Blood and Gold (Anne Rice) [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Anne Rice (Author), Derek Jacobi (Reader)

Book Description

Series: Anne Rice | Publication Date: October 16, 2001

Read by
5 CDs/6 hours

The Vampire Chronicles continue with Anne Rice's spellbinding new novel.

Out of the pages of the Vampire Chronicles steps the golden-haired Marius, true Child of the Millenia, once mentor to the Vampire Lestat, always and forever the conscientious slayer of the evildoer, and now ready to reveal the secrets of his two-thousand-year-long existence in his own intense voice.

Born in Imperial Rome, imprisoned and made a "blood god" by the ancient Druids, Marius is the baffled yet powerful protector of Akasha and Enkil, Queen and King of the vampires, in whom the core of the race resides.

We follow his through his tragic loss of the vampire Pandora, his lover and fledgling creation. Through him we see the fall of pagan Rome to the Christendom of Constantine, and the sack of the Eternal City by the Visigoths. We see him sailing to the glittering city of Constantinople.

Worlds within worlds unfold as Marius, surviving the Dark Ages and the Black Death, emerges in the midst of the Italian Renaissance to create magnificient paintings and a vampire—the boy Armand.

Moving from Florence, Venice, Dresden, Paris, and the English castle of the secret and scholarly order of the Talamasca, the novel reaches its dramatic finale in a jungle paradise where the oldest of the vampires reigns supreme.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Time heals all wounds, unless, of course, you're a vampire. Cuts may heal, burns vanish, limbs reattach, but for the "blood god," the wounds of the heart sometimes stay open and raw for centuries. So it is for Marius, Anne Rice's oft-mentioned and beloved scholar. We've heard parts of his tale in past volumes of the Vampire Chronicles, but never so completely and never from his own lips. In Blood and Gold, Rice mostly (but not entirely) avoids the danger of treading worn ground as she fills out the life and character of Marius the Lonely, the Disenchanted, the Heartsick--a 2,000-year-old vampire "with all the conviction of a mortal man."

Plucked from his beloved Rome in the prime of his life and forced into solitude as keeper of the vampire queen and king, Marius has never forgiven the injustice of his mortal death. Thousands of years later, he still seethes over his losses. Immortality for Marius is both a blessing and a curse--he bears "witness to all splendid and beautiful things human," yet is unable to engage in relationships for fear of revealing his burden.

New readers to the Chronicles may wish for a more fleshed-out, less introspective hero, but Rice's legions of devoted fans will recognize Blood and Gold for what it is: a love song to Marius the Wanderer, whose story reveals the complexities and limitations of eternal existence. --Daphne Durham --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

What we've all been waiting for: the 2000-year history of Marius, mentor to the Vampire Lestat. At 750,000 copies, the first printing measures up to Marius's long reign.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Random House Audio; Abridged edition (October 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375419446
• ISBN-13: 978-0375419447
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (211 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,553,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Books on CD > Authors, A-Z > ( R ) > Rice, Anne

More About the Author

Anne Rice was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in English and Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, as well as a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science.

She is the author of over 30 books, most recently the Toby O'Dare novels Of Love and Evil, and Angel Time; the memoir, Called Out of Darkness;and her two novels about Jesus, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana,

Anne publicly broke with organized religion in July of 2010 on moral grounds, affirming her faith in God, but refusing any longer to be called "Christian." The story attracted surprising media attention, with Rice's remarks being quoted in stories all over the world.

Anne is very active on her FaceBook Fan Page and has over 550,000 followers. She answers questions every day on the page, and also posts on a variety of topics, including literature, film, music, politics, religion, and her own writings. She welcomes discussion there on numerous topics.

Her latest novel, The Wolf Gift, a werewolf story set in Northern California in the present time, will be published on February 14th, 2012. With this book, Anne returns to the classic monsters and themes of supernatural literature, similar to those she explored in her Vampire Chronicles, and tales of the Mayfair Witches.

Her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, was published in 1976 and has gone on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time. She continued her saga of the Vampire Lestat in a series of books, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles, which have had both great mainstream and cult followings.

Interview with the Vampire was made into a motion picture in 1994, starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas. Anne's novel, Feast of All Saints about the free people of color of ante-bellum New Orleans became a Showtime mini series in 2001.

Anne Rice is also the author of other novels, including The Witching Hour, Servant of the Bones, Merrick, Blackwood Farm, Blood Canticle, Violin, and Cry to Heaven. She lives in Palm Desert, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I could not put this book down, November 24, 2001

By 

Erica Anderson (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood and Gold (Vampire Chronicles) (Hardcover)

I know when a book by Anne Rice is good or not. If it is good, I am not able to stop reading her book. If it isn't like "Merrick" was, then I will stop reading it altogether. "Blood and Gold" was an irresistable read for me. I thoroughly enjoyed every single page in this new installment of the Vampire Chronicles. I was so disappinted in "Merrick" I didn't even bother finish reading it because the storyline was not very compelling for me to read. To see that Anne Rice picked up where she left off with Armand's story with Marius' story I did not hesitate to pick up "Blood and Gold".

