# Any Anne Rice fans still around?



## sixnsolid (Mar 13, 2009)

I read all the vampire books, the mummy ones, the erotica, but my favorites were the Mayfair witches.  I know she will no longer be writing that type of supernatural genre.  I had started the first life of Christ book (DTB) when I had a house fire and never replaced it.  When I purchased my Kindle I was anxious to re-read some old favorites and was surprised so few of her earlier books are kindle ready  

For any of her old fans, have you read the new works? Did you enjoy them?  Do you think any of the old works will be released for the Kindle? How much weight does the author have in whether their books are released in an e-format? I keeping thinking of J.K. Rowling.  It seems to me a re-release or reintroduction of Anne Rice's books might go well with a whole new generation of vampire lovers reading Twilight and Sookie Stackhouse.  I am wondering since Ms. Rice has moved in a different direction her old books will sort of languish away.


----------



## Kilgore Trout (Dec 28, 2008)

Sixnsolid, I, too, am a huge Anne Rice fan! I have read all her books except two of The Beauty Series (one was enough for me) and the Christ the Lord series. I have even read several of my favorites twice! I like the Vampire Chronicles the best, with the Mayfair Witches a close second; however, I rank many more of the vampire books at the top level of my list. My favorites (in descending order) are _Queen of the Damned_, _Lestat_, _The Witching Hour_, _Memnoch the Devil_, _Blood Canticle_, _The Mummmy_, and _Blood and Gold_. _Blood Canticle_ is the last one I have read, and I am not really interested in her newest series. I think _Cry to Heaven_ deserves a lot more attention than it has received, too. I also have Katherine Ramsland's _Vampire Companion_ and _Witch's Companion_. Have you read these?

I, too, was shocked to find so few of Anne's legendary books available in the Kindle format. Here is my personal speculation as to the reasons. First of all, as an author, I have all of my books available on the Kindle because I own the electronic rights to them. (You can read about me and my books in the Nonfiction in a Fictional Style thread in The Book Bazaar at http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,9245.0.html.) Anne may not own the electronic rights to certain or all of her books. I notice that the ones that are available were published by Knopf and many of the ones that are not have been released in mass market paperback by Ballantine. Quite possibly, Ballantine does not want to bother with Kindle versions since all of these are already available at cheap prices. Another thought I have is that the Kindle phenomenon seems to be mostly for us older folks, not the youngsters who cannot afford Kindles, so maybe there isn't much of an audience for her earlier books in this format.


----------



## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

Another fan here, except that I haven't read anything of hers that came out in the last six years.  (Haven't been able to keep up with my growing reading list since becoming a mom, and some other authors took precedence.)  

I hadn't looked yet to see what's available on Kindle since I have all of her older ones in DTB, but I'm very surprised they're not available!  Is she perhaps blocking an e-release like JKR?

Just checked  --  my favorite isn't available (The Witching Hour), and because of the weight of the DTB that one would have been perfect for re-reading on Kindle.  Neither is Cry to Heaven, which should be better known than it is, nor the Eden book, which would have been nice to re-read without having to put a PBW on it.

Off to Amazon to request some of them...  who knows, if enough people ask...


----------



## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

I enjoyed the first few books in the Vampire Chronicles, but I kind of got bored with them.  I would like to read some of the ones about the individual vampires from the past, though, like Armand.  I read the first Christ the Lord book, but I haven't read the second yet.  I need to get both of those for my Kindle.


----------



## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

I have heard that with her life-change to Christianity, she wishes all her old books would disappear. They can't disappear, of course, but they can go out of print and become hard to come by. I am sure that with this attitude, she does not want them re-issued in Kindle format.

L


----------



## AnelaBelladonna (Apr 8, 2009)

I LOVED The Mayfair Witches but not many of her other books.  I hope they come to the Kindle soon.


----------



## Kilgore Trout (Dec 28, 2008)

Leslie, can you say exactly where you read that? I have serious doubts that Ms. Rice's attitude is actually that strong, one way or the other, toward her various genres. The storyline of The Vampire Chronicles themselves inched closer and closer to the Christ the Lord subject matter as they were released, and all her work has always been steeped in her Catholic background. My opinion is that most of her genre change came about over a general need for new experience, combined with the death of her husband Stan and the need to separate herself from that part of her past. She lived in the house described in The Witching Hour, so I could easily see why she would want to leave that environment and move back to CA to be near her son with new scenery. As far as the lack of availability of her earlier books, I think the situation most likely is under the control of her publisher who owns the electronic rights.


----------



## Cowgirl (Nov 1, 2008)

I read and loved all her older stuff..favorite being the Mayfair Witches.  But like Susan, haven't read anything of hers in years.


