Rating: 
Summary: wow!
Review: At first I was a bit put off by the slow beginning of Servant of the Bones, but like a true Rice fan I read on. Then I could not put the book down! I learned a lot about Judaism and history. I was entranced by the idea of a "servant of the bones," and his many travels through out centuries of civilization. While I was reading this book a friend of mine was starting his Ph.D. research on big churches and the lure they have. It's creepy the accuracy with which Rice depicts the power hungry evangelist and his quest for immortality.
Rating:
Summary: Completely Enthralling
Review: I couldn't put it down! It was completely enthralling and kept me up until the wee small hours reading without even noticing the passage of time. I'd have to put this on a par with Queen of the Damned in that there is a lot of action ... no good places to pause for sleeping or eating ... but it has got the character development that the earlier Vampire Chronicles had without pages and pages of descriptive text to be skipped. In fact, I only recall two places where she lapsed into diatribe or description that added nothing to the story and I ended skipping over a few paragraphs. But that is characteristic of Rice and to be expected.In Servant of the Bones, you have another immortal being made against his will but, this time, you don't know what he is so you can't have any preconceptions about his character or his fate. Once again, the immortal - maturing from impetuousity rather than reveling in it - seeks out a Talbotian figure to write his memoirs and we have the familiar male to male relationship of other Rice books but without the co-dependency. Again, we have the religious conflict between the ordinary man who is forced into a position that, by definition, would deny him of God's grace ... but instead of interpreting from some vague reference to religion, we have the strict and complicated background of Orthodox Judaism. Basically, if you are a Vampire Chronicle fan, you will love this. It is has all of the same elements. It is the same picture through a different filter. She didn't re-write the Chronicles. She perfected them.
Rating: 
Summary: a poor novel for all dedicated Rice fans
Review: I found this novel to be thoroughly disappointing. I loved The Vampire Lestat (it's among my favorites of the vampire chronicles) and I also particularly liked The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned. After such books as those, I was almost embarrassed for Rice's effort at this book, which was so obviously far removed from her normal standards. This book lacked excitement and pizazz. I will never read it again. I rate it down there with Memnoch the Devil, which was another poor and disappointing Anne Rice book. My advice to you is: check out another book of hers. Don't read this one.
Rating:
Summary: Sadly Disappointing
Review: I bought this book expecting a good read and found my self disappointed and bored. I finished the book through force of will, turning the pages, hoping for the story to pick up and come alive...somewhere along the line. The characters are, as usual, beautifully described. The story is nearly non-existant. The dialog is tedious and stilted and does not rivet the reader as have past works published by the author. Servant of the Bones had a lot of potential to be a better than good story. It left me feeling as though the author could not be bothered to expand upon or pursue any of the possibilities the setting of the tale had to offer. Servant of the Bones comes across as woefully incomplete. A real let-down, a book I would not recommend or pass on to a friend to read. Perhaps it is time for the Ms. Rice to acquire a new editor who will read the offered works [before publishing] as would the public, for surely an editor's salary is as much dependant on book sales as is the author's. I fear that Ms. Rice's books show a steady decline for Memnoch, Taltos, Pandora and [most notably] Servant of the Bones and Violin, display an unfinished, not-quite-fully-explored quality. A lacking in richness of story telling of which we know the author to be capable.
Rating:
Summary: One of the worst books I've ever read.
Review: This book was, simply put, terrible. The prose was overblown, way too flowery, and at times downright funny. Anne Rice seemed less interested in giving us characters than she did in sticking in her favorite little touches; i.e., the numerous examples of barely-latent homosexuality and the two pages of gratuitous sex. As a result, all of Azriel's raging emotions and the changes that take place in him are glossed over and have no impact on the story, although they are naturally pivotal to the plot. A great many potentially exciting scenes are rendered flat because of the style of writing, and some are barely dealt with in any case. The one redeeming quality of this book is what appears to be an authentic description of Babylonian theology and worship. Still, it's not enough to get me to explore Anne Rice's work any further
Rating:
Summary: Just Fascinating
Review: I can't understand why more people did not enjoy this book, probably because it wasn't about vampires or witches. Rice has a fantastic imagination, and I was thrilled to see her venture away from her formula and try something new. Ancient Babylon has long been an untouched-upon subject for fiction writers, and she wonderfully brought it to life. As her first ghost, Azriel experiences many of the feelings of her vampires, conflicting emotions with who he is and what could he have done different, etc. I hope we see more ghostly characters from Rice, with this much detail and imagination, and none of the scatterbrained storytelling that she showed in 'Violin'.
Rating: 
Summary: A very well thought out idea, but not quite there in print..
Review: I found this book to be better than Rice's Vampire Chronicles (save for The Vampire Lestat and Tale of the Body Thief) in that the idea was well thought out and original. What i did not like was how it was executed. Azreal telling the story through another person was dragging and tedious, and some of the storyline was just too silly to be taken in the serious context that the book portrayed. The climax of the story line and the eventual ending is a bit on the weak side as well, but the story itself is good. I don't know whether to recommend this book or not. If you can skip some of the silliness of the book and just take in the basic storyline, then you should be fine, but this book will disappoint someone expecting masterful writing. This book could have been so good with more effort of Rice's part.
Rating:
Summary: Naive
Review: My first Anne Rice book and I almost torched it down after reading 250 pages. The book has a old "mummy movies" feeling and that's great but the plot is incredibly naive, it's almost a Carebear fantasy though 3/4 of the lame story that pretends a pharaon just came from death and stirs all men and women emotions because he's handsome, smart, friendly, etc, etc. No drawback. The man is even single! Low budget and cheap love supermarket 5 bucks novels where a female just gets what she wants: THIS IS FOR YOU! Anne Rice pretends to hook on the reader with what looks like a strong frustrated libido making everybody involved in sexcapades (but you'll have to go through more than 400 pages of endless happiness, poor tense situations, etc to get there). The bisexual touch pretended to add a feeling of decadence but I am not sure it looks so smart when you realize you are reading the book as someone's personal fantasy...
Rating:
Summary: Skip this one
Review: Just plain poorly written. An absolutely silly opening. Totally ridiculous dialogue. Yap, yap, yap, a lot of talk and little action. That this became a #1 NYT best seller shows only that Anne Rice has name appeal that will sell swill. If you really want to hear the story, get the audio version and don't waste your time reading the book. The idea is good, the execution was terrible. It's time for Anne to hire others to ghost her books when she has a good idea but doesn't want to work to make it worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A Praiseworthy Stand Alone Novel
Review: Anne Rice weaves her spell once again, taking us back in time and showing us ancient civilizations - this time through the eyes of a vengeful ghost. Azriel has a bit of a complex. And who wouldn't, after agreeing to give up your life to save your people and then having the deal changed on you in a truly horrible manner? The one thing Azriel's beloved mentor pushes on him to learn is how to be kind. Through the depths of cruelty, we are taken on Azriel's journey to learn this one thing - human kindness. It's a hell of a trip.
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