Blood Canticle (The Vampire Chronicles) [DECKLE EDGE] (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "I WANT to be a saint..." (more)
Key Phrases: double parlor, sailor dress, honey bunch, Aunt Queen, Oncle Julien, Blackwood Farm (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For her 25th fan-pleasing outing, Rice reunites some of her most popular creations and, for the first time since Memnoch the Devil (1995), lets the Vampire Lestat "write" the book. Taking up where last year's Blackwood Farm ended, the now-doppelganger-free Quinn Blackwood and Lestat save Quinn's true love, the witch Mona Mayfair, from certain death by making her an immortal. In his effort to attain sainthood, Lestat must deal with a lot of metaphysical angst. The opulent Blackwood estate and its spooky swamps, as well as New Orleans and a Caribbean isle, provide the settings for many elegant costume changes as the exquisite vampiric triumvirate gleefully suck several deserving victims dry and lay waste to dozens of a drug lord's minions. The vampirisation of young Mona, a true child of our times, gives Rice a dynamic new vampire personality with whom to play. Writing as if her blood-inked quill were afire, Rice seems truly possessed by her Brat Prince of darkness as she races through the story. She sometimes slights members of the vast supporting cast, both dead and alive, but neatly ties up all their loose ends. The complete unification of the Mayfair witch saga with that of the Vampire Chronicles provides either a befitting end or a new beginning for the Queen of the Vampires.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Elements and characters from many of Rice's previous books come together in her new novel, which picks up where her previous one, Blackwood Farm (2002), left off. This time, popular antihero Lestat is the narrator, and he's become obsessed with becoming a saint. As a vampire, the option isn't really open to him, but the desire to be good nags at him. He wrestles with the decision of whether or not to change the dying Mona Mayfair, the love of newly made vampire Quinn Blackwood, into a vampire. He finally gives in and changes her, despite the wrath he knows her family will feel when they learn she is a vampire. Rowan Mayfair, who was Mona's doctor when she was sick, immediately captivates Lestat when she arrives at Blackwood Farm demanding to see Mona. When Rowan's own secrets threaten to drive her insane, her husband, Michael, comes to Lestat, begging him to help her. Deeply in love with Rowan, Lestat agrees, and upon his visit to Rowan, he learns she and Mona share a secret. Both gave birth to Taltos children--an ancient species that evolved separately from humans but can occasionally mate with them. Mona's daughter was taken from her by a Taltos man, and she wants to track her down. Lestat boldly agrees to help her. Though a lot of elements from Rice's previous novels play into this one, new readers won't be lost and old ones will enjoy how the different threads come together. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (October 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 037541200X
• ISBN-13: 978-0375412004
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (389 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #96,205 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 10 in The Vampire Chronicles Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Thank god?, October 11, 2004

By	E. Bernard - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If Anne Rice herself is glad that the series is finished, it only goes to prove how tired the whole lot of books has become.

She claims she doesn't need editing. Even Hemingway had an editor. If she weren't such an egomaniac, which is obvious from her rant, Rice would have established an ongoing relationship with an editor that she trusted.

She says that she doesn't want to hear someone else's voice blended in with Pavarotti's or Horne's. But if she were at all educated about the opera world, she would know that even the greatest opera singers continue to have teachers help them to hone their craft. Rice believes that she is such a genius that she doesn't need instruction or editing. Well, the continued decline in the literary quality of her books speaks otherwise.

This book is truly awful. If she hadn't already had so many books published, no reputable publishing house would have touched it.

And no, I have nothing personal against Ms. Rice. I wish her the best. (And I wish she would get an editor rather than rail against the people who actually read her books and see the desperate need for one.)

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Calling this maturing? You should be ashamed!, November 12, 2003

By	Raven (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews

The vampires were a metaphor for human struggle, emotion and questioning. It wasn't literally about vampirism. And now we have to deal with a religious tangent from a undead rock star who is certain that the catholic church is absolutely right and infallible and the world is full of sin?

Where's all the talk of goodness from The Vampire Lestat? Where's the questioning? Where's the searching and angst? Tell me the angst is still there and I'll be forced to ask you to define angst because then I'd think you
wouldn't know the meaning of the word.

