The novel opens with the vampire world in crisis…vampires have been proliferating out of control; burnings have commenced all over the world, huge massacres similar to those carried out by Akasha in The Queen of the Damned… Old vampires, roused from slumber in the earth are doing the bidding of a Voice commanding that they indiscriminately burn vampire-mavericks in cities from Paris and Mumbai to Hong Kong, Kyoto, and San Francisco. As the novel moves from present-day New York and the West Coast to ancient Egypt, fourth century Carthage, 14th-century Rome, the Venice of the Renaissance, the worlds and beings of all the Vampire Chronicles—Louis de Pointe du Lac; the eternally young Armand, whose face is that of a Boticelli angel; Mekare and Maharet, Pandora and Flavius; David Talbot, vampire and ultimate fixer from the secret Talamasca; and Marius, the true Child of the Millennia; along with all the other new seductive, supernatural creatures—come together in this large, luxuriant, fiercely ambitious novel to ultimately rise up and seek out who—or what—the Voice is, and to discover the secret of what it desires and why…
And, at the book’s center, the seemingly absent, curiously missing hero-wanderer, the dazzling, dangerous rebel-outlaw—the great hope of the Undead, the dazzling Prince Lestat
I was excited when I heard that Prince Lestat was going to be published and yet I was also on the fence. The Vampire chronicles were my first big introduction into the world of vampires they got me involved with them and made me enjoy the genre. It was because of them and the bar that was set so high I did not read other vampire novels for a while. The reason I was on the fence however is because the last few chronicle books fell short for me and I feel as if there was some betrayal that happened within them. That aside I have read everything else by Anne Rice so I had to read Prince Lestat.
I liked it. The opening was solid and enjoyable. It was fun checking in with Lestat again and Louis and Armand. I truly enjoyed revisiting characters that I have loved for so many years. However, things started to fall apart. The story being told from so many points of view was just to much. There were to many new people introduced, voices that we did not need to hear and for my personal preference did not want to. I wanted to stay with those I already knew and get more from them.
The book jumps around rapidly from time period to time period from point of view to point of view and really at the end of the day it ended up being to much. I did not hate the book by any means but as much as I wanted to love it I couldn’t and if I am truly honest it was in the end a bit of a struggle to finish. Not the best start to a new year of reading but it could have been worse.
My Gemstone Rating:
