First book I read by Andre Norton was “The Hands of Lyr” and this is certainly an improvement over it, but still, when I see fantasy I expect a high fantasy epic, as in a whole array of creatures (if they’re the familiar elf, orc, dwarf, halfling, dragon, unicorn, centaur, etc. lot all the better, but I could get used with others if they were detailed well enough), a lot of magic and a broad perspective, with several main characters and countless others doing many things in many places.
That said, it was nice, but not what I want to read when it comes to fantasy.
I think my girlfriend will really like it though…
Rating: 7/10
Great for the first eight chapters… Odd after that.
Anne Rice is amazing when she writes about vampires, but when she adds religious characters into the mix, everything gets blurry. “Memnoch the Devil” was superb, as both style of writing and ideas, but she should have left it there.
To add something else, Lestat is Lestat. After reading “his” books, he will always be The Vampire to me, not only when it comes to Anne Rice’s work, not only when it comes to books, but in general. Seeing something else, especially if it’s by Anne Rice, that tries to raise another vampire close to Lestat’s level simply seems wrong now.
You might also notice some discrepancies. For example Lestat and Louis said they have a hard time remembering what happened before they became vampires, save from a few important moments of their mortal lives that were stuck in their minds. But then Vittorio talks quite at length about his mortal life, and let’s not mention Pandora, as in her case just about the whole book is about her mortal life. And Lestat, Louis and even Pandora describe the process of turning into vampires as painful and taking a while, but then you have Vittorio who drinks Ursula’s blood and immediately notices his skin turning white and the thirst for blood and is able to spring into action and fly after Ursula! How long did any other of Rice’s vampires take before they were able to fly?
And a question… What is Vittorio still doing “alive” anyway? In “Queen of the Damned“, Akasha killed all vampires, except the ones who she spared for Lestat’s sake and “some young rogues who hid well enough and a few ancients who refused to interfere”, to quote from memory. Vittorio doesn’t know Lestat, is not a young rogue and is not one of the ancients, so will someone please explain why is he still “alive”?
To conclude, the strictly vampire parts are superbly written, but the other things thrown into the mix at the wrong moments and the discrepancies with her other books reduce “Vittorio“‘s value somewhat.
Rating: 8/10
Initially I was thinking that this would be a way to avoid that question that I can’t stand, “how are you?”, I’d just say “read there and stop asking me” and get rid of it. Plus that I wouldn’t have had to say more than once things that I’d rather forget… But I changed that idea before I even started writing, writing ideas instead of daily goings on. Being ideas, I certainly am not writing for the people that know me, as they already know what’s going on in my mind, so they actually don’t even have to know I’m writing this…
What’s left? Am I writing for myself? For you? For the chance that a person with some sort of power of decision might see what I’m writing here and, through that, help make one more step towards changing the world?
The last one certainly…
The second… Maybe. After all, if I wouldn’t write for you, the ones who read here by accident, I wouldn’t keep writing here, would I?
As for the first, for myself… That might be it as well. I’ve been wanting to put my ideas into writing for a long time, stop having them as an odd mix in my mind that I keep pulling stuff out of when needed…
I notice that I’m writing for any reason except the one I originally intended… Does this also happen to any of you?
Why do they say we have to adapt to the world we live in? Especially when we dislike it…
Why adapt to something that seems bad? Why go against your ideas and ideals (or lie to the ones around you so they’ll believe that) just to be “like everybody else”? Why can’t you be completely different? And I don’t mean the small differences that make each of us unique, but important things.
As I said some 3 weeks ago, why should you live during the day? If you want to live at night and do everything at night, why can’t you have that option? Or why plan your relationships according to where you have to go for school (college) and work, instead of doing the other way around? Why study intensively at school subjects that you don’t need and that, aside from a few general notions, you’ll never need instead of studying starting in “small” grades (before high school, or even in high school) certain specialized subjects that you know you’ll need? In fact, why is school mandatory and why do your results there influence your chances of employment, since they say nothing about your real abilities? Why should you be married to be officially recognized as a couple, even though you perhaps love each other and have more obvious intentions of staying together than most married couples? Why must you fight for your life if you’d rather die? Why must you have children to be “fulfilled” if you know you’d be worse off having them? Why is it “normal” to have less sex after you get past the beginning of a relationship, if you still feel the same attraction towards your partner?
Why… I don’t know, many things. Can anyone tell me?
Why… Why can’t you look someone in the eyes, or sit on your ass in the middle of the street, and say clearly and slowly “I’m not like that, I don’t live by your rules, and as long as I don’t force you to live like I do, you shouldn’t force me to live like you do”, why?
Relationships in more than two… Aside from the religious limitations (excepting religions and cults that demand celibacy, I think only Christianity limits the number of people in a relationship to 2), why wouldn’t they be socially accepted?
Before you jump at my throat, I should mention that the idea came to me after reading something written by a girl on a forum. She had a (long distance) relationship with a guy and, at the same time, a very good friend who was obviously suffering because they can’t be more than friends. Therefore I’m not talking about things like “let me try with X, Y and Z at the same time and see how that is like”, but about such cases. Cases where you have a relatively serious relationship and another person that really seems to be in love with you appears. (Or cases where a need for something new is felt and, unless a 3rd person temporarly appears, the couple will not make it.) Why must you hurt someone in these cases? Why can’t society understand? Why couldn’t the one you’re with at the time (the first one) understand?
In the given situation it actually seems simple for a while, as long as said relationship (the first one) has to remain long distance, I can’t see why she couldn’t be with the other guy as well. Things would get harder only when (and if) she could spend some time with the first one…
But even generally speaking, when neither relationship is long distance, why couldn’t this happen? Everyone would be happy, and if the first partner thinks about making a scene, (s)he should consider that the alternative could be ending the current relationship, not rejecting the “newcomer”, therefore, unless (s)he is blinded by jealousy, pride in fact, (s)he shouldn’t have any reason to complain.
In religions that allow more than 2 people in a relationship, it’s a man and more women. Aside from the stupid idea left over from ancient times that the woman is inferior to the man (and I say this in spite of the last… 30 hours, during which my girlfriend gave me enough reasons to hate women, so you can imagine how I’d have said this without having these problems), what other reason can there be found for this limitation? If you can have a man with x women, why not a woman with x men, or x men with y women?
As far as I know (if anyone knows for sure, tell me whether this is true or not), marriages in 4 are allowed in Sweden, so I assume that such relationships are not frowned upon by the society there. But, after all, Sweden is the most liberal country, in spite of the general idea that Netherlands is. Why couldn’t this be allowed elsewhere too? Sure, the road from law to social acceptance is long, and such freedom could be abused in many ways, but I think many problems would be solved. And abuse will cease after a while. In Netherlands, during the first 2 years after light narcotics were legalized, you could see “piles” of dreamy locals collapsed on the streets. After 2 years this phenomenon visibly diminished, and currently you’ll seldom see locals buying “weed” from the “coffee shops” that sell it, as this is something generally only done by foreign tourists.
Something forbidden is always interesting, and is fully exploited when it can be done apparently without punishment. But, if allowed, it becomes normal, and is only done by those who know what they are doing and why they are doing it…
