Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles #1)
by Anne Rice
The time is now.
We are in a small room with
the vampire, face to face, as he speaks, as he pours out the hypnotic,
shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred
years as one of the living dead. . .
He speaks quietly, plainly, even gently . . . carrying us back to
the night when he departed human existence as heir--young, romantic,
cultivated--to a great Louisiana plantation, and was inducted by the radiant
and sinister Lestat into the other, the "endless," life . . .
learning first to sustain himself on the blood of cocks and rats caught in the
raffish streets of New Orleans, then on the blood of human beings . . . to the
years when, moving away from his final human ties under the tutelage of the
hated yet necessary Lestat, he gradually embraces the habits, hungers, feelings
of vampirism: the detachment, the hardened will, the "superior"
sensual pleasures.
He carries us back to the crucial moment in a dark New Orleans
street when he finds the exquisite lost young child Claudia, wanting not to
hurt but to comfort her, struggling against the last residue of human feeling
within him . . .
We see how Claudia in turn is made a vampire--all her passion and
intelligence trapped forever in the body of a small child--and how they arrive
at their passionate and dangerous alliance, their French Quarter life of
opulence: delicate Grecian statues, Chinese vases, crystal chandeliers, a
butler, a maid, a stone nymph in the hidden garden court . . . night curving
into night with their vampire senses heightened to the beauty of the world,
thirsting for the beauty of death--a constant stream of vulnerable strangers
awaiting them below . . .
We see them joined against the envious, dangerous Lestat,
embarking on a perilous search across Europe for others like themselves, desperate
to discover the world they belong to, the ways of survival, to know what they
are and why, where they came from, what their future can be . . .
We follow them across Austria and Transylvania, encountering their
kind in forms beyond their wildest imagining . . . to Paris, where footsteps
behind them, in exact rhythm with their own, steer them to the doors of the
Théâtre des Vampires--the beautiful, lewd, and febrile mime theatre whose
posters of penny-dreadful vampires at once mask and reveal the horror within .
. . to their meeting with the eerily magnetic Armand, who brings them, at last,
into intimacy with a whole brilliant and decadent society of vampires, an
intimacy that becomes sudden terror when they are compelled to confront what
they have feared and fled . . .
In its unceasing flow of spellbinding storytelling, of danger and
flight, of loyalty and treachery, Interview with the Vampire bears witness of a
literary imagination of the first order.
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The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles #2)
by Anne Rice
Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France,
now Lestat is a rockstar in the demonic, shimmering 1980s. He rushes through
the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of
his terrifying exsitence. His story, the second volume in Anne Rice's
best-selling Vampire Chronicles, is mesmerizing, passionate, and thrilling.
You can download this book from :
http://www.4shared.com/document/Ba_iG9Cm/02_-_The_Vampire_Lestat.html
The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles #3)
by Anne Rice
In 1976, a uniquely seductive world of vampires was unveiled in
the now-classic Interview with the Vampire . . . in 1985, a wild and voluptous
voice spoke to us, telling the story of The Vampire Lestat. In The Queen of the Damned, Anne Rice
continues her extraordinary "Vampire Chronicles" in a feat of
mesmeric storytelling, a chillingly hypnotic entertainment in which the oldest
and most powerful forces of the night are unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
Three brilliantly colored narrative threads intertwine as the
story unfolds:
- The rock star known as Vampire Lestat, worshipped by millions of
spellbound fans, prepares for a concert in San Francisco. Among the audience--pilgrims in a blind swoon
of adoration--are hundreds of vampires, creatures who see Lestat as a
"greedy fiend
- The sleep of certain men and women--vampires and mortals scattered
around the world--is haunted by a vivid, mysterious dream: of twins with fiery
red hair and piercing green eyes who suffer an unspeakable tragedy. It is a dream that slowly, tauntingly
- Akasha--Queen of the Damned, mother of all vampires, rises after a
6,000 year sleep and puts into motion a heinous plan to "save"
mankind from itself and make "all myths of the world real" by
elevating herself and her chosen son/lover to the level of the gods: "I
am the fulfillment and I shall from this moment be the cause" . . .
These narrative threads wind sinuously across a vast, richly
detailed tapestry of the violent, sensual world of vampirism, taking us back
6,000 years to its beginnings. As the
stories of the "first brood" of blood drinkers are revealed, we are
swept across the ages, from Egypt to South America to the Himalayas to all the
shrouded corners of the globe where vampires have left their mark. Vampires are
created--mortals succumbing to the sensation of "being enptied, of being
devoured, of being nothing."
Vampires are destroyed.
Dark rituals are performed--the rituals of ancient creatures prowling
the modern world. And, finally, we are
brought to a moment in the twentieth century when, in an astonishing climax,
the fate of the living dead--and perhaps of the living, all the living--will be
decided.
You can download this book from :
http://www.4shared.com/document/GDTclzlh/03_-_Queen_of_the_Damned_.html
The Tale of the Body Thief (The Vampire Chronicles #4)
by Anne Rice
In another feat of hypnotic storytelling, Anne Rice continues the
extraordinary Vampire Chronicles that began with the now classic Interview with
the Vampire and continued with The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned.
Lestat speaks. Vampire-hero, enchanter, seducer of mortals. For
centuries he has been a courted prince in the dark and flourishing universe of
the living dead. Lestat is alone. And suddenly all his vampire
rationale--everything he has come to believe and feel safe with--is called into
question. In his overwhelming need to destroy his doubts and his loneliness, Lestat
embarks on the most dangerous enterprise he has undertaken in all the
danger-haunted years of his long existence.
The Tale of the Body Thief is told with the unique--and
mesmerizing--passion, power, color, and invention that distinguish the novels
of Anne Rice.
You can download this book from :
http://www.4shared.com/document/gPMZLRNT/04_-_The_Tale_Of_The_Body_Thie.html
Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles #5)
by Anne Rice
The fifth volume of Rice's Vampire Chronicles is one of her most
controversial books. The tale begins in New York, where Lestat, the coolest of
Rice's vampire heroes, is stalking a big-time cocaine dealer and religious-art
smuggler--this guy should get it in the neck. Lestat is also growing fascinated
with the dealer's lovely daughter, a TV evangelist who's not a fraud.
Lestat is also being stalked himself, by some shadowy guy who
turns out to be Memnoch, the devil, who spirits him away. From here on, the
book might have been called Interview with the Devil (by a Vampire). It's a rousing
story interrupted by a long debate with the devil. Memnoch isn't the devil as
ordinarily conceived: he got the boot from God because he objected to God's
heartless indifference to human misery. Memnoch takes Lestat to heaven, hell,
and throughout history.
Some readers are appalled by the scene in which Lestat sinks his
fangs into the throat of Christ on the cross, but the scene is not a mere shock
tactic: Jesus is giving Lestat a bloody taste in order to win him over to God's
side, and Rice is dead serious about the battle for his soul. Rice is really
doing what she did as a devout young Catholic girl asked to imagine in detail
what Christ's suffering felt like--it's just that her imagination ran away with
her.
If you like straight-ahead fanged adventure, you'll likely enjoy
the first third; if you like Job-like arguments with God, you'll prefer the
Memnoch chapters.
You can download this book from :
http://www.4shared.com/document/ZSHxgRWL/05_-_Memnoch_The_Devil.html
The Vampire Armand (The Vampire Chronicles #6)
by Anne Rice
Armand until now has played a small role in the Vampire
Chronicles. Here he assumes center stage, relating his five hundred years of
life to fledgling vampire David Talbot, who plays amanuensis to Armand as he
did to Lestat ... It's not just the epic plot but Rice's voluptuary worldview
that's the main attraction ... Elegant narrative has always been her hallmark
... Rice is equally effective in showing how Armand eventually loses his
religion and becomes "the vagabond angel child of Satan," living
under Paris cemeteries and foundling the Grand Guignol-ish Theatre des
Vampires. In the twentieth century, a rehabilitated Armand regains faith but
falls in love with two children who save his life. By the conclusion of Armand,
the pupil has become the mentor.
You can download this book from :
http://www.4shared.com/document/O2u_qKA4/06_-_The_Vampire_Armand.html
Merrick (The Vampire Chronicles #7)
by Anne Rice
At the center is the beautiful, unconquerable witch, Merrick. She
is a descendant of the gens de colors libres, a cast derived from the black
mistresses of white men, a society of New Orleans octaroons and quadroons,
steeped in the lore and ceremony of voodoo, who reign in the shadowy world
where the African and the French?the white and the dark?intermingle. Her
ancestors are the Great Mayfair Witches, of whom she knows nothing?and from
whom she inherits the power and magical knowledge of a Circe.
Into this exotic New Orleans realm comes David Talbot, hero,
storyteller, adventurer, almost mortal vampire, visitor from another dark
realm. It is he who recounts Merrick's haunting tale?a tale that takes us from
the New Orleans of the past and present to the jungles of Guatemala, from the
Mayan ruins of a century ago to ancient civilizations not yet explored.
Anne Rice's richly told novel weaves an irresistible story of two
worlds: the witches' world and the vampires' world, where magical powers and
otherworldly fascinations are locked together in a dance of seduction, death,
and rebirth.
