Memnoch the Devil

The story starts as another seemly trivial day in the life of the vampire Lestat. He is working on one of his special projects, following a victim who he intends to torture, kill and feed of after a few months of getting to know him.

Lestat is peculiar when choosing his prey, trying to only kill bad people. But for these months long hunts, he has a few other requirements as well. He is looking for a particular kind of evil, a criminal who is charismatic and carries on his trade as form of art. He must be exceptionally good at what he do, to like it and be clever enough to keep doing it for many years without getting caught. Someone who cares little to nothing for the lives of others, who only do what pleases himself, no matter the costs. In other words, Lestat yearns to kill people like himself.

He tries to fully understand his victims, listening into their minds, observing their actions, making absolutely sure they are just as deliciously evil as he is. He savors every moment of his stalking, thoroughly enjoying himself whenever his target, through tough or action, confirms to be indeed what he is after. This might be a form of atonement for him, to remove from the world those who are just as monstrous as he is. At last he has the excuse of being a vampire.

Roger is Lestat's current target, a ruthless drug lord with a soft spot for his daughter Theodora. ‘Dora' is a televangelist of pure hearth and faith, a true believer. She doesn't know about the nature of her father's dealings, although she suspects it, and has broken off all contact with him, except on a few occasions on which they both meet in secret in order to spend some father/daughter time. She tries to convince him to leave his wicked ways. He in turn tries to convince her to accept his gifts, either in the form of money or religious statues and relics, which he has a lot of.

It's been a few months since Lestat has started to follow Roger. In the process, he started to like him, because of how much he resembles himself. He even developed some feelings for his daughter, although he is trying to convince himself that she is just someone he finds interesting and nothing more. But this time something seems different. Lestat is aware that while he is stalking his victim, someone is stalking him! And for the someone to be able to keep hidden from him, who has nearly godly powers of perception, this entity must be powerful indeed. Maybe one of the other elder vampires, like Mekare or Maharet.

Lestat starts to become ever more frightened of the nature of his pursuer. He believes that it might be the devil himself, came to collect his soul! He shares his concerns with his friend David Talbot, who sheds some rationality into the matter. But Lestat is unfazed.

Desperate he moves to kill Roger right away. What follows is that he eventually confirms his suspicions, the devil is indeed after him, but he wants to recruit him in order to defeat God. He spends a great deal of time explaining his position, taking Lestat to Heaven, Hell and even back in time, to the beginning of the world. God makes a brief appearance as well, trying to dissuade Lestat from joining the fallen angel.Memnoch, as the devil prefers to be called, makes a very compelling argument. His dissent with God boils down to this: he wants to eradicate all suffering, because he cannot understand how a loving God would put his creations through this. God on the other hand claims that suffering is necessary in order for humans to prove themselves worthy to enter the kingdom of heaven. Those who fail the test are sent to hell.Hell is the place that God created and placed Mennoch in charge as a punishment for disagreeing with God. His task is to atone the souls of those who are sent into his dominion. He does this by making them understand their evil ways. And that is 'a hell' for them, to experience all the evil they have caused. But those who learn are ready to ascend to heaven.Menoch is condemned to stay in hell until all of the humans souls are saved or until the end of times, whatever comes first. he is confident he can succeed but that's where Lestat enters, he realizes its is a task too hard to do alone. Hell is ever more filled with souls, many of which sent by Lestat himself.

The dialogue of Lestat and “The Devil” is the highlight of the book. The story and characters are once again interesting enough, but the Rice's theology and philosophy arguments are the really interesting parts of the tale. Spoiler ridden Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memnoch_the_Devil) has a good summary of this part.

This book was not as inspired as the previous ones. There were less attention to character development, like Dora's affection for Lestat came way too quickly for instance. Still the vampire mythos was expanded a little further, explaining the origins of the spirits which made Akasha. I'd give this a 3.5 stars. I'm rounding up because I'm fond of this series and of the latest crop of 3 star books I've been reading.