----------



## Rasputina (May 6, 2009)

I'm not a huge fan I think in general her writing is ok. My 2 favorite books of hers are Beauty's Punishment and her autobiography Called Out of Darkness, both available on Kindle LOL although I have the print editions. Christ the Lord out of Egypt was ok, well what I read of it. I do have it on Kindle but got stuck after they left Jerusalem and haven't felt the pull to read anymore for awhile.

You can read her essay regarding her previous works ( IE the Vampire Chronicles ect ) here on her website where she sets the record straight.

http://www.annerice.com/Bookshelf-EarlierWorks.html


----------



## Leslie (Apr 7, 2008)

Kilgore Trout said:


> Leslie, can you say exactly where you read that? I have serious doubts that Ms. Rice's attitude is actually that strong, one way or the other, toward her various genres. The storyline of The Vampire Chronicles themselves inched closer and closer to the Christ the Lord subject matter as they were released, and all her work has always been steeped in her Catholic background. My opinion is that most of her genre change came about over a general need for new experience, combined with the death of her husband Stan and the need to separate herself from that part of her past. She lived in the house described in The Witching Hour, so I could easily see why she would want to leave that environment and move back to CA to be near her son with new scenery. As far as the lack of availability of her earlier books, I think the situation most likely is under the control of her publisher who owns the electronic rights.


No, I can't say exactly where I read it, but I know it has come up in various fanfiction discussion circles that I have participated in. Anne Rice is absolutely opposed to fanfic and refuses to allow any of her characters to have fanfic stories written about them. That's fine, I respect her decision on this matter. But apparently she has an army of lawyers who scour the net for any fanfic stories that may appear (and stories do, despite her stated request to not write them). It was in conjunction with that conversation that the discussion turned to how she regretted much of what she had written in the past, especially some of the erotica.

And as we know with JK Rowling, even if the publisher owns the electronic rights, if the author is big enough and famous enough s/he can call the shots about ebooks. I am sure Anne Rice falls into the big/famous enough category to make her wishes known and followed.

L


----------



## r0b0d0c (Feb 16, 2009)

"The Vampire Chronicles" exemplifies what frustrates me about Kindle Books - the first 6 books in the series are NOT Kindleized, but books 7-10 are. 

Is the publisher just asking the non-Kindle books to be pirated (as is rampant with popular series such as Harry Potter)? Criminy! PLEASE let me be a good eBook citizen and give you money to read an entire series on the Kindle!!!


----------



## Kilgore Trout (Dec 28, 2008)

Thanks for the complete response, Leslie. Yes, she does despise fan fiction utilizing her characters! When you say she regrets the erotica, yes, that I can believe. It's the early Vampire Chronicles that I do not think she regrets. As far as her having enough clout to get all her books released in the Kindle format, I agree that that is likely; however, as robodoc just said, the early Chronicles have not been released, but the later ones have. That leads me to believe the choice comes more from the publishers making money from the mass market paperbacks. This is all just my two cents, of course, as a longtime fan.


----------



## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

Kilgore Trout said:



> When you say she regrets the erotica, yes, that I can believe.


She should have gone with her first instinct of keeping those separate (as Rampling and Roquelaure) from her other books. And not gone public with her pen names when the other books became bestsellers.


----------



## NessaBug (Jan 5, 2009)

I am a huge fan of the Vampire Chronicles. I have read most of them. I'm work on nine I think. (I can't figure out which box I put the DTV in when I moved.) I would love to have the early ones on Kindle because I often reread parts of them when I get in the mood for them.


----------



## cheerio (May 16, 2009)

I remember reading something of hers a few years ago, love the whole fairy tale side of the vampires


----------



## klrodrigues (Mar 29, 2009)

I'm another Anne Rice fan.  I absolutely loved the Mayfair Witches!!  Also Liked the Vampire Chronicles.  But I haven't read any of her new works.


----------



## Anita (Jan 3, 2009)

I am a huge fan of the Vampire Chronicles.  Every few years I read through all of them during the summer...I never get tired of them.  I would *love* to have all of them on Kindle!

I loved the Mayfair Witches too.

I was not a fan of her erotica and I confess that I haven't read any of her recent works so I really can't comment on those.


----------



## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

Anita said:


> I am a huge fan of the Vampire Chronicles. Every few years I read through all of them during the summer...I never get tired of them. I would *love* to have all of them on Kindle!
> 
> I loved the Mayfair Witches too.
> 
> I was not a fan of her erotica and I confess that I haven't read any of her recent works so I really can't comment on those.


