Blood and Gold: The Vampire Marius (The vampire chronicles) (Paperback)

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.

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!

Marius' encounters with the amiable Avicus and the grudging Mael, allows a little insight into the old vampires that Rice only briefly mentions in her other books. However, she leaves a lot of string untied, which means either she forgot about them or she intends to carry them on in other new books...

Avicus and Mael are Marius' first companions as they together slay the vampires that seem to quest for the Mother and Father-the Satanic worshippers. Together they learn to use their new preternatural powers and even manage to destroy a powerful vampire who wishes to claim 'Those Who Must Be Kept' for her own...

Marius recounts his story of how he grew up as a mortal and his childhood love and soulmate-Pandora. He tells the story with more detail than was given in the book 'Pandora' as he weaves emotions and the circumstances into it all. He explains the loss of his companions through the passage of time.

He even mentions his anguish when his beloved Amadeo is snatched from him by Santino (who enacted his revenge of Marius in this way to pay back for Marius' previous rejection), and forced to command a new branch of Satanic worshippers. All this while, Marius can do nothing as he is too weak by the injuries inflicted upon him...

Marius recovers slowly with the help of Akasha and the beautiful Bianca. Bianca never fully accepts Marius' love for Pandora or his burden of the parents, and soon she leaves him too when Marius finds Pandora again. In this same act, he also finds he loses Pandora again. A powerful tale that fills in the gaps of the vampire lore that Rice had left out in previous books. As moving as 'The Vampire Lestat', 'Blood and Gold' is a valuable addition to the Vampire Chronicles.