POOK said:

Gothic vampire writer supreme absolutely!!!

Natisse said:

co-sign

Both! The Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair books rock, but The Violin almost killed me in it's turdiness.

sabaisabai said:

Certainly a drugged up rambling poet, but to me that's always infinitely more interesting than a teetotal, straight-edged hack.
Sometimes, the slit gut of the human condition can only be examined to great depth by those who have to chosen to squeegie their third eye with...let's say God's manna.....for example, giants such as Allan Ginsburg, Robert Anton Wilson, William Burroughs, Hunter Thompson, Alastair Crowley, Jack Kerouac and JK Rowling.
Rice makes her monsters human and portrays immortality as a curse. Personally, Claudia will stay with me forever as an original literary masterstroke, the doomed soul stuck forever inside a porcelain child's body. It drips darkness and, to me, is true horror.
Although she can be tedious with her plotting, letting her characters ramble on incoherantly at times, Rice is gifted with pace, colour and complex characterisation. You swim inside her structures. No wonder some people drown - raiding their mum's make-up bag and buying silly frilly shirts afterwards.
Memnoch The Devil was crap though.

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[This message was edited Thu Aug 19 4:03:52 2004 by Number23]

A little of both. She's got a great style, but she really needs to hire an editor. She just doesn't know what she needs to trim out to tighten up the story. She paints fascinating pictures, and wonderful (if somewhat whiny) characterisations. The main problem is that her books often go off onto pointless tangents, bogging an otherwise fantastic book down.

Like Number23 said, it wasn't just the vampires that sucked in Memnoch.

JediMaster said:

Tale of the Body Thief was poor too, I thought. Too many poorly thought out ideas...or whimsical notions. Bad seamstress...ing? I'm lost for words.

Number23 said:

Oh, and what about the good but inconsistent books? Queen Of The Damned drove me crazy, because it had so many good ideas, and a fairly good story, but kept going off on tangents. Good book, but its a perfect example of her needing an editor.

Y'know one that I REALLY like, and its one that gets ignored alot, is Pandora. I loved how different it was from the other Vampire Chronicles, and it kept the tangents to a minimum. I also liked it being told from a female vampire point of view.

Gothic vampire writer supreme!


Queen of the Damned was the ultimate...for those of you who saw the movie--forget everything you saw! That movie was horrible!!! They ruined it!

I Love her Books. She's the Best.

JediMaster said:

That's interesting... I loved Interview and Lestat, but started Queen and couldn't get through it. I thought I outgrew her or something. Too bad I bought practically ALL her books while I was reading the first 2.

Her website is cool. http://www.annerice.com/

JediMaster said:

Indeed. She started off well, then went on rambling. She should not get too flowery.

Anne Rice's material should be taught in school, it's descriptions and "rambling" keep my mind until the end of the book. Memnoch was a masterpiece but such is art to have these various degrees of opinions.

A little bit of both Pook. I loved "The witching hour" and a few others, but some were down right nonsense.

VinaBlue said:

I can understand that. I got really annoyed with all the forays into Egypt and what not. The first part of the book, with Lestat as a rock star, was very entertaining. The Queen destroying her progeny was also quite enjoyable. After that, it just deteriorated into a big mess.

I love The first 4 Vampire Chronicles! Mnemoch sucked ass. Armand was very good and I ended up loving his character after that. I hated him before. Pandora was ok. Too self-indulgent for me. Couldn't get into Merrick. Bought Blood and Gold but haven't touched it. I feel like I know enough about Marius already. That's the last one , right? Couldn't stay awake for Vittorio

I never liked the vampire books.....her erotica is freaking amazing though!

If anyone has an intrest in S&M it's so worth the time to read. The Erotic Adventures Of Sleeping Beauty had me for days!

My favorite was Belinda though.....fucked up children's author has an affair with a fucked up teen.... It was funny, erotic but not smutty... and strangely heart warming and endering. The best book I read by her by far.

Sweeny79 said:

Why did you use 'freaking' in the first paragraph than write 'fucked' twice in the third one?

Sweeny79 said:

Oh man, I had the opposite reaction. I couldn't even make it to the end of the first SB book

Number23 said:

JediMaster said:

Really why?

MarySharon said:

I agree -Anne Rice is really a bit of both. The Vampire Lestat is amazing! She does need an editor though -too many tangents and too much rambling and poorly thought out ideas.

Sweeny79 said:

JediMaster said:

I loved that one too. The bit about the lions eating people in the arena completely grossed me out and that stuff actually happened for real!
I think the ending was rushed, though. I would have liked to learn more about that separate breed of asian vampires.

Janfriend said:

Only the parts about Dora. It got to the point where I was like "if Lestat says oh, Dora one more time, I'll burn the friggin' book!"

But then, luckily, Memnoch took Lestat on a journey that I found absolutely fascinating and engrossing. Anne Rice put words to all my ideas about heaven and hell that I couldn't put into words myself. Her vision is absolutely agreeable with mine.

Number23 said:

Definitely my least favorite book in the series. I think it has to do with it not having the same kind of historical, epic feel to it that the other books have.