Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Anne Rice, author of Interview with the Vampire, dies aged 80
The American author was best known for her 1976 gothic novel Interview with the Vampire.
www.bbc.co.uk
Anne Rice RIP
- Thread starter Pickman's model
- Start date
krtek a houby
For you, Tommy, the holiday is over
Loved the first three novels in the series. RIP.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
aw, I read loads of her stuff, even the not so good mayfair witches novels. Massive difference in quality between the Interview with a Vampire film and the Queen of the Damned film
rip
rip
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I really liked her first three books, despite the florid prose. It fit the genre and time period she was writing about. I think she lost me about the time she got religious.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
I only read Interview With the Vampire. I didn’t rate it. But RIP anyway.
Reno
The In Kraut
Twilight ? Could you set the bar any lower ?she wrote better stuff than twilight and creat a world with its own rules
calling it romantic vampire is a little harsh
and silly Hammer stuff was all about the big busty women getting suduced by Christopher Lee
Dracula cast a spell on his victims, but they aren’t in love they are hypnotised. Lee‘s Dracula was pure evil, he never had any feels other than bloodlust. Lee also still is the best Dracula.
krtek a houby
For you, Tommy, the holiday is over
Indeed. Vampires are ace. Vicious, mindless, evil or romantic.
Epona
Sonic: 1 Nov 2006 - 8 Jan 2022
Aye, I like a lot of different takes on vampires. Rice's vampires were ones I found particularly interesting and relatable, otoh I could never get along with the Buffy approach to vampirism.
I think there's a good discussion to be had about depictions of vampirism from folklore to literature to film through the ages and would relish a thread dedicated to that discussion - but an RIP thread isn't the place to shit on the particular author who is getting the RIP.
krtek a houby
For you, Tommy, the holiday is over
That would be a thread worth getting your teeth into.
Reno
The In Kraut
I didn't shit on Anne Rice, I've never read her books. and I didn't mind the Tom Cruise movie too much. I was defending the Hammer films as Ax^ was shitting on them, so maybe leave the shitting out of the thread altogether or we can have a wider discussion about the portrayal of vampires.
So far it's all been "I've liked her books", nobody has written as to what was actually good about them. If it stays like that, the thread won't last beyond one page anyway.
Last edited:
krtek a houby
For you, Tommy, the holiday is over
Reno
The In Kraut
There is a new TV series in the works, based on Interview With the Vampire. Mark Johnson has an impressive pedigree, so it could be good:
www.hollywoodreporter.com
‘Interview With the Vampire’ Series a Go at AMC
'Breaking Bad's' Mark Johnson will oversee development of the Anne Rice TV franchise for the cable network, with Rolin Jones attached as showrunner on the first show.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
Last edited:
ginger_syn
Her Insanity laughs under pressure...👾
I loved her early books, sad to hear she has died, R.I.P Anne Rice. She made my world a little brighter with her stories when i was young.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
at least mark and not borisThere is a new TV series in the works, based on Interview With the Vampire. Mark Johnson has an impressive pedigree, so it could be good:
‘Interview With the Vampire’ Series a Go at AMC
'Breaking Bad's' Mark Johnson will oversee development of the Anne Rice TV franchise for the cable network, with Rolin Jones attached as showrunner on the first show.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
i read 'interview with a vampire' when i was about sixteen - a friend of mine read it first, which was how i found out about it. i found it good because you got to hear a lot more from the vampire's point of view. i don't recall the book in great detail now: but it was engagingly written, something of a new take on vampires for me, and a very pleasant way to spend several hours. don't know i'd read it again but it made an impression on me back then. i read two or three of her later books in the series but after a while i thought that her original idea was very good but had been spread too thin by the time it came to book four or five.
Epona
Sonic: 1 Nov 2006 - 8 Jan 2022
I've specifically avoided that, I don't want to taint her earlier Vampire novels - I shall probably crack at some point and then wish I hadn't.
One of the things I really loved about the early novels is how they managed to evoke past eras - the sights and smells of New Orleans and Paris especially, and renaissance Italy in whichever one it was that focussed on Marius and Armand.
I also quite enjoyed the novel she wrote about the castrati.
Epona
Sonic: 1 Nov 2006 - 8 Jan 2022
I'm delving in to Interview With A Vampire again - planning to read through as many of the Vampire novels as I have (I have I think the first few in paperback and most of them on my kindle).
