It moves at a crawling pace, 80% of the book takes place in three nights, a good part of it are David’s memories concerning Merrick from when he was still human, it all seems to head for a single event… Simply lacks depth.
Then things turn around towards the end and it gets interesting. Makes you awfully interested in Talamasca’s Elders, Lestat’s back, though I can’t see what more could he ever do after Memnoch, can’t go higher than that, and there’s a new coven of extremely powerful vampires.
I still say Louis should have died though. And it would have been interesting, also very justified, for David and Merrick to let, and actually help, Lestat in destroying the Talamasca after their threats. As it is, it makes a promise for the books written after it but goes back on it even before this one’s end.
Rating: 7/10
It’s a good thing there were two books in one. The first seemed quite crappy, really. Sure, entirely new world, but one all too “real” for me. And the action happens in a time that’s too short and a space that’s too small to have any real significance. But everything’s different in the second. The real significance of everything starts to trickle out and the story starts to shape up. Also, I’m starting to like Silk.
That rating is made up of averaging those for the first and the second…
Rating: 4/5
Wanted something to read in a day and picked this one up. Thought that the stories might be a bit better than what you usually find in anthologies, since they’re a bit longer, but I was wrong.
A few interesting bits, but the overall impression was bad.
Rating: 4/10
Since the US is pushing for ammending the Bill of Rights, to remove a woman’s right to have an abortion, I have a few things to say…
Somebody should just make the ones who are supporting that ammendment carry a unwanted child in their bellies (even the men) for 9 months, give birth to it and then raise it well, still not wanting it… That should change their minds.
Sex is not a crime, therefore people should never be punished for it’s results. True, there is contraception and people should be taught how to use it. I’d go for a law that would require sterilization for any person who had abortion twice after getting pregnant because of not using contraceptive measures (and if that could be somehow proven), as they’re clearly not responsible enough to eventually have a child, but if it simply happens that you’re in those unlucky 0.01-10% (depending on the method used) then you should get all help to… get rid of the problem and go on with your life.
Before the 3rd month, when the nervous system starts to develop, a child is not really a living being, it’s just a lump of tissue growing inside of you (albeit a rather complex one)… So is cancer! Do you refuse to have that removed because it’s a part of yourself?
Same awesome style, but everything else is simply not the same. Armand is not Lestat.
And besides that, I never liked Armand, at all! From what I got from here, as a human he wasn’t half bad, but as a vampire… Power corrupts, and so does the desire to survive, whatever the cost.
Two things bothered me about the writing though:
1. Armand saying that Lestat fixed his eyes on them when telling them about his journey through Heaven and Hell, when he only had one eye at the time.
2. Marius making two new vampires apparently in a single day. From her other books I gathered that a vampire can make a powerful offspring only once per century, and Lestat’s blunders were enough proof of that. Not to mention that Marius actually took two days to fully make Armand, Amadeo at the time, so it’s not his style to make two in one day even if he could.
Rating: 8/10
