Vittorio, The Vampire

Rice's masterful storytelling is still here, but there is too little content, and its not very good. Some people were upset by the religion underpinnings of the story. For me it's all fiction, and I judge it accordingly.

Here is all you need to know if you plan to avoid reading this book.

A group of dozens of vampires kill 16 years old Vitorrio's family. One of them spares his life. He lusts for vengeance, finds out where they hide and goes alone at night to face them. Shockingly, he is defeated and captured. The one who saved his life asks to the vampire leader to allow him to join them.Vittorio refuses the invitation and is thrown in a courtyard which acts like a cattle cell, filled with people that the vampires use for feeding. After a while he is brought back before the vampires that then decide to release him. Vittorio warns them that he will come back by day when they are most vulnerable and will kill them all. He does so, but takes pity on the one who spared his life. She turns him into a vampire, and then they go on a murder spree.Oh, and there are angels involved.Only by the end of the book is explained why he was let loose by the vampire elder, but it felt very unsatisfying. The plot still left a bitter taste. The angels arc could have been amazing if it turned out they were just in his imagination, but no such thing was even implied. The story was as linear as it could get.

Vittorio was the only well-rounded out character in this entire book. The other characters, even Ursula, was just caricatures--floating comedy and tragedy masks just saying their grandiose lines. Then, the last third of the book so completely jumps the shark that I had to speed read to the end. This book had a lot of potential--the Renaissance is such an incredible setting--but its poor execution made it even more of a disappointment.

This novel has entirely original characters. It is refreshing to see new cast of characters who have nothing to do with the characters in The Vampire Chronicles. Vittorio is an interesting character who is both fascinated by the vampires and repulsed by them.
However, the mussing about religion and belief felt a little bit too long and repetitive, and could have been shortened. The addition of certain group of characters felt hardly necessary. Almost all of the secondary characters felt flat. This applies to Ursula who even, also, being a main character hardly has any personality or agency.