Product Description

'Ah, the taste and feel of blood when all passion and greed is sharpened in that one desire!' Lestat: a vampire - but very much not the conventional undead, for Lestat is the truly alive. Lestat is vivid, ecstatic, stagestruck, and in his extravagant story he plunges from the lasciviousness of eighteenth-century Paris to the demonic Egypt of prehistory; from fin-de-siecle New Orleans to the frenetic twentieth-century world of rock superstardom - as, pursued by the living and the dead, he searches across time for the secret of his own dark immortality.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3356 in Books
• Published on: 1991-12-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Review
'Dizzying narrative flights ... as brilliant as the first; it is funnier, wilder and more disturbing' - New York Times ** 'A rich and unforgettable tale of dazzling scenes and vivid personalities - Library Journal

About the Author
Anne Rice is the author of the celebrated series of gothic novels featuring the vampire Lestat, and as Anne Rampling and A.N. Roquelaure she is one of the best contemporary writers of erotic fiction.

Customer Reviews

If you thought Interview with the Vampire was good...
Anyone who has read Interview with the Vampire or who saw the film knew that there was something special. Anne Rice has somehow managed to make Vampires loveable by us mere mortals. They are no longer the blood-thirsty savage killers that we always presumed them to be but elegant, civilised immortals who long for human affection as we long for immortality.

In this book you discover the true Lestat, rather then the abnoxious, uncaring brut portrayed in the first book. Here Lestat answers the questions that we desire to know like How was Lestat made? The history of Armand? Is Armand the eldest Vampire? Where do the Vampires originate from and even How was the Theatre de Vampire's formed? All these questions are tackled and a short glimpse into the after Interview with the Vampire is shown with a shocking ending that leaves you with one thought, "Where can I buy 'Queen of the Damned'?"

A moving, sweeping, dark masterpiece of literature
The Vampire Lestat is not only one of the most engaging, remarkable, illuminating, and important horror novels ever written, it is a beautiful work of art that stands proudly among the ranks of what I define as great literature. The breadth and scope of this novel is almost staggering, as is the hypnotic language in which every word and phrase is uttered. Interview With the Vampire was provocative and soul-stirring, but its greatest achievement pale in comparison to the least of the many wonders worked into this second volume of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.

It was the story of Claudia the vampire child that touched my heart in the first novel, although the moral and philosophical questions asked by Louis opened the door for a new kind of vampire literature. Still, Lestat hovered and brooded over every page of Interview With the Vampire, leaving nothing but unanswered questions in the wake of his coldness and sometimes pathetic manifestations. One could not help but wonder about his origins and history, the heavy weights of his mysterious life having left him little more than a husk of a vampire at the end of Louis' story. Finding out in the opening pages of The Vampire Lestat that this inscrutable wanderer is not only thriving once again but that he has in fact become a rock star seems pretty strange. Yet all things are made clear in this novel, for this is Lestat's story, and he violates every vampire law by revealing secrets beyond the ken of mortal man. Lestat wants to embrace his true nature, show the world's population that vampires live amongst them, and incite a glorious war between man and the Children of the Night.

This is much more than just Lestat's story, however. What Anne Rice has managed to do in this novel is to create a brand new history and legend of the vampire, taking this most beloved of horror themes and transcending the literature of Stoker, Le Fanu, and the greats of the past. The cold and inscrutable Lestat we saw in Interview With the Vampire is now revealed to be at one time the most human of vampires, an immortal whose love for humans exceeded even that of his creation Louis. We learn of his human childhood, his creation by the immensely old and powerful Magnus in the seventeenth century. The depth of his feelings for his mother and adolescent soul companion Nicholas are quite touching and beautiful, and we see how his first recipients of the Dark Trick come to bring him much pain and tragedy. We see his crazed outbursts and intensity of feeling revealed in the most telling of ways. We learn much more about the vampire Armand, a character I quite honestly despise for his weakness. He hides behind old traditions, betraying the very notions of his own creator Marius by embracing a pseudo-religion of evil, punishing those wretched creatures who dare disturb his antiquated way of existence. Marius, an ancient vampire of great power who links Armand and Lestat together in the most telling of ways, introduces Lestat and ourselves to the Mother and the Father, Those Who Must Be Kept, and it is through these individuals that the history of vampirism is delivered so originally and brilliantly here, drawing and touching upon ancient Egypt, religion, philosophy, and a myriad of other powerful subjects and inspirations. Through Lestat's daring and individualism, we learn much more than any other vampire teacher could tell us; he truly did have stories to tell, and now we learn why he refused to share his wisdom with Louis and Claudia.

The introduction of the Mother and the Father, Akasha and Enkil, leads us directly into the next book in the series, The Queen of the Damned, and The Vampire Lestat actually ends on a note of new beginnings potentially more powerful than anything introduced and revealed in this book's 550 pages. I find Those Who Must Be Kept absolutely fascinating, the most ancient of vampires who live lives of immobility and seeming inactivity, staring open-eyed eternally, leaving open the possibility to Lestat in particular that they can be reawakened. Yet Lestat's active plans, his flagrant announcement to the world that he is a vampire (even though mortals may believe in the image rather than the reality of what he is saying) and his daring publication of the most secret of his kind's secrets leaves one spellbound and in wonder as to how things will play out in the end. His actions are rash and dangerous, yet the exuberance he feels in doing these things brings him to life ever more fully. I could go on and on about the wonder and power of this novel, but even then I could not begin to convey the beauty and force with which Anne Rice weaves her dark wonders. Anne Rice takes us inside the hearts and minds of these vampire characters, and that is a perspective that even Bram Stoker never provided. I thought nothing could possibly surpass the dark brilliance of Dracula, but I have to say that The Vampire Lestat is the greatest vampire novel I have ever read.

Lestat ...
The follow-up to Interview With The Vampire, this is the story of LeStat. I have heard many people say that they were not fond of Lestat from IWTV but, changed their mind after this one. I agree with that, you see things from a different angle than before.

Lestat is the son of a nobleman from the 18th century. The first part of this book is basically Interview With The Vampire but, from Lestat's view, which personally I did find could have been a bit shorter but, I wouldn't say it detracts from this being a brilliant book, which it is.

It starts as Lestat as a rock star in the 1980s, then goes back to him being in Paris in the 18th century, then goes forward to present day.

I personally prferred IWTV but, this is brilliant, I have yet to read all the Vampire Chronicles so not sure yet which are my favourites but, this one is excellent, and essential if you plan on reading the whole of the Chronicles.