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Anne Rice revamped the vampire-horror genre with the publication of "Interview with the Vampire," a supernational drama from the vampire's own mouth. It became an unexpected hit, and spawned a series of sequels that came to be known as the Vampire Chronicles. The first four books of the series are compiled here, although the fourth is not up to the excellent standards of the first three.

"Interview With the Vampire" is the story of Louis, a grieving young widower and plantation owner, whose life is turned upside down when he meets the charming vampire Lestat. Lestat offers him a way out: become a vampire. Louis accepts, but once it's done, he finds that vampirism is more than he bargained for -- especially for his conscience.

"The Vampire Lestat" takes a totally different tack, showing us the world through the enigmatic, charming Lestat's eyes. After years of dormancy, Lestat wakes up in time for the early MTV years of the 1980s, becoming a rock star in the tradition of Ozzy and Black Sabbath. And like Louis, Lestat relates his long life's story -- how he became a vampire, his wanderings over the earth, and his investigations into the origins of vampirism itself...

"Queen of the Damned" builds on that research. Lestat's metal music has caused quite a bit of mayhem -- but not this much before: Akasha, Egyptian queen and mother of all vampires, has reawoken from her comalike sleep. The lesser vampires are having strange dreams, some are being murdered by the ruthless queen. Apparently she wants to kill all men. What is more, Akasha has taken a shine to the roguish Lestat himself...

"The Tale of the Body Thief" opens with lonely anti-hero Lestat deciding that he wants to be mortal again. At least temporarily. So he engages in some corpus-swapping with a con man (Danger! Danger, Will Lestat!), and rediscovers the joys (romance with a nun) and miseries (excretion) of being a human being again. The problem is, said con man is not eager to return Lestat's attractive and immortal body once he has it...

Vampiric autobiography is a given in Anne Rice's bibliography -- she has plenty of bloodsuckers telling us about their lives. But Lestat and Louis's were not just the first ones, but perhaps the most compelling and rich, especially since the two had such radically different viewpoints -- including of one another. Is Lestat a heartless fiend, or a roguish good-craving bad boy? I'd lean towards the latter, to be honest.

Rice does stumble in "Tales of the Body Thief," which seems like too flimsy a plot for Lestat and Co., has an unnecessary nun romance, and which has some very gross moments. However, it does give a stunning look at how a vampire would see the everyday life of a human -- all the problems, discomforts, annoyances and loneliness that we all ignore because we're used to it. It's a more personal story than the epic "Queen of the Damned," which deals with all of vampirekind all through history. (In one book!)

Despite the more controversial recent novels, Anne Rice's first Vampire Chronicles are often reckoned to be modern horror classics. Rich, intriguing and far deeper than you'd think vampire fiction would be.

total 15M
764K Rice, Anne - Vampire Chronicles 01 - Interview with the Vampire (1976).pdf
2.1M Rice, Anne - Vampire Chronicles 02 - The Vampire Lestat (1985).pdf
1.3M Rice, Anne - Vampire Chronicles 03 - Queen of the Damned (1988).pdf
1.3M Rice, Anne - Vampire Chronicles 04 - Tale of the Body Thief (1992).pdf
1012K Rice, Anne - Vampire Chronicles 05 - Memnoch the Devil (1995).pdf
1.6M Rice, Anne - Vampire Chronicles 06 - The Vampire Armand (1998).pdf
1.3M Rice, Anne - Vampire Chronicles 07 - Merrick (2000).pdf
1.8M Rice, Anne - Vampire Chronicles 08 - Blood and Gold (2001).pdf
3.2M Rice, Anne - Vampire Chronicles 09 - Blackwood Farm (2002).pdf
604K Rice, Anne - Vampire Chronicles 10 - Blood Canticle (2003).pdf

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