I like going to yard sales on Saturday mornings from spring to early fall and this Saturday I was at one where the lady was selling books for 25 cents. There were quite a few Ann Rice novels so I grabbed interview with a vampire and another stand alone book of hers.
The lady who lived there had a shirt that said “be whatever you may be, but always be inclusive”. I wanted to ask her to explain that to me but I held my tongue. So is Ann Rice worth the read?
Well, Vampires are a rape metaphor and Rice was a horny old lady sooo....
It's fun pseudo-Gothic trash for a few books. First three, as I recall, before she completely munchkins her main character and it gets really faggoty. Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned, and then stop. If you find yourself with Tale of the Body Thief in your hands, you've gone too far and need to go back.
She's got some porn books under a pseudonym too--"Anne Roquelaire" or something like that, I'm not looking it up. Interestingly, she was the one who kicked off the modern resurgence of the female obsession with BDSM, and she also brought "ponyplay" into the mainstream consciousness.
I read them as a teenager, so it's quite possible these are worse than I remember. At the time, I was reading stuff like Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, and Larry Niven...also Raymond Feist for fantasy, and I found Rice to be trashy in comparison, but not prohibitively so. I dunno. I read her because nerdy-but-hot teenage girls were reading her, and I wanted to bang them. Eventually I did, so it all worked out.
I love Heinlein. You have a favorite by him? I have been there. In high school this girl I liked was very much into Dawson’s Creek so I watched it just to talk to her about it but looking back that probably made me look gay because I was too shy to openly ask her out. I read Twilight Series and Fifty Shades because I was working at a mostly female call center and they kept raving about those books so I checked them out due to curiosity
Stranger, Moon, and Starship Troopers are all excellent in very different ways. His YA books are really excellent for a young teenager as well - I couldn't get enough of Tunnel in the Sky, Have Spacesuit Will Travel, and the rest of that ilk when I was a lad. And all the short stories gathered in The Past Through Tomorrow are very good reading.
His later work got very self-indulgent. I didn't hate it as much as many do but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it unless you've already gotten through his better works and need more.
I’ve read the first three you mentioned and some of his YA books. Last two of his I read were To Sail Beyond the Sunset and Farnham’s Freehold
I remember really liking Job: A Comedy of Justice and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I also remember being so disgusted by The Cat Who Walks Through Walls that I stopped reading Heinlein. Never really cared for his Lazarus Long and Jubal Hershaw self-insert books. A lot of fantasy and sci-fi authors do this--fall in love with their own characters--and it always got gross, weird, and boring.
I think it's always a good idea to sneak a peek behind the curtain and see what's rattling around in the noodles of potential romantic interests.
In order? Starship Troopers, Space Cadet, Glory Road, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, and his story collections.
I remember hearing that they were going to make Moon is a Harsh Mistress onto a mini series. At one point I wouldve loved it but not now. Also an 80s or 90s adaptation of Stranger in a Strange Land would’ve been good. Space Cadet was a fun read
Love the take, but memnoch the devil is the best imo.
Eh, I don't really remember it well enough to disagree and know what I'm talking about, but I remember it being very Neil Gaiman-y. And while I was super impressed with that stuff as a teen, now it makes me wince at how windy and tryhard edgelord it is.
Lives of the Mayfair Witches and Vampire Chronicles trilogies are good.
The Witching Hour, Lasher, and Taltos are Mayfair. Interview with a Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned are the only three Vampire Chronicles worth mentioning.
They are more southern gothic, sexual flexible than what we call queer now. Make no mistake, this is erotica. There is a sexual air to everything she wrote that wasn't pure catholic repentance like her books from 1995 on. You might be tempted to read more, but don't. There's nothing good, it's got mention of the original characters, but it's more like shit fanfiction and spezul mary sue style characters.
Cool. Thanks!
Thanks. I figured if I hate them it’s not like I spent a ton on them
I have only read one where Lestat kills a mafia guy at the very start, i won that book over a bet with a woman, i should have asked for a blowjob instead. Buy some Paulo Coelho next time.
Paulo Coehlo? What kind of books does he write? I’ll check him out
Try The Alchemist , you won't regret it.
Thanks!
Servant of the Bones was an interesting concept, fusion of golem+lich ideas in ancient mesopotamia but I confess I got bored once the setting reached modern day and never finished it
A totally different genre/style: read Magda Szabo (Katalin Street, Abigail (YA)).
Thanks!
It was a pleasure!
(If you don't mind, you should read these excellent novels too (I hope your library has a copy of them.): Orphalina, In the Godforsaken Hinterlands by Zsigmond Moricz, Skylark by Dezso Kosztolanyi, The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkai)
Thanks!
Interview with the vampire is very easy to read. You can read it in 2 days without imposing on your regular schedule. Start with that and see if you like it, I would not mind some feedback.
Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned are also good, I remember being fascinated by the idea that in ancient vampires being worshiped as gods.
Pandora was decent but a bit boring. The Mummy had a nice premise but fails to do anything with it and towards the end is meh. I've also read Memnoch The Devil but I did not like it at all.
Keep in mind I did read this as a teen, I have no idea if I would still like any of them as an adult.
Not sure when I’ll get around to reading them but I’ll give you my thoughts
I tried reading one of her books back in school. One of the characters said he fell in love with a little boy, and kidnapped the child. This was one of the moral characters. I stopped reading after that.
Yikes!