Bitten by Books
Welcome back, friends and vampire lovers! This is the seventh installment of our chat series about Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, leading up to the release of a new Vampire Chronicles book, Prince Lestat, and a fun Halloween giveaway here at Bitten By Books. If you want to increase your chances for that giveaway you can find you can go back and read parts one, two, three, four, and five, and six.This week we are talking about Blood and Gold, Blackwood Farm, and Blood Canticle.
Blood and Gold is all about Marius. So this is one of my personal favorite Vampire Chronicle books. It is like Anne Rice answered my personal prayer and just knew that I needed more of this character, and what a glorious tale it is. Have you ever had a similar experience? Are there any books where you feel as if the author is speaking directly to you? Did you love Blood & Gold as much as I did? At this point I will move on to the other books, or we will be here all day…
Blackwood Farm brings Lestat back to the fore and ties The Mayfairs closer to the vampires. We are introduced to another new vampire and his ghost. This is a bit of a good old fashioned ghost story done in a very Anne Rice-manner. Do you enjoy mixing in different supernatural elements within series?
Blood Canticle was supposed to be the last of the Vampire Chronicles and that always made me sad-not because it was ending, but because I thought The Chronicles deserved a better ending. I was never fully sold on the merging of her series, and Blood Canticle felt confused to me-never nailing the tone or feel of what I had become used to in her writing.
The fact that I did not like how my beloved series was ending was so confusing. I am very aware of how hard authors work and believe artistic vision is imperative to literature, but I was so disappointed. How do you handle conflicting feeling when reading a favorite series?
Let me hear how you feel about these three books, and I hope to see you next week.
“And books, they offer one hope-that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved” (Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice).
The Vampire Chronicles in the order they should be read:
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 (Crossover with Mayfair Witches)
Blood and Gold
Blackwood Farm (Crossover with Mayfair Witches)
Blood Canticle (Crossover with Mayfair Witches)
Prince Lestat
The New Tales of the Vampires series in the order they should be read:
Pandora
Vittorio the Vampire
The Lives of the Mayfair Witches series in the order they should be read:
The Witching Hour
Lasher
Taltos
I still haven’t tried the series, so I can’t say. It’s usually fraught when a series ends anyway, especially when it’s beloved and has established a certain standard. It’s hard to evaluate a series in and of itself at that point, especially when other things factor in. For instance, I wasn’t crazy about the final volume of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series, and I’m convinced that he tried to rush an ending because the movie was being written and released concurrently. Of course, I have no proof of that…
I have not read the last three, but I’m always sad to see a fav series end. It’s almost like the death of a friend
Sorry didn’t read them
Blood Canticle was a disappointing ending to a great series. I have heard that Blood Canticle was the first book that Anne Rice wrote after the death of her husband. Perhaps that is why it is not one of her best.
I wasn’t as impressed with the later books but I did love seeing the stories about the other vamps. Blood and Gold was by far my favorite of these books but my heart still belongs to Lestat. The 4 books written from his POV still remain my favorite of Rice’s works.
I haven’t read these books yet but they sound very interesting!
I haven’t read these books. I kind of stop reading Anne Rice when the internet took over and my local library was no longer my only source of books and I of course had the money to splurge on my own books hehe
Perhaps this is the time to pick up where I left off and get all the books I need including Lestat
Do it Joanna!
Definitely!!