Most Anne Rice fans would know that we were given a brief glimpse of Marius' life in "The Vampire Lestat", the second book in the Vampire Chronicles series. "Blood and Gold" delves further into Marius' past which delighted me since he is one of my favorite characters. The reader is introduced to other vampires other than Mael, Pandora and Armand, like Bianca, Euxodia, and Avicus. "Blood and Glory" shows the anguish that Marius went through with his separation from Pandora. I didn't know that in "The Vampire Lestat" or "Queen of the Damned". In fact he was downright obsessive when he was finally reunited with his beloved Pandora.

Unlike in the stories about Pandora and Armand, Marius wasn't talking to David Talbot, the former Talamasca leader which was interesting. Instead the reader is introduced to a new character by the name of Thorne who was just as old as Maharet and Mekare, the twin sisters from "Queen of the Damned". Thorne wakes up from his sleep in an icey cave and winds up in a tavern talking to Marius, and eventually moving to Marius' house where Marius tells Thorne his life story.

I really enjoyed "Blood and Gold". I rank it as one of my all time favorite books in the Vampire Chronicles. After being disappointed with "Merrick" and somewhat bored (still entertained) with "The Vampire Armand", "Blood and Gold" rekindered my fascination with Anne Rice's popular vampire series. I couldn't put this book down when I first read it.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars We've been here before..., October 18, 2001

By 

Sebastien Pharand (Orléans, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood and Gold (Vampire Chronicles) (Hardcover)

Blood And Gold is the story of Marius, one of the oldest vampires in the Anne Rice mythology. He's been around since the early days of Rome and he was the creator of the vampires Pandora, Armand and Bianca. He was also the keeper of Enkil and Akasha, the King and Queen of Vampires.

Now, his very interesting story - which spands hundred of centuries - finds it's way to the page. I was very excited to get this book. After all, I wanted to read Marius's story in its entirety for so long! But the problem with the book is that we've seen most of this before. Marius has been a prominent character in many of Rice's books; from The Vampire Lestat to The Queen Of The Damned to Pandora to The Vampire Armand... Rice has already told us a lot about Marius in those novels. We already knew half of his story.

So we end up with Blood And Gold, a book which is half new and half repetition. Everything that happened in The Vampire Armand is retold through these pages. The book isn't very original.

And yet, Rice finds a way to enthrall the readers. Her poetic style of writing is as griping as ever and her tormented Marius is her most complex and interesting vampire after the beloved Lestat. The book does offer the reader many new exciting moments (such as Marius's encounter with Mael and the making of a young female vampire, as well as the destruction of an all-powerful female vampire). So overall, the book is very interesting and very entertaining. It's just too bad that it leaves you with this sense of deja vu.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Deja Vampire?, January 31, 2002

By 

edzaf (Chandler, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood and Gold (Vampire Chronicles) (Hardcover)

In "Blood and Gold," readers once again meet a modern-day vampire and then flash back to the past to discover their past. This time around it is the ancient vampire, Marius, who gets the biographical treatment from Anne Rice. Given his age and importance in vampire genealogy, Marius has made many appearances in past Rice novels. As other reviewers have noted, this leads to some retread over material covered earlier in the series. This is not necessarily a bad thing. We are given a new perspective (or is it revisionist history?) and also a refresher course for those of us who read the original stories many years ago.

Overall, "Blood and Gold" is a slight improvement over more recent installments of "The Vampire Chronicles." While Marius clearly takes the crown as "king of vampire angst" in this volume, he is a much more bearable character than he was in "The Vampire Armand." Rice adds more pieces of the puzzle as Marius travels across Europe through the centuries and deals with the usual dysfunctional relationships with his fellow immortals. After the leisurely exploration of Marius' life, the ending seems a bit rushed. We are given a "Cliff Notes" recap of Marius' storyline from "The Vampire Lestat" and "Queen of the Damned" and then catapulted back to the present day for some vampire vigilante justice.

Ultimately this is another mixed bag for Rice fans (those who have not read Rice should definitely not start here). With all the groundwork already established, it seems an impossible task for Rice to ever write a "Vampire Chronicles" that is equal in energy and excitement to the earlier installments. But not unlike her protagonists' thirst for blood, Rice aficionados' desire for new/more tales are likely never to be quenched.