Prince Lestat
The Vampire Chronicles 11
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- £2.49
Publisher Description
SOON TO BE A MAJOR TV SHOW, FROM THE NETWORK BEHIND THE WALKING DEAD
'[W]hen I found Rice's work I absolutely loved how she took that genre and (...) made [it] feel so contemporary and relevant' Sarah Pinborough, bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes
'[Rice wrote] in the great tradition of the gothic' Ramsey Campbell, bestselling author of The Hungry Moon
After a 15 year wait LESTAT is back in Anne Rice's long awaited new Vampire Chronicles novel.
The vampire world is in crisis - their kind have been proliferating out of control and, thanks to technologies undreamed of in previous centuries, they can communicate as never before. Roused from their earth-bound slumber, ancient ones are in thrall to the Voice, which commands that they burn fledgling vampires in cities from Paris to Mumbai, Hong Kong to Kyoto and San Francisco. Immolations, huge massacres, have commenced all over the world.
Who - or what - is the Voice? What does it desire, and why?
There is only one vampire, only one blood drinker, truly known to the entire world of the Undead. Will the dazzling hero-wanderer, the dangerous rebel-outlaw Lestat heed the call to unite the Children of Darkness as they face this new twilight?
Anne Rice's epic, luxuriant, fiercely ambitious new novel brings together all the worlds and beings of the legendary Vampire Chronicles, from present-day New York and Ancient Egypt to fourth-century Carthage and Renaissance Venice; from Louis de Pointe du Lac; Armand the eternally young; Mekare and Maharet; to Pandora and Flavius; David Talbot, vampire and ultimate fixer from the Secret Talamasca; and Marius, the true child of the Millennia. It also introduces many other seductive supernatural creatures, and heralds significant new blood.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Compared to the poorly received Blood Canticle (2003), Rice's newest Vampire Chronicles installment is triumphant. The Voice, a mysterious power, is compelling older vampires worldwide to annihilate the more newly made. Not since the massacre committed by Akasha, the original Queen of the Damned, have so many vampires been killed in one of Rice's novels. The narrative is often nonlinear; in many chapters the elders reveal their backstories before heeding a young vampire's frantic pleas for them to convene in Manhattan to uncover the Voice's agenda and stop it. All wait for Lestat to lead them, but he remains reluctant until the last minute. Rice fills the dense story with plenty of deliciously gory mythology, but many of the info-dumps are bone-dry. Lestat's journey from brat to prince fits his personality, but his attitude irritates even during the book's fascinating climax.