The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles, No. 3)

I cannot get enough of the way Anne Rice so eloquently describes each setting and experience. To really make me see through Lestat’s eyes instead of rushing to the next scene like other writers do. Thank you for the journey, Anne.

This is probably my favourite of all the writings of the Vampire Chronicles. Extremely difficult to put down. Storytelling perfection!

I read the Vampire Chronicles when I was 12, and I've found that re-reading them again at 40 was well worth it. Anne Rice is a lovely storyteller. I love the historical aspects to her immortals. I do, however, wish Ms. Rice had given more cultural diversity to the historical context, because these are all immortals of a clearly Euro-Christian paradigm. I, for one, would have learned far more of the world around me if I had the gift of immortality. When, for instance, Makare lands in the "New World," her twin laments that she would have experienced unprecedented loneliness due to the false, Euro-centric idea that man somehow didn't exist in Peru a coup!e thousand years ago. In reality, Native South Americans were alive and well. Maharet also speaks of Jesus in the singular way Christians do, even though she was a "witch" from ancient Egyptian times, and would logically not have been a Christian. The Bible plays far too much of a role in these stories, holding these immortal characters hostage with archaic ideas of sin and evil, and imprisoning them in limited existential understanding. It seems difficult to believe that every single vampire we are introduced to is of Caucasian origin, has no real cultural understanding beyond the Euro-Christian, Bible tormented view, and after hundreds of years, learned nothing outside of those very limited paradigms. If you were immortal, would you not travel and learn something beyond being a white European? Anne Rice also tends to portray other cultures as being "ignorant," or somehow easy to control and dupe. The " ideal" beauty and intellect clearly belongs to the blonde haired, blue eyed archetype that, after awhile, indicated that, perhaps, Ms. Rice may do well to broaden her own cultural paradigm when portraying the immortal life experience. I just don't believe one who has conceivably lived to experience history firsthand would continually be so limited in worldviews. Other than these aspects of the writing I didn't pick up at the age of 12, I greatly enjoyed reading these books again at 40.

A book I enjoyed a lot, despite some descriptions too long and detailed to hold the reader tightly. (But even those may be a pleasure to mostly female readers, if the sex stereotypes about reading are valid: careful descriptions οf countenances insisting on declared emotions and on the demonstration of tenderness between lovers -and all of a special interest, if we keep in mind that the persons involved are vampires!) Apart from that, the book is a rich and well-woven work, managing not only to present an independent whole species and genealogy, in other words a special, well defined fictional w o r l d (which to my opinion is one of the main -and difficult-to-obtain -features of good literature), but also to give a resourceful explanation for its birth and development, as long as to connect it with the most significant issues of human religion, history, and controversy of ideas through centuries. It has also a very strong feministic look which I would expect at least to be referred to in the book's presentations-it's not a spoiler. The most significant idea of the book though, which is in the core of the main action -the desire of the Queen to rule the humanity as a goddess in her own way and with her own ideas and prejudices- is the very strong, philosophically supported mainly by Hannah Arendt, idea that the evil is s i m p l e and stupid! This is what the whole primary story of the book is moving to, and is shown not only in the arrogant, stubborn, ridiculously narrow-minded character of the Queen (an amazing anticlimax to her unique supernatural powers), but also in the triumph of Lestat over human masses as a rock idol! The part of the book which to my choice is the most valuable extract (about page 300 I think) is the scene in which the twins encounter the Queen for the very first time, and one of them (in her narrating that encounter some millenniums after) gives a deep, explicit and psychologically reasonable interpretation of the Queen's character, revealing her inner l i e, which comes from her need to deal with her nothingness and is well-established by her own sincere belief in it! This selfish stupidity of her is further enlightened in the (relatively) last pages, where she protests in tears that "no one stands by her" or "everyone is against her", or something like that, marvelously reminding us of some very human -and very disastrous- type of person! It is a pity that books like that are mostly read (or at least so I think) by people just obsessed with vampire stories and often only superficially following the plot. I think Ann Rice is of the authors who use the vampire tradition to seriously talk about deep human thoughts, instincts and feelings, as well as of moral and social issues still crucial (or even especially crucial) in our years. It is the kind of literature that forms a bridge between "difficult" or `upper" art and the "mainstream" one, and this, in terms of education involving pleasure, is worth a lot.

Great, but I wish it had multiple cover options. Lost my original so I had to buy this and it sticks out like a sore thumb :/

This is without a doubt, one of the most entertaining novels that I’ve ever written and rice continues to enchant me with the vampire Chronicles.

This book is about the Queen, but it mostly has to do with how her actions and "philosophy" impact Lestat. In some ways (such as the Queen's tendency for mindless killing) he is affected to the very core of his being. In other ways, however, Lestat realizes that he hasn't changed a bit. He has remained the same. His basic concept of the meaning of life has grown stronger. His positive outlook is still what makes him who he is. The Queen's appetite for destruction didn't take away Lestat's ego or his passion for living. Our wildly beautiful monster is still ready to continue his adventurous life with reckless abandon.

After chugging my way through Interview with a Vampire and Vampire Lestat, I finally completed The Queen of the Damned, an interesting if somewhat bloated work by Anne Rice. Anne's written plenty of books in her vampire chronicles but I think I'll stop here and savor it. The Children of the Darkness have their "Baltimore Catechism" (as Anne says) in The Queen of the Damned. The book does a pretty good job of catching up the new reader, but it's better to read Lestat first. As in Lestat, the books actually appear as characters in this very story. The characters are somewhat fleshed out such as Daniel , the original writer of "Interview" who wants to be a vampire himself, following Armand all over until Mr. A acquiesces. Other characters are introduced too such as Jesse, a redhead and apparent relation to the original Twins who dealt with the Queen way back 5000 B.C. The book tends to really be slow at the start: lots of explanation, what is happening to Louis, New Orleans, the mysterious organization Talamasca, and other supernatural craziness that was at times hard to follow. Queen: Finally things start rolling mid-novel when all the characters we've met gather in a cabin in Sonoma and plot what they will do about the Queen, who really just wants to kill pretty much the entire male side of the human race (since men are so evil, doncha know!). I found Anne's prose in this respect very interesting. Lestat seemed at times out of character, acquiescing to his Queen and at times even joining in the carnage rather than protest against her. That was a disappointment. The ending, I will not reveal, but I felt the final confrontation was quick and disappointing after all the build-up. The final paragraphs were fun: Lestat with his new-found power is delighting in it, and Rice sets us up for the next book. Bottom Line: Entertaining in the end, but you need the patience of an Exorcist to get through to that point! Best character: Jesse, although she was pretty much dropped from the story early on. Worse would have to be Mael, who didn't really have much of a role to play in the final act. Recommended.