The Queen of the Damned

Rating:
Summary: A FALL FROM GRACE
Review: After the highly original and well-done Interview With the Vampire, Anne Rice certainly fell from my good graces with this mishmash of the supernatural. Rice has committed the beginner's cardinal sin (she was still a beginner when she wrote this) by peopling her novel with so many extraneous characters just to keep the pot boiling we need a scorecard to keep them straight. Many of them seemed to have nothing at all to do with the story. And where, for goodness sake is the plot? So many readers and reviewers talk about Rice's lush, gorgeous prose but I think purple prose is a more apt description as far as this novel is concerned. Sorry, Anne. You can't cover bad writing with flowery prose and get away with it. Your readers are just too smart!

Rating:
Summary: An action filled adventure through the ages
Review: This isn't as straightforward as Anne's other chronicles. This book is a collection of several different vampire's points of view through the events of the book. The most gripping is the story Maharet tells of the beginning, the birth of the Mother & Father, and of the first brood. The story if fantastic, with every emotion known flowing all at once. This book is a must read for any fan of Vampire lore.

Rating:
Summary: NOT IMPRESSED
Review: Contrary to popular opinion, I really did not enjoy this book as much as the previous two (Interview and Lestat). The book contains many characters which I didn't connect with or cared about. The reason being that the story jumps from one character to another without any real character development. By the time the story ended, I didn't care about Akasha or what happened to her. Only that it would end.

Rating:
Summary: Great meeting of the Undead
Review: Congrats, Anne! One of your best. Akasha, the Queen of the Damned, is truly frightening (there should be another novel all about her) and the way Rice re-introduces old characters is fantastic. (Her new Tales of the Vampires should feature Santino, Eric, Maharet, and other characters brought to life here). This was a hugely entertaining read, but if you've never had the "Anne Rice Experiance", start with her first book, 'Interview with the Vampire', and read them in order. This truly is the greatest.

Rating:
Summary: The pinnacle of the Vampire Chronicles
Review: I have to wonder if all the people who bash Anne Rice have read this novel. Far and away the best work in the entire Vampire Chronicles, Queen of the Damned left me hanging on the edge of my seat from cover to cover. Unlike the other books in the series, it picks up exactly where the previous book, The Vampire Lestat left off. Anne Rice has long been one of my favorite authors and this one does not disappoint. Told in Rice's glorious, sensuous style, readers are taken on quite a strange trip--from the ancient sands of pre-dynastic Egypt to a San Francisco rock concert. For the most part, the characters are rich and enthralling (however I found Eric and Santino to be little more than 2 dimensional cardboard cut-outs). I instantly fell in love with Maharet, that lovely red-haired enchantress, her beautiful mystique and the sorrow she carried for millenia. I even named a MUD character for her (LOL!). Truly a tour-de-force, and by far the best in the series (they started going a bit downhill from here IMHO). If you are new to this series, please *PLEASE* for the love of the gods read Interview With a Vampire first and do the books in order. Otherwise you will have no clue what's really going on, and you will definitely not be able to appreciate this book as much. Trust me on this, my friend made that mistake. Also, there were some parts of this book that squicked even me (particularly parts of Maharet's story) and I *DON'T* squick at all. I just have to congratulate Anne Rice on doing what I thought was impossible for an author :P BTW, don't bother with them after Tale of the Body Thief. Except for some precious few parts Memnoch was the absolute pits (no pun intended :P).

Rating:
Summary: Best Vampire Chronicle Since "Interview"
Review: Out of all of Rice's Chronicles, this one has the best plot, suspense, history and characters. All of Rice's vampire characters come together in this one, making the novel very entertaining.

Rating:
Summary: Bring back Akasha!
Review: This was by far my favorite of the vampire chronicles, with the vampire lestat a close second. The character Akasha was brilliant! , I had a little part of me, almost wanting lestat to just go away with her, and forget the others...ie. Marius, Amadeo and so on, anyway she was an excellent character...great job Anne!

Rating:
Summary: ONE OF HER BEST!
Review: "Queen of the Damned" is definitely one of the best Anne Rice I've ever read and I've read almost all of her books (I just have Memnoch and Servant of the Bones to go!) I loved that it had all the important vampires! I was in heaven! I was so glued to this book, I took it to work, school and pretty much everywhere I went! A must for every Anne Rice fan and a good place to start if you're not!

Rating:
Summary: Erotic, gory and gripping!
Review: Great story from beginning to end. Well worth the time spent on it. Easy to follow if you have read the previous two; if not, don't even go there! Excellently written. It is nice to see that the other charcters get a look in and we start to learn more of them. There is also an introduction of some new characters which we are sure to meet again in the next books, Pandora being one of them. Akasha has great ideals and we can realise where she is coming from! It is also nice to learn more of the history of the vampire generations and we begin to understand them in more depth. So flawlessly written that we really can begin to believe in them!

Rating:
Summary: queen of the dull
Review: Anne Rice is a very talented writer but what happened here? The book started off great, but then it just slides downhill. The part with Baby Jenks wasn't needed, the part with Armand and Daniel was unreal in its boredom, and the part when Maharet tells her story resurrected the book from its boredom but then it cuts back to Lestat and Akasha. Read this book only if you have read the first two