Sorry if I came off a bit harsh upthread, I was just wanting to hear more positive stuff about why people personally enjoyed her novels or somehow connected with them, rather than the usual academic literary critique of stuff... because she is an author that people typically have a reaction to on perhaps a more emotional and less analytical level - and identify with some of her characters and writing.
I don't think it matters too much if a writer's RIP thread on urban is 3 posts of people that the subject's work really impacted on in a meaningful way to their lives, rather than running to several pages of analysis, but that might be just me.
Sorry if I came off a bit harsh upthread, I was just wanting to hear more positive stuff about why people personally enjoyed her novels or somehow connected with them, rather than the usual academic literary critique of stuff... because she is an author that people typically have a reaction to on perhaps a more emotional and less analytical level - and identify with some of her characters and writing.
I don't think it matters too much if a writer's RIP thread on urban is 3 posts of people that the subject's work really impacted on in a meaningful way to their lives, rather than running to several pages of analysis, but that might be just me.
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
The first couple of Lestat novels were great. I read them aged about 17, which might lend a lack of discernment to my assessment of her prose, but they were formative in my late adolescence.
Interview with a Vampire is, as best I can remember, pretty great. The faded, foetid New Orleans setting, Louis’ existential torture locked in eternal, homoerotic loathing with Lestat’s hedonism; the loving description of glass-like nails etc; Claudia’s torment as she aged beyond her body…
The film was an aberration. Not a single well-cast male role. Criminal.
The Queen of the Dammed came out not long after. Some of it was great (the stuff about matrilineal power in early ancient Egypt stuck with me). But, while Louis was always too a lying lying emo and you wanted him to have some fun, Lestat without Louis was two-dimensional. It read like a teen romance novel - even as a sixth former I knew the writing wasn’t very good any more. Or at least, the storytelling.
I came across (no pun intended) Rice again in an anthology of erotic fiction. I think she may have had an alternative nom de plume for the smut. It was historical bdsm stuff. Not terrible. But I don’t remember there being much sex in the vampire books.
Interview with a Vampire is, as best I can remember, pretty great. The faded, foetid New Orleans setting, Louis’ existential torture locked in eternal, homoerotic loathing with Lestat’s hedonism; the loving description of glass-like nails etc; Claudia’s torment as she aged beyond her body…
The film was an aberration. Not a single well-cast male role. Criminal.
The Queen of the Dammed came out not long after. Some of it was great (the stuff about matrilineal power in early ancient Egypt stuck with me). But, while Louis was always too a lying lying emo and you wanted him to have some fun, Lestat without Louis was two-dimensional. It read like a teen romance novel - even as a sixth former I knew the writing wasn’t very good any more. Or at least, the storytelling.
I came across (no pun intended) Rice again in an anthology of erotic fiction. I think she may have had an alternative nom de plume for the smut. It was historical bdsm stuff. Not terrible. But I don’t remember there being much sex in the vampire books.
Epona
Sonic: 1 Nov 2006 - 8 Jan 2022
Rice's vampires were incapable of physical sexual relations iirc - it was a theme later explored in more depth in The Tale of the Body Thief I think?
There is certainly palpable sexual tension between characters, and definitely eroticism in the writing, but it is typically left unresolved.
There is certainly palpable sexual tension between characters, and definitely eroticism in the writing, but it is typically left unresolved.
krtek a houby
For you, Tommy, the holiday is over
Liked when Louis and Claudia (?) travel to eastern Europe, looking for vampires but end up finding mindless revenants, zombies. That reignited my interest in the z-genre.
Also loved in the third book (QotD) the explanation behind vampirism. Clever.
Also loved in the third book (QotD) the explanation behind vampirism. Clever.
Epona
Sonic: 1 Nov 2006 - 8 Jan 2022
Aye, it signalled a break from traditional vampire folklore.
I also liked that Lestat had been turned by an old feral vampire, whereas clearly he was of a more modern and civilised (to him) age and adapted his hunting to that - he was a prototype early capitalist vampire reborn from feudal roots, which is an aspect I always found interesting.
Part of why the series is popular is also due to the background androgyny/genderlessness/asexuality/bisexuality of many of the protagonists, and elements of mild homoeroticism, which was kind of groundbreaking at the time that the earliest novels were written. I do think the novels chime with some people for that exact reason - for some of us those elements of the story and the world meant something tangible and provided a kind of acceptance that we didn't really see in the outside world.
