Anne Rice's
The Vampire Chronicles (Books 1-7)
Interview with a Vampire
The Vampire Lestat
The Queen of the Damned
The Tale of the Body Thief
Memnoch the Devil
The Vampire Armand
Merrick
Anne Rice's
I am pretty sure there are 12 books in this series thus far (the 12th having recently-ish been published) so I am a little over halfway through. I have started on the 8th novel (audiobook form) but am picking my way through it very slowly and will most likely have to reread it before moving onto book 9.
This rereading is something I have had to do a lot with the series, which is equal parts annoying and "a nothing". I had heard a lot of mixed reviews about the series (people seeming to love it or hate it), but as it spawned a batch of not-so-bad movies and is considered a vampire classic, I figured I had to give it a try. Turns out I am one of the people who likes these books, but I can understand why other people don't enjoy these novels at all.
These books remind me a lot of the Odd Thomas series. Slow, wordy, full characters who are mostly static, almost a monotone, singular voice. Even the action (which is quite abundant really) has almost a passive or disinterested vibe - which turned up both in my "reading voice" in my head, and in the audiobooks (which had a variety of authors) - Sometimes I think this was intentional because the vampires are really supposed to be Other-ly beings, void of human emotion, detached ect. but at the same time I don't quite think the monotony was intended (because no author wants to drone on and on, it doesn't sell books).
Each one of the stories would be a good stand alone, they somewhat tend to focus on a single vampire (or being) and how they all relate to the vampire Lestat (past, present and future):
Interview with a Vampire - Louis's Story of becoming Lestat's vampire fledgling in colonial Louisiana, his relationship with a child vampire (Claudia) and his various travels over the decades and centuries
The Vampire Lestat - As the title says. We go back to before Louis, to when Lestat was human and how he became Vampire and ended up in the colonies of the USA.
The Queen of the Damned - A huge cast of characters, focusing on the modern day vampire situation, ancient vampire history (there Adam and Eve Story), Lestat gets involved with the first ever vampire. This book is a little bit all over the place.
The Tale of the Body Thief - We get into the Talamasca - a human society dedicated to the supernatural of all kinds- we learn about other powers and beings that exist (because if vampires are real why would telepathy or werewolves be unreal right?). Along with this comes David Talbot and the chance for the Vampire Lestat to be human again.
Memnoch the Devil - the one novel I really didn't enjoy and personally recommend skipping. It had nothing to do with vampires (they are name dropped but that about as close as this book gets to the big picture). This is really Rice's personal views on religion, heaven and hell. Their existence (or not) and other babble. I was incredibly disappointed to see this thrown into the mix and reminded me a lot of the Northern Lights series by Phillip Pullman (which after the first book was the same B.S. as this)
The Vampire Armand - About Armand, but by this point in the series we have a lot of information collected about all the characters. It was between the Body Thief and this book that I really started to feel connected and majorly invested in the whole world (I was interested before, but by now I realized I was hooked). We are creeping forward with the modern timeline very slowly here, but really fleshing out the characters backstories - which is genius when you look at how the "vampire identity" was established as immortals they are unchanging (which leaves you few unexpected directions to go in) so instead Rice goes back to their human days to explain how they got to where they are. If your a fan of "world-building" like I am (big series, big casts, deep diving into multiple characters) then this will be your cup of tea too.
Merrick - Finally we move forward or at least move sideways with David Talbot, Merrick the Voodoo witch and the vampire Louis.
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I am tried to give you all a small glimpse without giving anything away (in my opinion the synopsis on the books spoils too much).
I will do a part two when I am done the rest of these books (the goal is before 2019!)
If you like your vampires to be cold, scary, inhuman monsters. These are something I would try!
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