Pandora: New Tales of the Vampires (Hardcover)

by Anne Rice (Author) "Not twenty minutes has passed since you left me here in the cafe, since I said No to your request, that I would never write..." (more)
Key Phrases: burnt thing, blood drinker, ivory leg, Mother Isis, Temple of Isis, Lady Pandora (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Anne Rice fans will greet Pandora: New Tales of the Vampires, the first of her new vampire chronicles, as hungrily as the Fang Gang facing a fresh new neck. Our heroine, Pandora, a senator's daughter in Augustus Caesar's day, flees to Antioch when her family gets killed and discovers the antidote to stern Roman rationalism in the occult wisdom of the East. "Something attacked my reason," Pandora writes. "The very thing the Roman Emperors had so feared in Egyptian cults and Oriental cults swept over me: mystery and emotion which claim a superiority to reason and law."

Pandora gets her sexy vampire initiation at the fangs of handsome Marius (who later inducted Rice's famed vampire Lestat). Pandora tells how a nice Roman girl became a vampire in modern Paris, but mostly the book celebrates the sights and sounds (and philosophical bloodlettings) of the classical world. Pandora is more like Robert Graves's sublime I, Claudius than Rice's The Complete Vampire Chronicles.

Yet Pandora is a logical extension of Rice's work, and Pandora is a combination of her past vampire heroes and the nakedly, horrifyingly autobiographical heroine of Rice's 1997 novel Violin. Now, Violin is remarkably messy, but it captures the volcanic passion that erupts in her best work--Rice calls it "a study in pain." Pandora is really a dramatized debate between passion and reason, which Pandora calls "male reason." She teases her vampire mentor: "Marius guarded his delicate rationality as a Vestal Virgin guards a sacred flame. If ever any ecstatic emotion took hold of me, he [would] tell me in no uncertain terms that it was irrational, irrational, irrational!" (To hear how close Pandora's voice is to her passionate creator, listen to the 1997 audiocassette Interview with Anne Rice.)

Rice's research gives fresh blood to her storytelling. Even her chronic third-act problem scarcely slows down this brisk romp of a novel. Pandora has intellectual thirst as well as blood lust, and she conveys the high old time Rice obviously had imbibing historical lore. "It is fun to read these mad Gnostics!" exults Pandora in the early Christian era. It is also fun to read this mad Pandora. Anne Rice hasn't been this fun to read in years.

From Publishers Weekly
Although Rice bid goodbye to the vampire Lestat in Memnoch the Devil, her fifth novel in The Vampire Chronicles, she has not abandoned vampires altogether. Two installments are planned this year in her New Tales of the Vampires series, and in the first of these, the ancient vampire Pandora tells her story. Urged on by David Talbot?fledgling vampire, self-appointed chronicler and former psychic detective?Pandora documents in sophisticated detail her pre-vampire existence as the privileged daughter of a Roman senator. She's a curious character, first introduced in The Queen of the Damned, in which Marius described her as the Greek courtesan who seduced him into making her a vampire and helped him care for the vampire progenitors until strife forced them apart. Here, Pandora herself sets the record straight. Born early in Augustus's reign, the educated, spirited Pandora was no courtesan?though we do see her challenge the sexual mores of her moment. When Tiberius brings chaos to Rome, and dishonor and death to Pandora's family, she goes to Antioch and tries to solve the mystery of her compelling blood dreams about Egypt. There, she reunites with her childhood crush, Marius, and learns from him what it means to be a vampire. Along the way, we find little of Rice's trademark eroticism, but Pandora has long been one of her more elusive characters, so fans will relish this vivid rendering of her life and times. Random House audio.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (March 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375401598
• ISBN-13: 978-0375401596
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 4.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (418 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #112,876 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mesmerizing, November 30, 2000

By	Susan Shams (West Des Moines, IA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Pandora (New Tales of the Vampires) (Mass Market Paperback)

Wow! I was literally swept off my feet in this entrancing tale. This is Anne Rice at her best. This novel has it all, Romance, Intrigue, and Drama. But best of all, it has History.

Oh, how I love history. From Ancient Egypt, to the Roman Empires and Greek Mythology. It is just beautiful. Anne Rice is a great Historical storyteller. She obviously does meticulous research, and she takes her knowledge and spins a mesmerizing tale of olden times, when people lived life, just for the sake of living.

She writes of an era, when time was abundant. And it was spent with families and close friends, reading, writing and gaining insight into their life. Expanding their minds with philosophy and poetry and just about anything that was within their grasp. When time really did take a lifetime, and it was savored with all its beauty. Unlike now, with time passing by, faster than we can blink.

This is not another novel of a Vampire in Rices collection,this is the story of Pandora. A woman whose mind rivaled that of a scholar, her thirst for knowledge and the meaning of what it is to exist, her main quest in this life. She is a woman who is betrayed, but that will not stop her. She embraces her induction into vampire hood, because this way, she can savor her love of life and feel it all the more.

This is an exceptional book. My only regret is that it ends too soon. I would have gladly lived with Pandora for a thousand more pages.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To cease all doubts, November 16, 2000

By	Euthanatos (Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pandora (New Tales of the Vampires) (Mass Market Paperback)

Reading amazon.com costumers'reviews, one tends to often be confused with so many different opinions, so this time I've taken the task of making one myself. I'm familiar with all the Vampire Chronicle books, and what you can expect from Pandora is an encounter with the early history of Marius and Pandora, in journeys that will take you throught Rome, in it's splendeour, and some other countries as well. The one thing I can advise to Rice fans, is that never start reading one of her new books expecting to read another The Vampire Lestat. All of Rice's books are different, specially now in this new phase. Pandora is a rich book, very rich in history and it's also very well structured, on context issues. I highly recommend it for those who love history ( specially the Roman Empire ) and worship Rice's dark avengers.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A New Beginning, January 1, 2001

By	B. Morse (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I remember the feeling I had seeing an advertisement for this book prior to the release date. It was pure excitement. I had just finished reading 'Violin' and 'Servant of the Bones', and was hungry for more Anne Rice.

Pandora came along, and although I was a bit disappointed at first to see that it was a 'smaller' novel, in reading it I found much more content that I had anticipated.

Pandora's tale, as told in journal form to David Talbot, the self-appointed 'chronicler' of the vampires, is far more romantic than Anne Rice's prior vampire works. Pandora's childhood infatuation with Marius, which grows into genuine love as Pandora becomes a young woman, is every bit as heartfelt as Armand's infatution with Marius in the following vampire chronicle, The Vampire Armand.

The historical realization of this novel, set in ancient Rome and Antioch, is a departure of sorts from the other vampire tales. While the novels based upon the tale of Lestat tend toward a more religious exploration, this 'new tale' reveals more of Marius, and entices Anne Rice fans to want more of him. Pandora receives the 'dark gift' from Marius, after an attack from another vampire, who seeks to kill Pandora as revenge on Marius, for keeping the King and Queen of the vampires hidden away from him. Through 'Pandora' it is clear that Marius is a force to be reckoned with, and hopefully the stage is set for a future novel of his own.

Although this novel is Pandora's tale, so much of it is wrapped up in the tale of Marius that it is easy to lose the focus. However, Pandora is a strong heroine for Anne Rice, developed from an 'in passing' character from Queen of the Damned, and a very entertaining read.