Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Anne Rice at her best, 29 Mar 2005
This is perhaps her best story of all.
I bought it because I am captivated by all her Vampire Chronicles.
I did not expect it to be anywhere near her best because I realised it would cover old ground explored in her earlier books.
But she covered it so well. She made what was ground covered before new ground from Marius's perspective. Rather than him being a supporting character he was the main character and you got to see his true feelings on what occurred.The book is a tragedy in many ways and brings out many emotions in the reader. It is spell binding. It is a love story and it is a action book. It makes you fall in love with the characters and the places they go. She has always been an expert at bringing out the emotions in her readers and she does to with great skill in this novel, the scene where he meets Pandora again after so many centuries but must let her go is heartbreaking. I started off loving Marius as a character in her earlier books, then as she wrote more books coming to dislike him, but reading this has made me once again come to admire and respect and have empathy for this character. He shall now always be one of my favourites of all her characters. If you have not read any of her other Vampire novels then this is a good one to start with. As long as she writes books like this I will be a fan and eagerly buy her work.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another wonderful feast for Anne Rice fans. Wondeful!, 29 Oct 2001
By A Customer
This, the 10th of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, is about one of the oldest Vampires, Marius. I read the book in 2 days; such was my delight in the release of his life story. Whilst not disappointed by it, I was not as fascinated by it as I have been with some of the other novels. Being the 10th novel, it has the disadvantage of having to re-tell story's we have already heard, for instance Marius's time with Pandora and Amadeo later known as Armand. However, new readers and die-hard fans will consume this particular tale with relish. It is a wonderful introduction to all that has gone before, and whereas some of the other Vampire's tales brushed only the surface of Marius's life, this delves deeper and further. I have, as a die-hard fan, only one true complaint. The ending. I hated it. Whilst unable to go into the details here, a new (to us) Vampire, Thorne, is involved. Justice is done, and ancient scores and grudges are finally (?) settled. But the way Anne has done this seems, well, as if she had run out of ideas. I have no qualms about the final outcome, but I really don't think that what happens in the last few paragraphs would have happened in the way that it does, should the characters be real and true (indeed, assuming they are not!) to their previous characteristics. I think she could have missed out virtually all of the ending, and come up with a more satisfying and realistic ending. Perhaps. Please note, I use realistic here due to my understanding of the characters through reading and re-reading all the previous Vampire Chronicles. In essence, the book covers a common theme - how lonely the Vampires are, and how lonely they are destined to be. They all have found and lost true loves within their bizarre and beautiful world, yet no number of years can erase hurt, pain and hatred or indeed love. Marius is no exception. He has found many and lost many loves - more indeed than most, due to the extent of this life, if that's the correct word! They have all (at least, the Children of the Millennia) found ways to carry on and survive and to justify their existence. But to what end if they are always destined to be lonely? I think it's this bitter-sweet message that all the novels try to relay to us, the reader. I think in many ways, Anne is trying to reflect our own lives, no matter how wonderful or tragic they seem to us. What would we really do with eternity? To sum up - if you are new to the world of Anne's Vampires, buy this. If you are, like me, a die-hard fan who must have the hard back version, buy this. If you have enjoyed her previous Vampire novels, but not with a passion, wait until it comes out in paperback, or borrow it from a library! And finally, if you do not have the slightest interest in Vampires or glimpses of interesting history or of "human" nature and heartache, leave well alone, for you will hate it! I would give the book 5 stars, if it weren't for the ending. However, we can't all be perfect all the time, can we, and Anne Rice is no exception to that!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally another good Vampire Chronicle, 17 Sep 2007
I am a huge fan of Anne Rice's first three Vampire novels, "Interview", "Lestat" and "the Queen of the Damned", but became increasingly frustrated by the books she's published since.
Whereas in the original trilogy she thought up exciting adventures of the undead, with "the Tale of the Body Thief", "Memnoch the Devil", "Pandora", "Vittorio", and especially "Armand" she bored me to death, forever talking of God, angels, paintings, artwork, and lovesick homosexual vampires without ever something interesting actually happening.
I found "the Vampire Lestat" to be a truly enthralling tale of a rebel vampire having great, yet still credible, adventures in the Western World from the 18 century till present day and finding out how these blood drinkers actually came to be. I was unable to stop reading and was fascinated by every single vampire he came into contact with. I was especially anxious to read Armand's story, after Antonio Banderas brought him to life so well. That's why his story was such a disappointment. Rice was forever whining about how much this vampire was in love with poetry, God, angels, paintings, his fellow art students and even his master and rushed through the really interesting parts: Armand's origins on the cold, barren plains of Russia and his defection to the Satanic Devil worshippers from which he would eventually be freed by Lestat, allowing him to become the master of the Theatre des Vampires and Louis' savior.
After this monstrosity I swore I'd never read another Rice novel, but then decided to give "Merrick" one final shot and I was pleasantly surprised. Although the religious element was still very much present in this book, Merrick's story was interesting enough for me to keep on reading, albeit still a far cry from her earlier tales of Louis and Lestat. Encouraged by this, I decided to give "Blood and Gold" a chance, although Marius's story was aleady elaborately discussed in "the Vampire Lestat" and "the Vampire Armand", the latter in the most boring way I might add. But right from the start I realized this book was nothing like her previous five Vampire Chronicles. It had good pace, an interesting new Blood Drinker from the North Lands, just awakened form centuries of slumber and Rice doesn't waste time forever going into details like she used to over the last decade. She does spend a lot of time describing the various cities and countries in which Marius has lived, but, contrary to "Armand", "Pandora" or "Vittorio", you don't feel like you're reading a history book that happens to involve vampires. Instead, the background she provides us with creates a beautifull setting and helps us understand what it was like for a Blood Drinker to live in that historic age.
This book is very much linked to her second and third novels in this series and therefore Marius briefly recaptures the events that took place in those years without needlessly repeating all that Lestat and Armand have already told us about this Child of the Millennium. We also get a lot of new information about the first two vampires, Akasha and Enkil, and this helps us understand how angry Marius was when his Queen abandoned him for this young Brat Prince whom he entrusted with his deepest secrets.
Therefore this work is definitely an invaluable addition to the entire Vampire Chronicles. In fact, unless you really want to know all there is to know about Rice's Blood Drinkers and are willing to labour through a couple thousand terribly boring pages, I recommend skipping all of her Vampire books that were published in the 1990s. Just stick to the first trilogy and then cut right to Blood and Gold. All tings worth knowing from the other novels are recaptured in this brilliant work anyway.
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