Queen of the Damned (97 Edition)

In 1976, a uniquely seductive world of vampires was unveiled in the now-classic Interview with the Vampire . . . in 1985, a wild and voluptous voice spoke to us, telling the story of The Vampire Lestat.  In The Queen of the Damned, Anne Rice continues her extraordinary "Vampire Chronicles" in a feat of mesmeric storytelling, a chillingly hypnotic entertainment in which the oldest and most powerful forces of the night are unleashed on an unsuspecting world.

Three brilliantly colored narrative threads intertwine as the story unfolds:

- The rock star known as Vampire Lestat, worshipped by millions of spellbound fans, prepares for a concert in San Francisco.  Among the audience--pilgrims in a blind swoon of adoration--are hundreds of vampires, creatures who see Lestat as a "greedy fiend risking the secret prosperity of all his kind just to be loved and seen by mortals," fiends themselves who hate Lestat's power and who are determined to destroy him . . .

- The sleep of certain men and women--vampires and mortals scattered around the world--is haunted by a vivid, mysterious dream: of twins with fiery red hair and piercing green eyes who suffer an unspeakable tragedy.  It is a dream that slowly, tauntingly reveals its meaning to the dreamers as they make their way toward each other--some to be destroyed on the journey, some to face an even more terrifying fate at journey's end . . .

- Akasha--Queen of the Damned, mother of all vampires, rises after a 6,000 year sleep and puts into motion a heinous plan to "save" mankind from itself and make "all myths of the world real" by elevating herself and her chosen son/lover to the level of the gods: "I am the fulfillment and I shall from this moment be the cause" . . .

These narrative threads wind sinuously across a vast, richly detailed tapestry of the violent, sensual world of vampirism, taking us back 6,000 years to its beginnings.  As the stories of the "first brood" of blood drinkers are revealed, we are swept across the ages, from Egypt to South America to the Himalayas to all the shrouded corners of the globe where vampires have left their mark. Vampires are created--mortals succumbing to the sensation of "being enptied, of being devoured, of being nothing." Vampires are destroyed.  Dark rituals are performed--the rituals of ancient creatures prowling the modern world.  And, finally, we are brought to a moment in the twentieth century when, in an astonishing climax, the fate of the living dead--and perhaps of the living, all the living--will be decided.

From the Hardcover edition.

"It's too long, too preachy, overloaded with themes and subplots. But it is equally provocative and thoughtful. It is also (dare I say it) fun to read." Cordelia Sherman, Women's Review of Books

"Queen has its page-turner parts, but old fans should be warned that it's gorier than its predecessors, full of crunching bones and burning brains. I also regret to report that in addition to this upsurge in violence, there's a downsurge in sex. Rice's earlier writings...were swooningly sensual. They had a strange intimacy that gave those of us with more vanilla preferences a clue as to why some people like sadomasochistic sex. In The Queen of the Damned, the 'sex' is mostly a perfunctory interval between the exploding bodies and the talking heads." Lindsy Van Gelder, Ms.

"A tour de force. Her refugees from sunlight are symbols of the walking alienated, those of us who, by choice or not, dwell on the fringe." The Boston Globe

"Anne Rice is a writer of enormous ability. She has a masterly way with language, works on a broad canvas, has a vast range of knowledge, brings exotic settings vividly to life, and is wonderfully clever, but these gifts are wasted on vampires. May she find subjects worthy of her talents before these dead guys suck her dry." Eric Kraft, The New York Times Book Review

"Rice tells her story in fine melodramatic style, overwriting with zest and exuberance: the text pulses with menace, mystery and violence, and with sensuality verging on erotica....Though she ingeniously pulls together the various plot strands, Rice then almost loses the reader in philosophic overkill. She regains her verve in the final chapter, however, promising yet another mesmerizing installment of the Vampire Chronicles." Publishers Weekly

"Don't let the title or the subject matter fool you; this is quality fiction written with care and intelligence. There are no false steps or wasted words in the multilayered plot, and the many characters each have a distinct voice....Rice is doing for the vampire genre what Dashiell Hammett did for that of the private detective — raising it from the dregs of the penny dreadful to the heights of A fiction." Library Journal

"Exhilarating....Rice is equally adept at evoking rain-swept Paris streets, concert-hall mayhem, ramshackle mansions in New Orleans. She is a very sensual writer." Newsday

Anne Rice was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University and is the author of twenty-one novels. Her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, was published in 1976 and has gone on to become one of the bestselling novels of all time. It was in Interview with the Vampire that Rice first introduced the Vampire Lestat to the world.

Rice continued her vampire saga in The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief, and Memnoch the Devil. These novels, collectively known as "The Vampire Chronicles," have great mainstream and cult followings and are widely assigned in high school and collegiate English and philosophy classes. Her latest novel, Vittorio The Vampire, follows Pandora and The Vampire Armand, continuing Rice's new series of vampire tales. Rice is also the author of The Witching Hour, the first book in a trilogy about a clan of witches (the other novels in this series are Lasher and Taltos). Her other works of fiction include The Feast of All Saints, Cry to Heaven, and The Mummy; the contemporary erotic novels Exit to Eden and Belinda (written under the name Anne Rampling); and stylized, pornographic novels known as "The Beauty Books," which include The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment, and Beauty's Release (written under the name A.N. Roquelaure). Her books have sold over 100,000,000 copies worldwide.

Rice wrote the screenplay for Interview with the Vampire which was directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) and starred Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Antonio Banderas.

Rice lives in New Orleans with her husband, poet and painter Stan Rice, and son Christopher.