I used to love Anne Rice  and wanted to be just like her... well not_ just _ like her. I wanted to write like her, when I was a kid, well not really a kid  and she certainly inspired me to keep my windows closed and locked at night, but like you, I was not an erotica fan and was quite surprised to learn that she had written those. Not that there is anything wrong with erotica... I mean, well, not that there is anything more I can really say without sticking my pen in my mouth  or my toe in my mouse...  oh, and don't get me started on the Mayfair Witches  My friend just told me that was sciatica I was thinking of... sorry.


----------



## Andasibe (Dec 28, 2008)

I, too, am an Anne Rice fan.  First books of hers I ever read were the Beauty series (in high school!  Imagine what that conversation was like with my Mom when she figured that out?!?!).  I also love the Mayfair stories, so much so that on my many trips to NOLA I walk the garden district just to see the places she describes (the First Street home can not even be accurately described in words, its beauty is breathtaking). 
  
However, my favorite ever is The Feast of All Saints.  If you have not read that book and have interest in the relationships between Whites and Free Colored in the mid-1800’s this is a wonderful novel.  Painfully accurate and eye-opening.


----------



## Susan in VA (Apr 3, 2009)

Andasibe said:


> the Beauty series (in high school! Imagine what that conversation was like with my Mom when she figured that out?!?!)


LOL! Unless you have a_ really_ open-minded mom, she probably wanted to have you committed...


----------



## loriltx (Jul 17, 2009)

Kilgore Trout said:


> Thanks for the complete response, Leslie. Yes, she does despise fan fiction utilizing her characters! When you say she regrets the erotica, yes, that I can believe. It's the early Vampire Chronicles that I do not think she regrets. As far as her having enough clout to get all her books released in the Kindle format, I agree that that is likely; however, as robodoc just said, the early Chronicles have not been released, but the later ones have. That leads me to believe the choice comes more from the publishers making money from the mass market paperbacks. This is all just my two cents, of course, as a longtime fan.


I also read an article recently (but couldn't tell you where) that she said she regretted The Vampire Chronicles and she would not be do any of that type of writing again. I kind of remember it being in an interview format somewhere. She made it well known back during The Vampire Chronicles that she had lost her faith following the death of her daughter (I believe from leukemia--the daughter was 6 or 7). She slowly began to regain her faith towards the end of The Vampire Chronicles, and I think this is very clear in the last two or three books. She says her faith has been further restored following the death of her husband. If Anne Rice has the electronic rights to the earlier books, I don't think we will be seeing the books on Kindle. She made it very clear she wanted them to disappear.


----------



## koolmnbv (Mar 25, 2009)

I've never read any Anne Rice books but I have a few on my t.b.r list, that is if I ever get moving on the list. It seems to never go down, always just get more books added.


----------



## sixnsolid (Mar 13, 2009)

Looks like she is coming out with a new series http://www.annerice.com/Bookshelf-AngelTime.html


----------



## MoriahJovan (Jul 9, 2009)

Re the Beauty series:



> Imagine what that conversation was like with my Mom when she figured that out?!?!


Heh. My mom wouldn't have known, and if she'd begun reading, it would've blown her mind (if she'd even understood what was happening).

I went on an Anne Rice glom when Queen of the Damned came out, and I never read anything after that, but I do that with every author whose backlist I read back to back to back, so I can't say I'm an Anne Rice fan, but I can't say I'm NOT. However, Lestat is the reason I never got back into vampires. After that, they're all just bad imitations.

I like the Beauty series best.


----------



## akpak (Mar 5, 2009)

I tore through all of her older work in college. Loved it. I liked the "world" of the Mayfair Witches, but had a hard time actually getting through the first book. Once I was about halfway through I was hooked, and I still think it's the best of the series.

I skipped most of the vampire books "in the middle," after Tale of the Body Thief (which wasn't good). Went back for Blood and Gold, since I always liked Marius, and studied Greece and Rome in school


----------



## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

Rice has always been hit or miss with me. When I liked one of her novels, I really liked it, but when I didn't like it, I loathed it. Haven't read anything from her in 5 or 6 years, but I'll probably get around to her again.


----------



## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

akjak said:


> I skipped most of the vampire books "in the middle," after Tale of the Body Thief (which wasn't good). Went back for Blood and Gold, since I always liked Marius, and studied Greece and Rome in school


Ugh, I didn't like _Body Thief_, either. I do want to go back and read some of the later vampire books, though.


----------



## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

I'm still around and I'm sort of an Anne Rice fan.  I never read the Mayfair Witches, but I did like the Vampire Chronicles.  I think that my favorite Anne Rice book was her book simply called 'the Mummy' and when I saw the Brendan Frazier movie coming out 'the Mummy', I thought it was her book because the paperback cover said it was going to be a movie, but as far as I know, it never materialized.  I think I read the thing at least 3 times back in the day.   I went to the movie and was NOT disappointed even though it was not her book.


