Blood Canticle

I fell no empathy with those who gave this book a one star. If you have arrived until this one in the series, it is pretty much on the same level as the last few ones.

Lestat is evolving as a character ever so slightly. People expected a caricature version of him, following their misguided interpretations of him as a bad ass hero. He is not, and has never been that.

Rice even “tongue in he cheek mocks” her fans using Lestat's own words.

I'll address the top reviewers for fun and profit.

1st Lestat is a pussy: no. This is probably a reference to Lestat saying he wants to be a saint, but I'll give a broader criticism.

Do you require all your protagonists to be alpha males? This is not a PNR. This is not a teenager action love story, with the good hearted bad boy. This is not a cheap gore fest slasher action packed. The Vampire Chronicles are philosophical and psychological horror. Lestat's demeanor is very consistent with the previous books so far.

He even says he wants to be a saint, be can't help but being a sinner. This is Lestat. This, nothing else. Wanting to be good while behaving as a monster. This is Vampire The Masquerade's entire premise.

2nd Anachronism: this is as significant as forgetting a comma in a sentence. To call this a detail is to give it too much credit. So what if Lestat doesn't know how to use an email? And if he tries to use modern day speak, and fails at a times? This is part of his character, nothing to see here.

Regarding Mona being portrayed as a vacuous slut, I can't comment, I didn't read the Mayfair Witches. I'll take the author's opinion over the reviewer.

The first part of the book doesn't drag on. Its just not the story you want to hear. I have this feeling with most books I read. I couldn't bare the Mayfair Witches, every single page was a drag. The Balckwood Farm first half was a drag.

xst) Rice criticizing her fans as Lestat. oh the irony. I have read all of the books and Lestat has been consistent so far. Her books as well. Her previous books had more elements of PNR and other tropes, as I mentioned above. Yes they were also better, but they were never meant to be the books you were expecting them to be.

The PC critics are strong in this reviewer, I'll just say that literature is art, not a declaration of intent. To the implications of Rice's Catholicism's influence affecting her work, I'm a fervent atheist, and I'm not bothered even one bit by that. I'm much more offended by some of her philosophical views in previous books then these. If you want to read a Vampire book where religion got the best of her, see Vittorio, the Vampire.

About the whole of nothing happening, this has always been present in her books. I don't like it either, but her prose is so alluring that I can't help but feel a mixture of joy and irritation.

Regarding all of these and the others criticisms, I gather that people wanted more of the same. I don't. Rice took this book to “different” heights. It is a book that would have nothing for me to like, except for Rice's prowess as a writer. The elements presents in this book may not be as good as the first books, but they are still here. I'm surprised I'm this long in a book series that is very unlike my tastes.

As to my review, I don't have much to say.

Lestat is the protagonist an narrator once again. Quinn and Mona have meaningful participations, and so does Dra Rowan Maifair

Lestat is being haunted by Uncle Julien and some other Mayfair ghosts, because he “stole” Mona from them, by preventing her to die.

The plot revolves around Mona's transformation, the reveal of her new condition to her family of powerful witches, her quest to seek out her stolen Taltos child and Lestat's incontrollable attraction for Dra Rowan.

They were weary of what they might find when meeting the Taltos. Their race has been destroyed in the past by the humans, and so they have vowed to grow strong and conquer mankind. But when they finally find them, they had all been killed os enslaved. Mona's daughter had long since died, and she is survived by two of her descendants. The Taltos are born and fully grow in a few days by the way.Mona and the remaining Taltos gets off to a rocky start, but eventually things work out well enough. The pirates who enslaved the Taltos were all killed, the surviving Taltos were integrated into the Mayfair family, Lestat manages to overcome his desire to give Rowan the Dark Gift.

Here is Rice's response to her angry fans.

http://50.116.16.126/wiki/index.php/Anne_Rice
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/books/the-people-have-spoken-and-rice-takes-offense.html

Not easy to pick up the plot and run with it because there's an assumption you know the prior 1 or 2 books. There's a bit of introduction to each of the character and their relation to each other but not enough to make each memorable for recall when needed.

Also, there's an awful lot of talking to the reader and not alot of plot, unless it picks up after I got frustrated and quit.

In Blood Canticle Lestat goes back and forth from sounding like a ranting raving teenager to the cultured and demanding Lestat that is known from Interview with the Vampire, to some crazy hormones-raging young adult. Lestat, who has always been enamored with new things, ignore all new technology by refusing to learn how to email. Lestat spends most of the book arguing with Julien's ghost for some reason that is never really explained, he just appears and he and Lestat melodramatically argue with each other in ridiculously overwrought language for pages on end.
Mona is either flitting with about everything that moves, or crying at the drop of a hat, baiting Lestat, and wearing odd slutty clothes that belonged to Quinn's Aunt Queen.
The first half of the book drags on endlessly, hardly making any progress forward with any semblance to plot. The plot contrivances used to get Mona, Quinn, and Lestat to where they will find the fate of the Taltos are numerous, unbelievable, and far too convenient. The whole mess with Taltos and the drug dealers is simply just funny.