Don't you see, you make Lestat absolutely sure, and you make sexism okay, he says religion and state should not be separated (can we say Taliban?) yet in the old books Lestat had repeatedly said that it would be great if no one has to die
in the name of God and then tell people that maturing means you stop questioning the world around them, now THAT is a bad example. That is not maturing, it's giving up. It takes away some of the humanness of the character that now
he's certain what the fabric of the universe is made of. It makes the books superficial if there's nothing left to doubt or question. Because being human is to struggle and question, it's no certainty, it's not blind faith. It's life, it's questions, it's facing contradictions and corruption.
But now Lestat has lost faith in the goodness of humanity, that secular innocence that he went on about in The Vampire Lestat novel that drew me in. To stop rebelling isn't maturing, it's surrendering. To be mature
does not mean to give up. You can be very mature and still question the world around you and not denounce others for being provocative when you're A WALKING CORPSE THAT FEED'S ON BLOOD!!!!!

This book makes me sick to my stomach when pitted against ANY other vampire chronicle because it's simply not Lestat. If you recall that Blackwood Farm takes place a night before it, he's literally changed this drastically
over night.
You can call this change but Anne Rice should be ashamed of herself in calling it maturing. Don't spit in my face and call it rain.

I didn't love the blond hair or the fangs. I loved the personality and now it's not there. There's no trace of him. Yes, people change over time but fundamentally who you are deep down inside, the person you're meant to be, that never goes way. To quote Lestat himself, "We never change, we just become more of who we're meant to be." And this creature in Blood Canticle is not apparent in any novel before it. Lestat was a part of Anne Rice, a reflection of Stan Rice. And if that part wasn't there anymore she simply should not have used the name. If that part of herself has been changed or replaced she should have used a new character to express these views instead of going 180 on a James Dean type of character and turn him into George W. Bush.

I never felt this passionately about disliking a book in my life. And I THOUGHT I disliked Memnoch the Devil. I could not hate this book so much if I did not love The Vampire Lestat with all of my heart and still do. If I had nothing to pit it against I would say it's just a Catholic right wing
propaganda book and think nothing of it because there are dozens upon dozens of books like that. But if you stand it against The Vampire Lestat and then say this is the same character but he's 'maturing' that concept of maturity scares the Hell out of me. And I'm an adult. If I ever mature like that I want someone to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger, please...

63 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The characters deserved better, May 30, 2004

By	abt1950 "abt1950" (usa) - See all my reviews

What can I say about this book that hasn't already been said by other reviewers? This has to be the worst book Rice has written, and it took an act of will for me to finish it. Rice has said that this is the last of her Vampire Chronicles. I only hope she keeps her word.

So why is this book so bad? First of all, the story is thin. Newly made vamp Mona Mayfair (who spends most of the book acting out) wants to find out what happened to her Taltos child. Ok, interestng premise. Could have made for a good story. Mayfair family dynamics come into play--Mona's daughter was fathered by Rowan's husband Michael and Mona's mad at Rowan. Could have been interesting. Oncle Julien haunts Lestat because he's mad that Mona has been vamped. Interesting idea. There are other glimmers of a plot that could work, but mostly they get a superficial, breakneck treatment that reads more like the outline of a longer, more developed novel.

However, my major complaint about "Blood Canticle" (and much of Rice's recent work) is her treatment of her characters. In her earlier works, they were better fleshed out and more complex. In other words, they were believable, and from book to book Rice maintained their integrity. In recent books, however, she's turned them into one dimensional cartoon characters that bear only a superficial resemblance to what they used to be. She manipulates them like puppets to suit her whims--disposing of them off-handedly when it suits her fancy (poor Ash, poor Morrigan, poor Merrick--oops, wrong book). Her characters have lost any psychological reality they originally had. For instance, Mona's just an spoiled, immature brat; Rowan's a controlling Mad Scientist who wants to leave her husband for Lestat; and Quinn (Rice's best developed recent character) is so bland he fades into the woodwork. Even Oncle Julien becomes a incompetent ghostly meddler who can't get anything right. As for Lestat, now he's a do-gooder who wants to become a saint. You know the book is in trouble when it begins with Rice using Lestat's voice to whine about how "Memnoch the Devil" was misunderstood. Much of the Vampire Chronicles has been about Lestat's moral evolution, but please, give the vamp his fangs back!

Part of the problem here is that Rice has written some very good books that conveyed a real sense of the uneartly. "Blackwood Farm," Rice's most recent book before this one, was downright creepy and spooky in spots. Even "Merrick" had an eerie atmosphere to it. "Blood Canticle" suffers in comparison and does justice to neither of her major series. Both deserved a better sendoff.

Vampires & Mayfairs alike, may you rest in peace and be subjected to no further indignities.