Several of my recent fiction purchases have been vampire related, such as Brian Lumley's Necroscope series, Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend", and of course, Anne Rice's vampire chronicles. Although the vampire concept works well in SF, as Matherson definitively demonstrated, it is refreshing to read vampires in a traditional setting. Anne Rice epitomises the classic style of vampires in her writing, with familiar idiosyncrasies, physical characteristics, and surroundings.
Rice maintains credibility throughout the novel in terms of the direction of the narrative, and seldom if ever are concepts introduced that seem 'unlikely' in the credible setting built up. Without speculating too specifically, I understand that Rice underwent some family tragedies not long before this novel was written, (in 5 weeks!), and her extreme sentimental openness in the novel is surely justified, and the novel actually benefits from this emotional release. It would be a comfort to be able to express your feelings as cogently as Rice if one was overcoming a tragedy.
There is only one possible loophole in the story, (although my identification of this is very questionable as it is subjective, and I could probably be proven wrong and convinced of the proof). This is when Louis seems to have only just met Armand, and although Louis has been searching for another civilised vampire, (civilised apart from the fact that he kills countless innocent mortals), for years, I felt that he would need to know Armand for longer to warrant exchanging words of love. It seemed as Louis virtually walked up to Armand and said, 'ah, hello.. I love you!'. As I said, that is a purely subjective observation; (please note that the previous dialogue is not a quote). The other interesting factor about this novel, in my opinion, is that Anne describes predominantly male thoughts, (the narrator is male: Louis), when she is female, so for any male readers it is intriguing to see her perspective.
To conclude, IwtV is a wonderful tragic vampire biography, and is not too immensly melancholy to be unbearable to read.