----------



## koolmnbv (Mar 25, 2009)

Which of her books do you all reccomend? Which ones are best and What order should they be read?


----------



## sixnsolid (Mar 13, 2009)

koolmnbv said:


> Which of her books do you all reccomend? Which ones are best and What order should they be read?


I think the first few books of the Vampire Chronicles should be read in order, same for the Mayfair witches - here's a chronology from her website.



> Vampire Chronicles
> Interview with the Vampire (1976)
> The Vampire Lestat (1985)
> The Queen of the Damned (198
> ...


The Mayfair witches are still my favorite  Sadly, only of few of her earlier works are available for the Kindle.


----------



## koolmnbv (Mar 25, 2009)

thanks for posting that sixnsolid


----------



## jaybird123 (Mar 10, 2009)

I like the first three books of the Vampire Chronicles, especially "The Vampire Lestat."  I read the "Body Thief" and "Memnoch The Devil" and it seemed that she was getting bored with the characters, so I gave up after that.  I think its pretty rare to find an author that can stay consistent with characterizations throughout a series--Larry McMurtry is good at it, but maybe it has something to do with the genre.


----------



## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

The first three vampire books are a good place to start, especially the first two. "Queen of the Damned" didn't work for me what with all the changes in viewpoint.

Larry McMurtry's one of my favorite authors. Yep, he can keep up characterization throughout a series, but he's never afraid to kill off a major character, meaning as a writer he often doesn't have to worry as much about following through with characterization.


----------



## akpak (Mar 5, 2009)

Queen of the Damned was actually my favorite of the series... I loved the story of the Twins.


----------



## madelonw1011 (Apr 23, 2009)

I haven't read her newest books yet, but, yes, I am a fan.

I really liked Interview with the Vampire; in its day, it was a really different take on the vampire legend. I would say that Interview and Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot are responsible for a 30+ year obsession with blood suckers.

If I had to pick a favorite Anne Rice book, it would have to be Feast of All Saints... it made me laugh, it made me cry, and it opened my eyes to some American history they neglect to teach in school. I think it also made me want to visit New Orleans, which I finally did in February 2005. The French Quarter did not disappoint.


----------



## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

akjak said:


> Queen of the Damned was actually my favorite of the series... I loved the story of the Twins.


Mine, too


----------



## sierra09 (Jun 20, 2009)

I still love reading her books. I've mainly read her vampire chronicles and while I didn't love all of them I did enjoy them and still do. I think The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned were my favorites (though I agree that Queen of the Damned was hard to follow my first time reading it as it switched viewpoints so many times) and probably Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle would be the ones I liked the least.


----------



## Brenda Carroll (May 21, 2009)

akjak said:


> Queen of the Damned was actually my favorite of the series... I loved the story of the Twins.


The special effects and makeup in the movie were awesome, but it seemed that they rushed through the story somehow on the screen. Still, I took inspiration from Anne's books and even had some of my characters inspired by some of hers. She still rocks when it comes to writing about Wampyres!


----------



## sierra09 (Jun 20, 2009)

There were and still are too many things about that movie that irked me. I mean, basically if I hadn't read the book before seeing it then I might have been okay but.... _shakes head._


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Hey!  I'm new here and this is my first post.

I used to looove Anne Rice.  Well, I still do.  I love "Interview with the Vampire."  I think it's one of the great novels of the 20th century, in fact.  But I never really liked Lestat and because Rice concentrated on him for the rest of the series I continually lost interest in the series.  I really think she should have stopped with "The Tale of the Body Thief."  In that novels he brought the story of Lestat, Louis, and Claudia full circle - and that should have been the end of it.  (Actually, I always thought she should have made Louis the main character of "Body Thief."  Since he's the one who always complained about being a vampire it would have been interesting for Rice to explore just how serious he was about his regrets.  To give Louis a chance to be human against...would he have tried try to hunt down his vampire body to reclaim it or destroy it?)  Well, in any case, after that the series got really dull.

I loved "The Witching Hour," too.  "Lasher" - not so much.  "Taltos" more so.  But then she started conflating the Vampires and Witches - and it all became one big mess.

Her recent novels are excruciating.  I tried one or two and they're pretty bad.  It's a shame that she has disowned her earlier writing.  And I hope she's not the one who's keeping the earlier works from coming out on Kindle.  It may be the publisher.  ("Harry Potter" isn't on Kindle either.)

I also loved Rice's "Cry To Heave" and "The Feast Of All Saints."  Two remarkable historical novels.  Not out on Kindle either.


----------