You can download this book from :
Blood and Gold (The Vampire Chronicles #8)
by Anne Rice
With Blood and Gold, Anne Rice is firing on all cylinders again,
producing the kind of heady mix that distinguishes her best work: a bizarre
mélange of gothic horror, overripe romanticism and a genuinely poetic vision
that is very much her own. This latest vampire novel boasts all the Rice
specialities, notably a moody, patrician vampire protagonist.
Marius, from a noble family (and a distinguished scholar), is one
of the oldest of all vampires, his origins lost in the mist of ancient Rome, in
the time of the Emperor Augustus. But all of his encounters over the centuries
have not prepared him for his meeting in the present day with a sinister being
of snow and ice. The northern vampire Thorne is seeking Maharet, his
"maker", a centuries-old Egyptian vampire queen whose unbreakable
hold over him rests in chains made of her red hair. As the Visigoths looted and
pillaged, Marius looked on; he strode the decadence of the Roman empire, still
seeking his lost love Pandora, but was later beguiled by Renaissance beauty
Bianca, and the boy Amadeo. Rice, as usual, intertwines her diverse and complex
narratives, keeping a massive cast of characters always alive for the reader.
But the emphasis here is on the brilliantly created Marius, in thrall to
Pandora and his alter ego Mael. As Rice conjures him, Marius may be the most
distinctive protagonist in all her fiction. Throughout the seven volumes of the
Vampire Chronicles, and most notably in such recent books as Memnoch the Devil
and Merrick, Rice showed that she would never be content to repeat herself.
Blood and Gold is further evidence of her willingness to tackle new areas in
her colossal vampiric mythos.
You can download this book from :
Blackwood Farm (The Vampire Chronicles #9)
by Anne Rice
In the past few years, many fans have sworn off Anne Rice,
flinging her later novels against the wall with cries of "First
draft!" and "Never again!" But these same fans may want to take
a chance on her Southern gothic Blackwood Farm, a fast-paced and erotically
charged, though uneven, novel of the Vampire Chronicles. Blackwood Farm has an
unusual flaw: it isn't long enough. Many of its triumphs and tragedies demand
more development than they receive. Motivations are sometimes unlikely or
unexplained, and the ending is far too rushed.
Blackwood Farm introduces Quinn Blackwood, the sexy, eccentric
young gentleman who becomes both a vampire and the heir to the Blackwood
estate. All his life, Quinn has been haunted by Goblin, a doppelgänger no one
else can see--or believe in. But Goblin is real, and he is becoming maliciously
tangible, strengthened by the blood that Quinn unwillingly drinks. Quinn's only
hope of liberation from his increasingly dangerous doppelgänger is to find the
legendary vampire Lestat. But Lestat has vowed to destroy any vampire who sets
foot in New Orleans....
Blackwood Farm features characters from both the Vampire
Chronicles and the Mayfair Witches series, but this self-contained novel makes
a good entry point for newcomers to Anne Rice's fictional world.
You can download this book from :
As soon as arranged.
Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles #10)
by Anne Rice
Anne Rice continues her astonishing Vampire Chronicles in a new
novel that begins where Blackwood Farm left off — and tells the story of
Lestat’s quest for redemption, goodness, and the love of Rowan Mayfair.
Welcome back to Blackwood Farm. Here are all of the
brilliantly conceived characters that make up the two worlds of vampires and
witches: Mona Mayfair, who’s come to the farm to die and is brought into the
realm of the undead; her uncle, Julian Mayfair, guardian of the family,
determined to forever torment Lestat for what he has done to Mona; Rowan
Mayfair, brilliant neurosurgeon and witch, who finds herself dangerously drawn
to the all-powerful Lestat; her husband, Michael Curry, hero of the Mayfair Chronicles,
who seeks Lestat’s help with the temporary madness of his wife; Ash Templeton,
a 5,000-year-old Taltos who has taken Mona’s child; and Patsy, the
country-western singer, who returns to avenge her death at the hands of her
son, Quinn Blackwood. Delightfully, at the book’s centre is the Vampire Lestat,
once the epitome of evil, now pursuing the transformation set in motion with Memnoch the Devil. He struggles
with his vampirism and yearns for goodness, purity and love, as he saves
Patsy’s ghost from the dark realm of the Earthbound, uncovers the mystery of
the Taltos and unselfishly decides the fate of his beloved Rowan Mayfair.
A story of love and loyalty, of the search for passion
and promise, Blood
Canticle is Anne Rice at her finest.
You can download this book from :
http://www.4shared.com/document/rcGLsl0O/10_-_Blood_Canticle.html
