. Her usually colorful, sensuous prose is weirdly lifeless and dull here. And the plot is glacially slow.

Most strangely of all, Rice starts playing fast and loose with religion and history. And devout followers of Judaism will probably be grinding their teeth: the faithful are shown as self-righteous, slobbering fanatics, while the hero worships other gods and shares prostitutes with his dad. She bangs readers over the head with her assertions that there were many versions of the Old Testament. And Rice tries to bring Azriel to the present by a story-line about terrorists, murder and a cult, but the present-day story-line feels tacked-on. It's like a supernatural Bond flick.

But it doesn't exactly help that Azriel is not a terribly interesting character at all. Over the centuries he never develops a personality, and his actions seem pretty random. Why is he so besotted with Esther? We never know. The villain is cookie-cutter, and most of the supporting characters (including the narrator) are utterly forgettable.

This story is a complete misfire for Rice, and a bewildering squandering of her considerable talents. Her dull characters and weird views on Old Testament history are only a few of the problems in the turgid, colorless "Servant of the Bones."

Rating:
Summary: More of the same from Rice
Review: Anne Rice continues to be one of the most frustrating bestselling authors to read. Two stars is being very charitable for this work, maybe her worst since _The Mummy_ or the colossally bad _Queen of the Damned_. This novel finds Azriel, the titular Servant of the Bones, relating his story to a biographer, a la Rice's first novel, Interview with the Vampire. The form is completely ridiculous, with the entire novel being encompassed in quotation marks. The book is rife with poor writing, and Rice seems to be on a quest to contradict herself as much as possible. It's full of muddled, meaningless prose, expressing sentiments such as, "he yearned to be free, yet was drawn ever closer" etc, etc, etc. The dialogue is as stilted as ever, and the plot clearly just a rehashing of the ideas that she used in the Vampire Chronicles. The most disappointing aspect of all this is that this could have been an interesting novel (something that I would not say about everything Rice has written). You'd think that maybe a genii would have some interesting things to say, but instead we get a ludicrous plot about an incredibly powerful cult that wants to destroy the world. If you've seen it once, you've seen it a hundred times.

Skip it.

Rating:
Summary: Bone Chilling...
Review: I say bone chilling not because it falls in the horror genre, but it is a soulful tale of a tenacious and lost man once in Babylon that became a spirit and god in his time. Battling both love and hate, Azriel (servant of the bones) takes us on his journey with his perspective of life - or the lack of.

I do not recommend this book to those that don't have a fantastical, philosophical and/or curious mind. The characters are built superbly, the storyline a page turner, and all around thought provoking! If you like this book, you'll love Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice.

Rating:
Summary: Them bones, them bones, them gold bones...
Review: Anne Rice boldly goes where she's gone before in "Servant of the Bones," a flaccid deviation from her Vampire Chronicles. Rice's plot has some raw promise, but it's quickly squandered by the dull characters and meandering, bizarre plot. It would take all of a genii's power to give some life to this story.

A genii arrives at a man's house one night, and relates the story of his life (and afterlife), and a weird tale it is too. Azriel was a young Jewish boy in Babylon, who had the unusual gift of being able to talk to the god Marduk. He permitted himself to be turned into a living gold statue, a human sacrifice for the sake of the Jews -- but things go horribly wrong when an old witch curses and murders him. Now he is no longer human, but a powerful spirit that isn't an angel or a demon.

Azriel spends centuries sleeping inside his own gold-encrusted bones, occasionally getting woken up to do something for his masters. Then he's suddenly out and about -- and there's no master. He witnesses the murder of a young girl, who recognizes him as "the Servant of the Bones." The angry Azriel is determined to unravel the mystery of why the girl was murdered.

"Servant of the Bones" follows the format of the Vampire Chronicles: an incredibly attractive immortal relates his life story to a listener (who, oddly enough, never seems to need the bathroom during the long oral bio). But the grandeur and richness of her other writings is missing here.

Rice seems to be aware that her plot is too short and thin to be an entire novel. So she stretches it with lots of filler -- current events (no Bill-Clinton worship, please), her late husband's incomprehensible poetry, and endless descriptions of Azriel's skin, hair and eyes. Her usually colorful, sensuous prose is weirdly lifeless and dull here. And the plot is glacially slow.

Most strangely of all, Rice starts playing fast and loose with religion and history. And devout followers of Judaism will probably be grinding their teeth: the faithful are shown as self-righteous, slobbering fanatics, while the hero worships other gods and shares prostitutes with his dad. She bangs readers over the head with her assertions that there were many versions of the Old Testament. And Rice tries to bring Azriel to the present by a story-line about terrorists, murder and a cult, but the present-day story-line feels tacked-on. It's like a supernatural Bond flick.

But it doesn't exactly help that Azriel is not a terribly interesting character at all. Over the centuries he never develops a personality, and his actions seem pretty random. Why is he so besotted with Esther? We never know. The villain is cookie-cutter, and most of the supporting characters (including the narrator) are utterly forgettable.

This story is a complete misfire for Rice, and a bewildering squandering of her considerable talents. Her dull characters and weird views on Old Testament history are only a few of the problems in the turgid, colorless "Servant of the Bones."

Rating:
Summary: Off Rice's beaten path
Review: This is not a vampire novel, and it has nothing to do with the Mayfair witches. Although this does not sound like the typical Anne Rice book, this is a step into the other parts of traditional horror like her book on the mummy Ramses the Damned. This is still a well done book with a great story behind it.

The story takes us back to the land of Babylon before the fall to Cyrus the Great. A young man is sacrificed to keep the Jewish population from being killed, thereby allowing them to return and build their temple. Due to an ancient spell, whoever controls his bones should control him.

The story is the connection and discussion between the spirit and a human. The spirit merely wishes release, but the tale would go nowhere if others did have different plans. This helps drive the narrative.

Anne Rice is a good storyteller of horror. I liked the story and would recommend it to others.

Rating:
Summary: Another wonderful story
Review: Anne Rice has yet to write a book that I haven't adored. Regardless of those few "cool" people in the world that think hating a famous author makes them look intelligent, they are crazy. This story is about a young boy, thrust into becoming a man far too early, and becoming something much worse. I couldn't stop reading it.